The Dragon Knight's Curse (The Dragon Knight Series Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

felt like stopping, but my hard-earned endurance soon displayed itself in our shorter rest periods.
    Wanting to make sure our visit with Gwen stayed as brief as possible, I told Ghevont to not tell his former guardian about the death of his sister. Ghevont agreed, likely because he wouldn’t want to be in the position of consoling anyone. Perhaps he was also afraid that seeing someone grieving for Vey’s death might make her passing more of a reality, though I doubt anyone outside his unsocialized mind would know if he was ever in mourning.
    In the same vein, I told Marcela to begin referring to Ghevont by his first name instead of his last. When she asked why, I let her know that if anyone learned he was Rathmore’s son, it would trigger an inquisition on her friend. She assented, but she needed some time to self-adjust.
    There came a point when it was necessary to exit the forest and find a road that led to Omauwend. It was a little surreal when I stepped out of Gremly’s dreary domain for the first time in weeks. The fresher air, brighter sunlight, and resonances of nature made it seem as though I were no longer exceptional, but merely another living being among a trillion others. The first town we encountered informed us we were still a full day’s journey from our destination. With everyone well rested enough, I pushed us to make the trip in half that time.
    We approached Omauwend in the late afternoon. Ghevont noted how the town was noticeably larger than when he last left it. Some of Gremly had been cut down to make room for it, though tendrils of its mist still creeped out. With a light rain falling, we traversed the peripheries of the town and looked for the scholar’s former home. When we wandered into the western outskirts of town, Ghevont pointed at a rundown house. It looked like a straw hut, but it turned out to be mostly made of frayed wood.
    On reaching the derelict shelter, Ghevont said, “I’m positive this is it.”
    “And I’m positive she doesn’t live here anymore,” said Marcela.
    I told Clarissa to go inquire with the nearest neighbors while the rest of us examined the home more closely. Looking through a glassless window showed the inside to be bare except for a degraded straw bed and curtains of spider webs dangling from the cracked ceiling.
    Clarissa came back and said, “Gwen still lives in town, just on the east side of it. She’s apparently married to a blacksmith and has two kids.”
    “Interesting,” said Ghevont. “I was not expecting her to recover from my father’s death. She was quite devastated when she heard the news.”
    “It’s hard, but people can move on from tragedy,” said Clarissa, looking at me as she did so. “Especially if they find someone else to help them through it.”
    “Yes, my studies, combined with my personal experiences, appear to reliably imply that sentient beings, while initially rendered incapacitated by a loved one’s passing, do gradually recover their emotional stability over time. I wonder if time alone can heal these jarring impacts to the soul? They are both in the realms of the immaterial. In all probability-”
    “Ghevont,” I said. “Keep it in your head when we’re in public.”
    “Right, of course. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate my mind’s thoughts from my speech.”
    The short trip to the opposite side of town ended when we recognized the cadenced clanging of hammer on metal on anvil. The origin of the clatter came from a smithy, whose door was open to allow the heat of the forge to pour out onto the little grassy hill the property was perched on. I assumed the home nearest it, a wide one-story brick home sitting twenty-five yards away, belonged to Gwen and her husband. A sign at the bottom of the slope read ‘No job requests at this time.’
    As we made our way up to the worn footpath, a figure became outlined by the red glow of the workshop’s entrance. The hammering stopped and a broader figure stepped behind