CHANCE MEETING

It was a cool evening and a gentle breeze was blowing when Sven finally walked into Alagaesea, it was four days since he left home and thoughts of wat he would do now and what was I thinking had already begun to creep into his mind.

  Still wrapped up in these thoughts, loud voices drifted to him from a distance and he approached cautiously one hand braced on the hilt of the short sword strapped to his side. There was a boy about his age and height surrounded by seven men dressed in armour of red and ash - the colors of The  Conqueror.

" Stop now and come with us quietly and you will be rewarded handsomely" a bulky man, who was as stout as a barrel said and the boy spat at him looking around for a way of escape.

"I will rather eat dust"

"You will come with us either way, by your own will or by force" the boy took a deep breath and somersaulted into a cartwheel that sent the wind billowing around him, the soldiers slid back shielding their faces he righted himself and rolled his hands in a circular motion and the wind around them picked up speed

"Air strike'' he commanded and released his hands, the wind transformed into a whip and lashed out so hard the men scattered falling to the ground from the force of it, the boy then picked up a bow that Sven had not noticed before and hurried away. 

 Without pausing to think Sven went after him. The city of Alagaesea was not at all what he expected it was much tighter and more populated than Cyrya his home town. Where Cyrya was open yards of single homes, Alagaesea was a cluster of similar houses spaced by tiny alleys hardly wide enough for his new shoulders, new because her did not remember when the grew so wide. One or two people stopped to stare at him but either teenage boys running was normal in Alagaesea or there was just not enough room and space for standing around so most people just minded their business.

''Watch it!" Sven stopped short of slamming into a lady who had a child on her hip and her hand full of groceries  that went scattering across the floor.

  Sven  panicked as he bent to scoop up her wares as quickly as he could, he would lose the boy, he could not lose the boy if he could bind air like he had seen, then maybe they were the same.

 Up ahead he caught sight of dark hair and red feathered arrows rushing into a space and Sven hurried towards it but there was nobody there only some clothes hanging out to dry swaying gently in the evening breeze and then he saw the doorway dull gray as the walls around it and very easy to miss, he banged on the door repeatedly but there was no answer.

"Were you followed? did anyone follow you?" a woman's anxious voice asked in a hush.

''I don't know Mama I just ra away as fast as I could'' Sven knocked harder.

"Go and hide somewhere" the boy's mother instructed and footsteps approached the door, Sven moved back and pushed down the hood of his cloak to appear as unthreatening as possible, a hundred variations of what he should say flitted in his mind all at once like fireflies and he could not grasp any.

 The door flew open and a tall thin woman rushed out with a big club clutched in her hands, she seemed to freeze suspended as she stared at him in shock then she sagged against the door in relief letting the club he could  now see was a wooden pestle  drop to the floor in a loud thud and Sven grateful that she had decided not to use it on him.

 ''What are you doing here? you should not be here" she brought her hands up to rub at her temples wearily 

 ''Why did I not see this" she muttered to herself confusingly.

 ''Mother? Mom? are you okay?'' the boy he had followed home appeared at the doorway and it was Sven's turn to stare in open mouthed shock, the other boy looked stupefied which was not very surprising given that each boy was staring at a spitting image of himself.

 "Sven come inside please'' the lady sighed nudging the other boy out of view, Sven was sitting in a chair before he even realized that his legs were still working.

  ''Minre you should sit down too'' she said patting the other boy's shoulder

  ''I'm   really sure I want to sit down right now Mama, since yesterday its like the world is falling away beneath my feet and now I suddenly find out that there's two of me, how is that even possible?'

 ''There's three of you, you also have an identical sister too''

 "She's dead" Sven said bitterly finally finding his voice, his hands were shaking and so were his brother's.

 "I know'', she said running her hands through her blonde hair.

 "Mother, please explain to me what is happening?''

