A/N: there was some sort of mistake and to make a long story short, half of the first chapter went missing. It's uploaded now, so I suggest you go back and look through it again quick before continuing. Thanks for reading!

-InfernoFrost

            Omen studied Cody for several long moments before saying, “You’re probably right. There probably is something out there, but we’ll never know unless we look. In the very least, can’t we go just a little ways past the map?”

            Cody leaned against the table and ran his fingers through his scruffy hair before he answered, “Not now. Let me think about it for a few days and I’ll tell you soon. So does that mean you will be staying?”

            Omen’s eyes flashed with excitement as he replied, “If you say that we can go, I’ll stay. But I have a life back in Semiones, and everyone back home will be wondering about us.”

            “What will you tell them about me, Aval, and Autumn? We’re all staying here for what I’m guessing is going to be a long time. If we ever do go back, nothing will be the same,” Cody said with a sigh.

            “Then you better say yes,” Omen said before he slowly stood and strode towards the door. He walked outside without even glancing at Cody again.

            Cody let out a deep breath, “Did you get all of that?”

            “I sure did,” said the usual voice in reply

            “Well, what do you think? What should we do?”

            “This is your adventure,” Inferno began with a humored snort, “But I will support you in whatever you choose.”

            “But what should we do next? What is your opinion?” Cody asked.

            The dragon thought for a moment before answering, “No doubt it will be dangerous. I think we should speak with Argos and Heyrone about it.”

            “And what do we say?” Cody asked. Sarcastically he added, “I suppose we’ll walk right up to him and say, ‘Heyrone, do you know anything about the world beyond the lake, like what the hidden danger is?’.”

            “No, we don’t even know for sure if there is a danger, and Heyrone might not even know it exists. He’s had three entire races to command and protect by himself all this time, he could have been kept busy. He may not even know that the maps only go that far,” Inferno pointed out.

            “Then what do I say?”

            The dragon seemed to roll his eyes as he answered, “Is it really that difficult to figure out? Ask him to tell you about the lake, or ask about things near the edge of the border to indirectly ask him. If we don’t stumble upon something interesting there, then I suppose we can search the elf and dwarf cities. It would actually be nice to learn about them more, since we haven’t gone anywhere near them.”

            “So are we going to speak with Heyrone, the elves, or the dwarves?” Cody asked.

            Inferno took no time in answering, “You told Omen you’d think for a few days. Let us get used to the land around before you decide whether or not to leave.”

            “So elves or dwarves?” Cody questioned, growing slightly annoyed.

            “Those two seem to have significant differences, since they seem to hate each other so much. You’ve already been to a dwarf town once before. I think it would be nice to see a bit more of the elven culture, since the only elf we really know is Pippi, and she seems fonder of humans than her own kind,” Inferno suggested.

            Cody nodded and answered, “Alright, we’ll go to the elves, just wait for me.”

            Inferno withdrew from his mind and Cody almost immediately felt more excited. The only time he had met an elf besides Pippi was when a group of elves went to Semiones to save Autumn when she was poisoned, and a brief time before that he had met another elf that had been completely concealed in a human town. He had never actually seen an elven city or heard of one his entire life, though he had visited a dwarven city in the desert lands of Semiones not too long before.

            Cody slowly stood from his chair and stretched slowly. He got to see the room he was in clearly for the first time. Windows covered about half of the walls on three sides, allowing the golden noon light to pour inside. On the windowless wall of the room, on either side of the door, hung numerous paintings like the ones from the hall that displayed fantastic moments. A silver dragon soaring through the sky; two hatchling dragons, purple and blue, tumbled around each other in the grass that surrounded them; even a little wolf pup sat in the center of one of the pictures, it’s pink tongue hanging from its mouth in a puppyish grin.

            With a sigh, the rider stepped through the doorway and entered the hall. As he expected, Omen and most of the others had left him behind, but with a deep breath he realized that one of his friends was still around. Before him stood a boy about his age with light brown, almost blond hair and eyes that glowed like fire.

            “I forgot to say happy birthday!” Avalsmokes said, making Cody smile.

            “Good, I don’t want you to Aval,” Cody joked as he began walking towards the exit, passing Avalsmokes swiftly.

            The man quickly asked, “Well where are you off to in such a hurry?”

            “Inferno and I are going to the elven city for a little while,” Cody said, regretting it as soon as he said the last word.

            Avalsmokes’s eyes lit up and he raced to his friend’s side, begging, “Can I go with you? Please? I always wanted to go and Autumn will never bring me.”

            Cody stopped abruptly, “She won’t? What have you two been doing all this time? As twins, I would have thought she would take you everywhere in an instant.”

