His dragon even looked like a younger version of Slavidi, only with rich golden scales.
“What’s your name?” Solra said.
I glanced over at Irikai. He looked skeptical, perhaps coming to the same realization I had.
The green-eyed boy practically looked down his nose at her.
“Vulknor, rider of Aresa.”
Solra was unfazed, “Nice to meet you! I’m Solra, my dragon is Zelkor. This is Irikai and Titan, and Kaos and Ignimitra.”
He paused for a heartbeat to look us over. Aresa actually seemed more interested in us than he did, especially Ignimitra who she was sniffing avidly.
“They let just about anyone in these days,” He said simply, before turning his attention to Sergeant Vera.
Solra’s cheeks grew pink, but our instructor called us to attention before she could fire off a witty response. Part of me wished she had gotten the chance to.
“Great!” She exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Now, let me tell you about this exercise. It’s what we call Dragon Tag. The whole purpose is to help you and your dragon build a connection, introduce you to your cohort mates, and lastly foster some great competition.”
Vulknor scoffed loudly, earning a raised eyebrow from Irikai.
“Each tamer will take up a position on one side of the field, your dragons will take up a position opposite from you about a quarter of a league away. You’ll sprint to your dragon, and they’ll fly back to where you were as fast as they can. The dragon who makes it back first wins.”
“So why did you ask us to split up into groups?” The question came from a shaggy-haired guy in the group beside us.
“Points are awarded for each placement in the race. The team with the highest tally of points wins!” She said pointedly. “Teamwork will be the foundation of your service as soldiers.”
She beckoned for Slade to give us room, for he had been lounging in the middle of the clearing. He obliged her.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to strategize.”
We brought our circle back together.
“Don’t screw this up,” Vulknor’s voice was harsh.
“You’re the headmaster’s son, aren’t you?” Irikai said, ignoring his crassness.
His tough exterior faltered, only to be replaced by a flash of anger.
“What about it?” He snapped back.
Irikai didn’t say anything further, but the air amongst us had changed.
“That doesn’t matter here,” Solra finally found her voice. “Out here, you’re just another cadet. A cadet who happens to be on the same team with us.” She took a step forward.
It was a curious sight, tiny Solra glaring up at a guy who looked able to level her with one blow.
“So, you better not screw this up,” she poked him in his chest.
His eyes were on fire, but he didn’t say a word.
The three of us discussed possible strategies—especially since Zelkor’s wings hadn’t yet unfurled. He would have to run, putting him at a huge disadvantage. I had my own reservations that I didn’t share. I wasn’t even sure if Ignimitra could fly.
I leaned down so that we were on eye-level.
“We’re gonna practice flying now,” I explained. “You’re going to stand over there with the rest of the dragons,” I pointed to where the line had already started to form. “I’m going to run to you. When I touch you, you’ll fly as fast as you can back to where I was. Understand?”
Her amethyst eyes glimmered, and she gave me an affirmative yip and trill of her wings. She could sense the urgency in my heart. Even though Sergeant Vera had made this seem like just a simple exercise, I didn’t want to fail it. I couldn’t fail anything. Every class here was a fight for my life, and I’d be damned if I went out quietly.
“Alright! Take your positions!”
Ignimitra and Zelkor scampered off to the other end of the clearing. Titan and Aresa flew there. They were the two strongest fliers on our team.
“On your marks, cadets!”
I crouched into the starting position. Ignimitra I wasn’t so sure about, but I knew I could run. My running had saved our lives once before. I could make up for her. If I got there first, maybe she had a chance.
“Get set!”
I would just imagine that I was back at the Forbidden Ruins, running from the Royal Militia.
“Go!”
I stormed out of the gate.
The thunderous rumble of footfalls filled my ears, threatening to drown out the drumbeat of my own breath. The air smelled of mulch and anticipation. My legs were nearly weightless as I pushed myself faster and faster down the course. The blur of bodies in my peripheral vision got thinner and thinner.
I was leading!
The rush of joy sent a burst of energy to my feet, my heartbeat shaking my chest as I willed myself faster and faster. The white dot of Ignimitra kept getting bigger and bigger. I couldn’t keep the smile away.
I stretched and touched her snout, barreling past her.
“You’re up!” I was out of breath, but happy.
We were in the lead. Two more cadets came thundering in after me, then Vulknor and Solra neck in neck. They were almost evenly matched in speed, surprisingly.
Determination colored Ignimitra’s features, and I watched breathlessly as she started a sprint of her own. She bolted down the straightway, her leaps getting bigger and bigger until she flung her body into the air.
Shlack, shlack, shlack, shlack.
Even at this distance, I could hear her great wings tearing through the air ferociously.
