By the time they entered the Nest, Tate was having to fight to stay focused. The interior was a mix of the jewels seen from the outside and more glittering stone. The combination was odd yet beautiful. The walls were solid and opaque, the craftsmanship was a mystery.
"How was this built?" He couldn't help but ask even as he tried to focus on the practical side of mapping the winding halls they were taking. That was the other odd thing about this structure. The halls were not straight lines, rather they wound around and crisscrossed in such a way that it was taking all he had to remember how they had gotten from the entrance to where they were now.
"Fire," Wyla said simply.
For a moment he was confused, how could a mere fire make this? Then it hit him, a dragon made this. He chuckled to himself, he was in the land of dragons after all why hadn't he considered that first?
At last, after walking for what seemed to Tate like an age, they stopped in front of an ornate wooden door. Without knocking Wyla grabbed the handle and pulled outwards causing the door to swing towards Lou's face like a battering ram.
Tate grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him back just in time for the heavy wood slab to swipe by his nose. In the same motion, Lou kept moving until his back was pressed tightly against Tate. Tate smiled fleetingly remembering Lou when he was a child and thinking that maybe this man he'd reluctantly taught years ago was still a little bit of a child.
Once the door was opened the room they entered was a vast hall with an extremely high ceiling. When Tate looked up he could only gape in wonder once again. The ceiling was made up of thousands of different kinds of jewels and maybe glass. Most of them were transparent which allowed light to shine down into the room. In this room, the walls were almost completely made of stone and the effect was more like the caves he had been originally expecting. He had to admit that no cave he'd ever seen had a roof this elegant.
In the room were about twenty dragons, five of them were in their dragon form. They were standing at attention in regular intervals around the room. He didn't know for sure but he felt by the way they looked at their small party that they were guards of some kind. The other fifteen beings were dragons in their human forms. Now, at this point, he'd seen a lot of dragons in human form while walking through the city but he'd been so distracted by the city itself, and "humans" were so common to his sight that he hadn't taken the time to really look at them.
These dragons were sitting at an ornate, round glass table. He assumed that they were interrupting some kind of meeting because of the intensity in the air, the presence of a dragon who he'd describe as a scribe, and the red face of one of the dragons.
Since they were in a circle it was hard to tell who was in charge, or if anyone was. They were all very attractive in their human forms there were eight males and seven females seated. Their ages seemed to range from late teens to somewhere in their thirties.
"Daughter of the Viyan Sea, what a surprise." The voice that spoke was pure and sweet. It almost sounded like a clear bell. Most shocking was the being he identified as having spoken. She was a young teenage girl, he had not seen her at first. She looked like a child who had just started to become a woman. Her eyes were almost black and her hair was almost white. Her hair was curly and contained in a braid that disappeared behind her back. She was clothed from head to toe in a flowing green tunic that was attached to a gold circlet wrapped around her throat, her arms were bare but the rest of her was covered. It was a stark difference from the more humble attire of Wyla. The girl had gold jewelry everywhere. She had gold bracelets, a gold armband, gold rings, gold earrings, a gold chain from one of her earrings attached to a gold piercing in her nose, and woven into her hair was a gold circlet. The amount of gold should have seemed like too much but on her, it looked perfect, like just the right amount of shine.
Wyla dropped to her knees and prostrated herself, Wyen followed suit. Awkwardly he and Lou did the same. "Elder Narka, may I speak to you?" Wyla asked from her prone position.
Tate glanced up to see the girl looking them all over curiously. "Please do, child, I would certainly like an explanation of where you got these humans from."
Everyone else in the room gasped, even those in dragon form. All the attention was suddenly bearing down on Lou and Tate. Lou even whimpered a little and scooted his body closer to Tate while visibly pressing his chest and face as close to the ground as possible.
Wyla stood and Tate made a move to follow when he noticed Wyen had not moved an inch and he was shaking his head and shooting Tate glances over his arm. Tate nodded his understanding and kept the position. He looked at Lou, but Lou seemed too frightened to move anyway.