            “She doesn’t have much time for me anymore,” the man said as he shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care, but Cody could see the hurt in his eyes. “She always spends her time with Micah now, hunting or doing their own training.”

            “Sorry to hear it. You’re free to come along with us.” Cody didn’t want Avalsmokes to go with him, but he felt bad for his friend.

            Immediately Aval smiled and was clearly excited to go to the elven city. With surprise, Cody realized that he was also looking forward to it a great deal. Near the beginning of his journey, Omen and Aval had been kidnapped and imprisoned by the evil necromancer Merikh. Though they were eventually saved, this trip would be the first Cody would be taking with his childhood friend in what felt like several years. He found himself walking through the small town speedily in his eagerness.

            The two made their way swiftly through the town, reaching the last home in less than a minute. Inferno was lying comfortably beside it with his eyes closed and his head resting gently on his thick black paws. The girl from before, Rebecca, sat a few yards from the dragon with her brother. Cody looked at his friend to see his mouth open in awe. Aval walked up to Inferno slowly, his golden eyes glowing with a mixture of disbelief and worry.

            “Is that really Inferno?” Avalsmokes asked Cody.

            “I sure am,” Inferno answered with a light tone of humor as his eyes opened and Avalsmokes fell back on his butt in surprise.

            The man quickly stood and dusted himself off before saying, “I can’t believe it’s you. I saw you outside Merikh’s cave, but you were pretty far away and, to be perfectly honest, I was pretty weak from my imprisonment so I couldn’t see you too well.”

            “It’s fine, Aval,” Cody assured his friend, patting him on the back. “He has grown a bit since the last time you saw him before that.”

            It was true. Cody couldn’t remember exactly how tall he had been then, but his dragon’s shoulders and the saddle resting on them reached to twice the height of the average man easily. If he stretched his neck up as high as it would go, it could probably almost double his height. His glistening white teeth shone when he opened his mouth in a draconic grin.

            “C’mon,” Cody said without waiting for Avalsmokes.

            Rebecca and her brother stepped back several feet to give Cody room as he jogged the rest of the way to Inferno. With skill and after many weeks of practice he had become more used to mounting the dragon. After a quick jump he kicked his foot out and caught it on Inferno’s shoulder, easily bringing him up into the saddle. He looked down to find that Aval had just begun trying to clamber up, but his hands slipped on the dragon’s smooth scales.

            “Ah!” Aval gasped suddenly, falling on his pockets for a second time.

            Cody slid out of the saddle again and asked, “Aval, what’s wrong?”

            His friend held out his hand and opened it to reveal his palm, sliced from the base of his palm all the way up to his pointer finger. It was a long line of red, three or four inches long. Blood began to seep from the wound quickly, flowing all over his palm.

            Cody tore off a part of his sleeve and wrapped it around the cut, saying, “Sorry Aval, I didn’t think you would get hurt. Do you want me to help you up or do you just want to stay here until it stops bleeding?”

            “There’s no way you’re leaving without me now!” his friend said determinedly as he stood up and threw himself at Inferno.

            Cody stopped him, “Then let me help you.”

            Avalsmokes let the rider help him up without arguing. Cody put a hand on either side of his ribcage and hefted him upwards. The human scrambled the last foot up himself, reaching the top and almost throwing himself over the other side. But he soon righted himself and Cody hauled his own body up behind him. He bent down and secured his friend’s legs to the saddle, while his own dangled on either side uselessly.

            As Inferno stood, Cody instructed, “You can hang on to the handle for the takeoff to keep you a bit more steady, and then once we’re in the air you can sit up straighter and hang on to the reigns instead. But don’t forget to grab the handle again when we go in for a landing”

            Avalsmokes was silent, peering over the edge of the saddle at the ground below them. Then Inferno leaped forward, and Cody could barely contain his laughter when he saw Aval dive forward to snatch the handle. The rider put an arm around his friend’s waist for some support, but soon the dragon leveled out and steered very slightly to the right, almost unnoticeably, but Aval visibly shook, his fingers bone white from the death grip he had on the handle.

            Cody chuckled as the reigns slapped loosely at his friend’s chest, the rough winds whipping them around. He hadn’t noticed that Aval was wearing a hood, but in moments it fell down and began doing the same to Cody’s face. Clinging tight to the saddle with his legs, he took his hands away from Aval’s waist and tucked the hood into his shirt. He put his arm around his friend again and used the other to skillfully snatch the reigns, jerking Avalsmokes out of his terrified trance.

            “The reigns!” Cody howled over the wind. Normally riding was smooth enough for him to barely have to raise his voice, but he had learned that in the mountains it was far worse.