She was up, and moving forward.
“Go Ignimitra!” I screamed, ignoring the fatigue seeping into my body.
Another dragon—a charcoal colored one with smaller wings—took flight just then. It was swift and didn’t go up with as much fanfare; this one had been flying long before Ignimitra.
She was gaining altitude and speed with each beat of her wings. She flapped them so fast they were just a blur against the silvery sky. We were far apart, but I could feel her determination. Her persistence.
It felt a lot like my own.
More cadets had reached their dragons, and one by one they each leapt into the air. Even Titan had taken off by this time. All except Zelkor, who was running down the straight shaking his wing nubs vigorously. I felt a pang of pity—it was a thousand times worse for Solra. She was close to tears, but she cheered him nonetheless.
When I turned back to Ignimitra, my breath caught.
Whether by intention or accident, she was higher in their air than all the others. The vigor in her flight seemed to be fading quickly, her wings slowing down.
What was happening?
“Ignimitra! Come on!” I cried.
She started losing altitude. Fast.
Judging from her height, her fall would hurt.
Oh, no.
I started running towards her, but my legs couldn’t take me there fast enough.
Ignimitra fell to the ground with a thud, skidding in the grass.
No.
She was a crumpled pile of dirt-stained ivory by the time I was able to get to her.
Her eyes were pasted shut. There were no wounds as far as I could see, but I tried to roll her over just to be safe. She resisted.
“Let me help you,” I pleaded.
Ignimitra’s eyes cracked open at my voice. She rolled over trying to rise to her feet, but let out a whimper. She was hurt.
“Where does it hurt?” I scrambled around her, searching for something that would tell me where she was feeling the pain.
There was a long bruise on the side of her torso. The impacted scales were tinged with a purple glow, seeping from beneath.
I was so caught up with concern that I forgot the race, but I couldn’t ignore the sight of Aresa crossing the finish line in first place. Titan crossed second. By the time Ignimitra and I were able to hobble to the finish line, even Zelkor had made it. She was too heavy to carry, so I did my best
to support her injured side.
Solra and Irikai met us there.
“Is she okay?” She asked, reaching out to touch Ignimitra. The dragon avoided her hand, baring her teeth. “That was quite a fall.”
“No, she’s hurt,” I said. Part of me rejoiced that she had avoided Solra’s touch. Last place should have been hers, not ours.
Irikai had walked up to her wound. “That’s a nasty one,” he whistled.
Sergeant Vera appeared from within a nearby crowd. The cadets had been flocking to Vulknor, no doubt to congratulate him on his win. Our win.
“That was a good effort, Kressin,” Sergeant Vera said. Looking between Ignimitra and I. “Your dragon needs some work, but that was easily one of the better sprints I’ve seen here.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” But the compliment didn’t feel good. What good was my sprint if my dragon couldn’t fly? “She’s hurt. Permission to take her to the alchemist?”
Sergeant Vera inspected the damage. Ignimitra was sullen—her eyes were squeezed shut, her tail between her legs. I rubbed her head, trying to soothe her.
“I’ll take you.” Sergeant Vera turned to the rest of our cohort. “Get back in your groups and discuss your performance.” She pointed to a lanky boy with seaweed colored hair. “You, tally the scores of each team and have them ready for me when I get back. Do not leave this clearing.”
She snapped her fingers. Slade perked up.
“Can she walk?”
“Barely,” I said. Ignimitra’s eyes snapped open at this, pinning me with a glare. “I think she’d like to try though.”
Slade stopped moving towards us.
Though it was slow, Ignimitra made it over to Slade. She winced with each step she took, but it seemed like she wanted to do this on her own. Like she felt like she had something to prove. I could understand that.
I got on Slade first, then Sergeant Vera came after. Her dragon’s saddle was larger than Avek’s, and looked able to carry at least four in addition to her.
“What about Ign—” I didn’t manage to get the word out, before I saw Slade lean down and grip Ignimitra by the back of the neck.
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt her,” She said, laying a hand on one of the large tines on Slade’s back. “This is how adult dragons carry their young.”
Slade’s huge wings had us off the ground in a couple beats.
My heart felt like it was being electrocuted, and my mind was heavy with the weight of it all. Ignimitra was injured and we had just failed our first exercise.
It didn’t seem like a great way to start.
Chapter 7
I found the alchemist sandwiched between two inns, in the Artisan District. A cool breeze brought with it the smell of spiced ale and roasting meat. A brief wave of nostalgia hit me as we hobbled up to the door.
Knock, knock.
My hand was raised to knock again when the door opened abruptly.