 ''I will tell you a story, listen carefully, there was once a young girl about your age, barely seventeen in a tiny town called Pumwa who could bind lightning, those were very troubling times, two fierce and powerful dragon lords were at war with each other, The conqueror and The whip, her family was dirt poor and with the war her older brother was stolen from the fields were he worked with other boys who were also taken, in the midst of all that hunger and chaos, she was marked with the dragon seal, a new dragon egg had hatched and with it a new dragon lord had emerged to whom she was a sage and then began what came to be known as the great hunt these two men both ransacked Hanorak in search of the new dragon lord, Maldorr needed him to join forces so that they would free  Hanorak from the rule of Kings to the rule of only one supreme monarch - himself while the whip wanted the new dragon lord to help him fight Maldorr back, so they were hunted down like dogs dragon lord and sages alike,  her family managed to hide her for six weeks, during this time rumours carried that the new dragon lord had been granted asylum in Lisbron with one of her sages, Maldorr laid the first siege at Lisbron to try and starve the city to surrender then they heard about Pumwa the tiny obscure town that had a lightning user, within a fortnight an army of a thousand men surrounded  Pumwa the townspeople led soldiers to her parents' door, they were afterall poor and dirty with a drunkard father and a mother who knocked on doors begging for work, we meant nothing to them'' she said fiercely, her eyes shone with unshed tears "They killed her both parents and took her away even though she fought like a  lioness, she killed half of them that day, her rage was so big and terrible, by the time the whip and the torch  rescued her, she was a hard, twisted shell of anger and bitterness, after months of starvings and beatings, she did not know where the new dragon lord was hiding but they did not believe her in the beginning and when they did believe her they continued to torture her expecting her dragon lord to swoop in and save her and save her they did it had never bee heard of that two dragon lords would come together you know the stories Shaheera joined hands with Sikorra to beat Maldorr back into exile and for six years there was peace and we were happy so happy'' a single tear rolled down her cheek, she pulled up her sweater to expose the dragon inked there.

"Akylice, your father was also a lightning binder , he taught me to control my rage, he helped me to find peace and quiet in myself, we were married four years when Maldorr returned, he had made a deal with a shadow lord for power the price of which was the life of his dragon, there was no way to stop him this time all of us were married with families kids and that was his target, Brimorra - Zikorra's dragon died in a battle on the plains of Nanesgai and Maldorr started coming for our families there was the fire that took Tonak's wife Seri and their kids, Kofu accidentally drowned himself and his family while trying to escape with them, Milanna water sage to dragon lord Shaheera, her husband Kalib for no known reason slit his throat,  Srina earth sage to Sikorra was found dead in her bed her mouth stuffed full of rocks, then one morning I woke up, you three were just two weeks old, Akylice and I were hiding out in Novak to the east of Lisbron when he went out for some medicine for your sister's cough, they brought his broken body back to me he had fallen into an old dried well, it was not going to end I could not risk it I gave two of you up to my brother I couldn't let Minre go he was the smallest and weakest of you three and it was easier to hide and protect just one child than two or three ''.

 Sven counted to ten slowly trying to sort through the myriad of new details "Do you know how Xen died?''

"Yes" she said sadly "It was not your fault"

"Then you don't know the whole story, I meant to kill him, she just got in the way''

"There's so much we have to forgive each other and ourselves for, let's start there you forgive her for wrongs  and we'll forgive you yours'' Minre placed both hands on their mother's shoulders and she sobbed inn relief turning to kiss his knuckles.

 ''Mother'' Sven thought taking a deep breath "I saw you with those soldiers earlier that's why I followed you" he rolled up his sleeve to show them his dragon mark, she beckkoned him closer to examine it rubbing her thumb slowly over the vivid mark " Does it ever fade" Minre asked and she shook her head.

"You two are Sages to the same dragon lord, that is how you found each other, t's going to keep pulling and calling you till the six of you are  together'' she rubbed her temples as if to soothe a headache, Sven recognised the gesture as one of his, this woman really was hs real mother.

 "This is going to be so much harder now that there is two of you''

''Maybe it isn't'' Sven said a plan forming in his head.