            Avalsmokes nodded dumbly and ripped his right hand away from the saddle’s handle before slowly grabbing the reigns from Cody. He ever-so-slowly lifted his other hand to do the same and leaned back into his friend so he could hang on to the very end as the wind continued to rush at them. The rider became slightly annoyed, and decided to do something about it.

            “Inferno,” he called to the dragon, “can you slow down a bit? Aval is crushing me.”

            “But we’re almost there!” Inferno answered, even speeding up slightly.

            Cody rolled his eyes and said, “Slow down! We can’t land at this speed, and we are still some ways away.”

            Inferno turned his head slightly so that Cody could see a very large city not overly far ahead, but the dragon slowed slightly anyways. It was the closest they had ever been to any city in Mrana Akano Furista besides the human village, and Cody was amazed. It rested relatively well-hidden in a valley, surrounded on all sides by massive mountains. The buildings were very similar to those in Cody’s old town, but there were many more that flooded the entire valley. The town was further surrounded by a thick forest of bare trees.

            Before he knew it, they had already reached the first mountain surrounding the valley of the elves. Cody noticed that in between the houses were numerous trees, so many that he couldn’t even see a pathway or road that they used to travel. If any elves were outside the buildings, they were well hidden by the thick brown branches. Most surprising of all was the size of the elven city. From the height of the mountains, Cody could just barely see the end of it in the far distance. More closely, however, he saw a broad clearing, easily large enough for three dragons of Inferno’s size to land, takeoff, or move around in comfortably at once.

            Inferno angled his wings slightly, diving towards it skillfully before sliding over a house and landing smoothly at the opposite end. Inferno swept his tail over the dried grass in satisfaction and looked around at the trees. Cody smiled broadly when he realized that Aval was in the exact same position: leaning against him with his eyes closed tightly shut. The rider slid backwards abruptly, making Aval slam the back of his head roughly on the saddle.

            “Ow!”

            Cody just found himself laughing loudly at his friend, “Relax, the ride is over.”

            “That was a bit terrifying, but fun!” Avalsmokes replied after a few seconds.

            “I’m glad you liked it,” Cody said with a broad grin on his face. “Come on; let’s figure out where to go from here.”

            Cody didn’t wait for a response before sliding down from Inferno’s shoulders, landing heavily on the earth but easily recovering again. He stretched for a moment while Inferno lowered himself to the ground and his friend slipped from the dragon’s back, barely sliding two feet. He shook himself, making his orange-blonde hair tousled, though it was already untidy from the wind.

            “Hey, why’d you move my hood?” Avalsmokes asked as he pulled it back out of his shirt and covered his head again.

            “It was already moved,” Cody replied, feeling a sort of spark in his chest, feeling as though their friendship was almost back to the way it used to be.

            “About time you showed up,” came a playful voice from the edge of the trees.

            Cody looked over but saw nothing at first. After several long moments of careful searching, he barely caught sight of a figure, using a slender grey tree to disguise the person’s body. Clever as the hiding was, a long, thick strand of brown and blue hair hung out in the open, a mistake that Cody figured was on purpose.

            “I see you,” he called, a bit confused.

But as soon as he spoke, the hair was pulled back behind the tree and the figure vanished. He looked over and saw another shape, similar to the first but not the same. He saw movement, almost impossible to notice in the shadows, but a flash of gold, or a flutter of blue hair revealed that he wasn’t imagining it all.

“What is it?” Avalsmokes asked curiously. He must have heard the voice as well, but he certainly hadn’t seen anything.

Cody smiled when he saw a strand of gold flash by a tree by Inferno’s tail and whispered almost inaudibly to his friend, “They’re playing with us.”

“They seem pretty good at hiding,” Inferno said with a draconic purr of amusement.

Cody watched the shapes for a moment longer and asked, “Do you think they are children?”

“That or immature adults.”

The dragon suddenly whipped his head around to the opposite side. Whatever had grabbed his attention was hidden behind his large body, but he didn’t seem angry. Cody caught the faintest flash of surprise cross the dragon’s blue eyes, before he slowly dipped his head and brought it back around to Cody. Just as the rider was about to ask what had happened, another flash of gold on the opposite side of the clearing caught his attention, but was gone before he could get a good look at it was.

All of a sudden, Cody felt something slam into his back, forcing his face into the dirt while his chest slammed into the ground, someone forcing him to the earth with both hands on his shoulders and a knee to his back. He lifted his head so that his chin was resting on the prickly grass. He jerked to the left with every ounce of strength he had, but his attacker stayed firmly on his back.

Cody shook with surprise when he heard a feminine ask good-naturedly, “Do you give up yet, rider?”