"We came across these two humans on our way to the Molly Outpost. We are on an urgent errand for our father, but I knew I could not leave such creatures alone on the border. They came through the barrier."
More inhalations of breath were heard.
"That's not possible." A deep voice commented.
Wyla motioned to him, and he flinched. "This is Tate, he can tell you what he knows. My brother and I did not give him much information because I did not know what would be appropriate to share with him. As you can see they are both marked by cultists, and the one called Tate has marks that are beginning to rot."
At those last words, the room exploded and a few of the dragons at the table even spit at the ground.
He couldn't see but something happened and they were cut off quickly and silence replaced the angry outbursts.
"Please rise, human." That voice called. He knew that she was referring to him so he stood and looked her in the eye.
"How dare he." Someone whispered.
Maybe he was committing some great breach of etiquette by looking her in the eye but he still didn't know who she was or what etiquette he was supposed to follow in this situation. All the lessons and drilling he'd ever received about etiquette and decorum in the human realm was probably useless here.
Black eyes met his head on, she seemed more amused at his eye contact than offended.
Remembering how Wyla had addressed her he couldn't help but ask. "You are Elder Narka?"
Again quiet grumblings about his terrible manners were heard but she seemed to ignore them.
"Yes, I am the Elder of the Nest and you may call me Elder Narka or just Elder. Your name is Tate, human?"
"Yes, Tate Delmont."
"You have two names?" She asked confused.
"Uh-yes I suppose one is my given name and the other identifies the family I come from."
She shook her head. "How strange. However, having unnecessary names is not what is important here. How did you get through the barrier?"
He repeated back what he had shared with Wyla and Wyen. He reiterated that he didn't know how it had happened but that he and Lou could not get back through.
She didn't say anything after his explanation. He saw the scribe writing furiously to keep up with the story that was being told. The other dragons in the room were all glaring at him and Lou with heavy suspicion and some with outright hostility.
"How did you receive those marks?"
He again relayed the information of how a dragon hatched on his side of the veil and how all dragon riders had these markings.
She cocked her head. "Why are your's more extensive than your companions?"
"It is said that the more markings a rider has the more powerful he and his partner are."
He huffed and rolled her eyes. "Is that what is said." She stated rhetorically and sarcastically. He couldn't help but feel offended.
"Is something wrong with what I have said?" He demanded.
More and more hostility was being directed at him and he knew he was pushing it but somehow he couldn't help it. Without being able to put it into words he knew that from the moment he'd stepped into this room this Elder had been trying to suppress and intimidate him. He could feel her powerful energy from where he stood. Lou seemed affected by it, he still hadn't budged from his prostrate position, and neither had Wyen.
The girl stood abruptly and stalked toward him, her companions muttered from their seats as she passed but no one protested or stopped her as she came to a stop directly in front of him.
She was a head shorter than him. Something about her was indeed powerful. Now that he was so close to her it was harder to resist but he was still able to do it, to look her in the eye.
In a flash, she reached up and grabbed him by the nape of the neck like he was some kind of baby animal and with surprising strength forced his head down until he was huched awkwardly. His face was now level with her own. She looked him over carefully. He felt like she was inspecting every inch of him, her eyes lingered with distaste on his black markings before she actually leaned forward and sniffed them. She recoiled a little and gave him a disgusted look. Then with an angry expression, she pulled him until they were practically nose to nose and looked deeply into his eyes.
Now he wanted to look away from the pressure she was exerting but he couldn't. He was completely trapped in her gaze. It was a horrible feeling that made his skin crawl and his body break out in goosebumps. She was looking beyond his eyes, it almost felt as if she was looking inside him. It made him want to hide.
After what seemed an eternity she released him. He stumbled backward and without warning his legs gave out from under him and he crumpled onto the ground panting. He had not noticed that he'd forgotten to breathe during the encounter and had been on the verge of passing out.
She looked down on him. "How interesting."