Page 165 of Resurgent

"I assume it's an illusion."

“Right,” he says, his voice softening. “And if things go bad at any point in time?”

"Tyr and I get the hell out and fly straight back here."

"Good,” he says, studying me for another second before folding the map and handing it over. "Come back to me, or else I’ll find you."

“Always,” I say, smiling as tears well up in my eyes.

"Always," he says, kissing my cheek before patting Tyr’s leg. “Take good care of our girl.”

Two days.

That's how long the journey to Clowess is supposed to take if we only stop when necessary...so naturally, I've packed enough supplies for three weeks.

Matt insisted…not only with the normal MRE’s, but with snacks that are easy enough to open and eat with only one hand and more than enough meat for Tyr to enjoy too. So now, Tyr has enough food strapped to his saddle to feed half the infantry, and he’s annoyed that I’m calling it smelly and excessive.

“Did you think I couldn’t carry it, Little Faren? Need I remind you—”

“Yes, yes. You’re a big, scary Alpha dragon who is so strong and can carry all the things. I know.”

“And can eat several sheep in a single meal.”

“Uh-huh. I’m going to pretend you didn’t use that as a bragging point.”

“Fine. Now, let’s with,” he says as his wings beat hard beneath me, carrying us higher and higher.

Far too quickly, the academy is disappearing behind us.

Then the familiar forests.

For hours, there is nothing but sky.

Clouds roll beneath us in great white masses, occasionally breaking apart to reveal rivers and roads far below. From up here, Thandroan looks beautiful, making it easy to forget there's a war raging with no end in sight.

Then, after a few hours, we pass over a town that isn't there anymore, I know it from the books, Rickshaw, or what little remains of it.

The town used to produce enough wheat and barley to supply half the kingdom, but looking down at what it’s become, I see roofless buildings, blackened foundations, and fields that have gone completely rotten.

For a few years now, Thandroan has had to import grain from kingdoms on other continents because Clowess destroyed so much of our agricultural land along the border. The terms were kept secret so Clowess couldn’t target whatever goods were put into the deal, and King Lucien was praised for his ingenuity in a time of crisis and for strengthening our relationship with kingdoms far and wide.

I think back to the long nights of reading about those deals in the library. At the time, they seemed like inconsequential numbers distracting me from what I was searching for, but now, as I take in all that once was, I feel sick to my stomach.

I never thought about the people standing in those fields. The farmers and families who spent their entire lives tending to the land. The children running between rows of wheat, playing hide-and-seek until the porch lights came on.

Now the land isn’t healthy enough to grow anything on, and the people who had spent generations passing down the fertile land have become one with it.

By late afternoon, the landscape changes.

The farther south we travel, the emptier everything becomes.

Whole stretches of land have been swallowed by weeds and brush, abandoned farms where the barns have collapsed inward, and the red paint has faded away.

Stone walls run through fields where there are no longer any houses, and a few times I have to close my eyes and imagine what Sasha, Mattey, and the rest of our friends are doing to keep myself from crying at all we have lost as a kingdom in the last twenty years.

I stop Tyr near dusk beside a rocky outcropping.

"Bathroom break."