The voice seemed slightly familiar, but he couldn’t tell how or where he had heard it from. A strand of azure hair fell beside him, onto his arm as he struggled one last time. It also seemed vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t remember meeting any other elf besides Pippi, and she had blond and purple hair, nothing blue about it. Inferno’s rumbling laughter shook him from his thoughts.

“Fine, I give up!” he announced.

As soon as he finished the sentence, the weight was immediately lifted and he was allowed to stand up. He stood slowly and brushed himself before looking to his left, where he saw Aval lying flat under the weight of another familiar elf. He was simply sitting on his friend’s back with a broad grin on his face. He looked to be a bit older than Cody, but it was clear that he was a child at heart. He had shoulder-length hair almost as black as the rider’s, with streaks of gold running through it like rivers.

“Icksazro?” he said in surprise.

He suddenly remembered the first town he had visited with all of his friends at the start of his journey. He couldn’t remember the name of the town, but he did remember the elf that had been the tavern keeper, patiently waiting for the rider to appear.

“I was wondering if I would ever see you three again. That was quite the scare you gave us when you humans managed to get yourselves kidnapped,” Icksazro said as he stood up and Avalsmokes rolled onto his back in relief.

The same voice as before joined in, “It sure was! And Autumn was practically begging us to let her go and help you escape.”

Cody turned around and narrowed his eyes in focus as soon as he saw her. The elven woman was once again familiar, with long brown hair and streaks of blue threaded in it. An elegant circlet of silver with a few small emeralds graced her brow and wove through her somehow tidy hair. She appeared to be royalty of some kind, but no matter how hard he thought Cody couldn’t figure out where he knew her from.

“You don’t recognize me?” she asked curiously. Seeing his expression she shrugged and continued, “I suppose we did only meet briefly. I’m Fril, the Elf Queen’s second-in-command. I led some other elves to rescue Autumn after she had been poisoned. It took a long time to heal her, but now we’re glad we did. We haven’t seen Micah yet, what is he like?”

“He’s amazing!” Avalsmokes announced and Cody noticed Inferno’s gaze flicker with jealousy for a moment before the emotion cleared and he looked at the elves again.

Cody also turned to Fril and asked, “Who is the Elf Queen? Could we meet her?”

“That would be me!” a voice announced from above them.

Cody looked up to see an elven woman sitting on Inferno’s back and watching the people below with interest. Like Fril, she had a wiry crown; only hers was gold and studded with sapphires the color of Inferno’s eyes. It wound through her hair: brown with blond roots and barely noticeable gold highlights. She looked fairly young, barely older than Cody and Aval, but Cody knew that she must have been much older, if stories and myths about elves were to be believed.

The elven queen slid from Inferno’s back smoothly to land beside Cody and bowed low to him before introducing herself, “I am Linzy, and I am pleased to finally have a rider grace us with his presence. It has been too long since the last rider has walked through our halls and their dragons have flown overhead.”

“What about Argos and Heyrone? Were you alive to see the last dragon and rider? Where do you live? Surely a queen can’t live in an ordinary house?” Cody’s head was swimming with questions, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Luckily, the Elf Queen, Linzy, only chuckled at his questions. “I am not actually old enough. When I was born, Argos and Heyrone were already the sole rider and dragon alive, and the last elf to remember the time of the riders died several decades ago. As for your last question, we elves always think of ourselves as equal to one another and I don’t actually lead the elves. I more…manage responsibilities. I may create the laws and be considered by some to be greater, but I am no more special than the others. However, I do live in a castle, tucked away in the mountains and very difficult to find, even on dragon back.”

“But what about my first question?” Cody asked.

“Have Argos and Heyrone ever visited?” Linzy repeated, looking at the sky longingly. “The dwarves won’t hear of it. Heyrone is the only thing keeping our races out of war. The dwarves are on the brink of attack, and have been for at least a decade. As long as they think Heyrone is staying true to his heritage, we can live in peace. But if he sees anyone of a different race that isn’t a rider, we have agreed that he must meet the same number and status of representatives from each city. So no, he has never visited our city, at least not since the riders fell.”

“Surely a single man can’t be that important, even if he is a rider!” Cody said in surprise.

Linzy looked at him sympathetically and everyone around Cody seemed to lean towards her to hear what she said, “You clearly don’t know the importance of your position. It is not my place to tell you what a single dragon hatchling is worth, what it really means to the different races. You hold more power than you realize. Now that I think about it, I think you should leave as soon as you can. Heyrone will tell you what you can and can’t do as a rider in this unstable land, and I think you would do well to listen to him.”

Somehow, Cody couldn’t help thinking that there was more to what she said than that. Immediately his mind went to Omen’s idea of the land outside the map, and he began to wonder if there really was something out there that these people were afraid of.