of his cart and waved to Mave’s males and nemari, then started moving.
Mave jumped into the cart and smiled at Mat. Emerian was stuck driving.
“Let’s go. Alchan says we’re close.”
37
Mave
Mave and her males rode for two more days, entering a small forest at the edge of the large valley. Mave didn’t know why, but something felt oddly familiar as they rode through the forest on a thin path that barely fit the wagon.
Almost as if she walked it before, which was odd because she had never explored Anden. When she was very young, she had been born and protected in the Dragon Spine by her mother in a secret location near her father. As an adult, she explored those same mountains as she fought in her new war, probably retracing the steps of her parents. The farthest north she’d ever been was Kerit, and it was on the coastline. They were weeks and weeks away from the ocean now.
“Mave, you seem a little out of it.” Zayden was sitting in the driver’s seat of the wagon. “Want to talk about whatever is on your mind?”
“I feel like I’ve been here,” she answered softly. “I’m trying to remember if there’s any way I could have seen this path before, or if I’m mistaking it for another.”
“Ah, I know that feeling,” Zayden said, patting the seat next to him. “Come up here.”
She climbed from the back of the wagon, where she had been napping on their things, to get to his side. As she settled in, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Does it look any more or less familiar now?” he asked, gesturing around them. Mave looked around, seeing she had the attention of all her males and Emerian, but nothing about the area stood out to her.
“No,” she said softly. Even still, she couldn’t shake the feeling she had seen this before.
Not long after, the trees gave way to a clearing, and the view was spectacular. Mave gasped, realizing at that moment exactly where she had seen this vista before.
“We’re here,” she said softly, standing. Zayden grabbed her breeches to hold her and used his free hand to stop the wagon. “We’re here!”
“What are you talking about?” Mat asked, pulling his horse to a stop. “Mave?”
“This is the place I dream of with her,” Mave explained, jumping out of the cart. “This is it! I walk down that path. Everything is silent. I get to this spot, and she’s always waiting for me…” Mave walked to the very spot, leaving her males behind. She went farther down the path and visualized it. It wasn’t a bright day as it usually was in her dreams. It was grey and dreary, common in winter. She stopped right where Kristanya would stand.
“This is where you would…spar with her?” Bryn asked, frowning as he walked slowly toward her. “Why here?”
“I don’t know,” Mave answered, looking up to a view she knew by heart.
There were smaller mountains around them, but the massive peak that stood above the rest was right there. In her dreams, it was just a snow capped peak, but here, it was consumed by storms—the sort of storms that would send an Andinna out of the air and hurtling down to their death. She could see the clouds circling the top half of the mountain at breakneck speeds.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing.
“That’s where we’re going,” Mat answered, now off his horse and by her side.
“It normally doesn’t have a storm,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Why does it have a storm?”
“That mountain always has a storm,” Zayden explained. “Since the beginning of our people. Some say the male dragons created it to protect the last doorway to the next realm.”
“One of the last. Everyone gets to go when they die,” Bryn muttered. “Mave, that’s the home of the gods.”
“And the only place it doesn’t storm is in the realm beyond, according to legend,” Mat said, his voice strange. “Mave…”
“I wasn’t…dead. I was dreaming,” she said, knowing where his thoughts had led him, thanks to this new information they were giving her. “I would walk the path, and the world was silent. We’d meet right here. For a long time, she just attacked me. She killed me over and over. Eventually, we began to talk. Eventually, I figured out who she was. She never offered her name. I had to glean that for myself. After Lothen, it changed. She trained me. We sparred and talked, and…” Mave had almost begun to see