On the other side stood an old woman. She was hunched over, using a carved wooden walking stick for support. Her kinky hair was white, pinned back with an array of glittering clips. Her thick dress swept the ground, glimmering with gold thread and intricate beading.
“My dear, you’re hurt,” she cooed.
The woman pushed past me to wrap her arms around Ignimitra’s neck. Surprisingly, she rested her head on the woman's shoulder. All I could make out was a soft hum as she stroked her scales.
I cleared my throat, “Ma’am, I’m Kaos, rider of Ignimitra—"
“What did you do?” The woman’s saccharine tone had disappeared, and she wheeled around to pin me with a harsh glaze. “Why is this dragonling hurt?”
“I-I didn’t do anything,” I stumbled over my thoughts. “She’s just learning to fly and fell out of the sky.” My words were jumbled together.
Yet, they seemed enough for her. The anger in her eyes faded, replaced with something gentler.
“I’m sorry, little one.” She bowed her head. “I get a little worked up about these beautiful creatures,” her free hand caressed Ignimitra’s horns. “You’d be surprised what they go through up here. Come, bring her around the back. I’ll take a look.”
There was a narrow path that stretched beside her house. It led into a grassy open clearing, that was much bigger than it looked from the street. Ignimitra just managed to squeeze through the pathway.
There was a small open air shed. Like Hakan’s workshop, there were shelves and jars of liquids and other things, as well as a book collection that looked like it would have been safer inside. The thick spice of concoctions hung in the air.
“She looks a few days old, is she?” She said.
I nodded.
She let Ignimitra lie down, then hobbled over to inspect her wound more closely. The purplish color had gotten more intense, taking over the entire bruised swath of skin. Did this mean that it was getting worse? Had it been infected somehow on the way over here?
“How should I address you, ma’am?”
The old woman chuckled heartily, hitting my knee with her stick.
“Call me Betheka,” she smiled wide. Somehow, I was surprised that she still had all her teeth. She seemed older than time itself.
“Thank you, er, Betheka.” It felt wrong.
She left to pick up a vial from her workstation.
“This will sting a little, dearie,” She cooed, and Ignimitra squeezed her eyes tight.
The dragonling flinched when the green liquid made contact with her skin, but didn’t complain. With a cloth, Betheka massaged it in.
“This gets rid of dirt,” she said to me.
I nodded, watching her work.
“Where’d you get this beautiful dragon?” She slowed her movements to look at me with a coal-colored eye. “I’ve never seen one like this on the mountain.”
My stomach fell.
“Uh, er...” Every thought seemed wrong to say.
I stole her and was planning to sell her, but she bonded with me before I could. No. I trespassed on government land and found her...No, that didn’t sound good either.
The silence was accusatory. I looked at my shoes.
For a while, I thought she was angry at me. But when I looked up, she wore a small smile. What was so funny?
“Dragon got your tongue, eh?” she said.
The second vial of liquid was much more viscous than the first. It turned into an orange paste on Ignimitra’s skin. With another cloth, she massaged it in.
“I’ve tended to every dragon on this mountain,” she said like she had traveled back in time, “But this dragon looks like one I met in my childhood.”
Avek told me not to ask questions, but he didn’t tell me I that couldn’t listen to somebody answer a question that I didn’t actually ask. I moved closer to Betheka, not wanting a single word to slip by me.
“When I was a girl, I lived in a Tertaro Village by the sea.” I tried to imagine her young—straight and spritely, with luscious black curls. “One evening while I was hunting for crabs in the sand, a white dragon descended from the skies. It was the biggest thing I had ever seen! Even bigger than the silo that kept all our grain.” She motioned with her hands. “I was afraid it was going to eat me. You see, I had never seen a dragon up until then. I didn’t know how kind they were, so I tried to run away. But it felt like I heard the dragon speak. No words, just a deep feeling in my heart that I knew and could understand. That was how I discovered my gift for them.”
I hung on to every word she said. She could talk to dragons? It almost sounded too crazy to be true.
“It spoke to you? What did it say?”
“It warned me of a great deluge that was about to destroy my village, of waves bigger than him desolating my home.”
My mouth fell open.
“I asked him to come with me, to tell the people of my village. But he said that they would not be able to see past his fierce exterior. He told me to be his messenger.” She took a deep breath. “Just as he came, he left.”
<
br /> Even Ignimitra seemed interested in her story, leaning forward on her haunches.
‘Did the waves come?” I asked.
“Yes, they did,” Betheka's voice was pained.
The bad things that happen to us were always too close for comfort, and one conversation could bring with it an avalanche of all the feelings we tried to overcome. She lowered her eyes to the walking stick in her hand.
“I was only able to save myself. Not even my parents believed. I snuck away to the forest in the middle of the night. When I returned the next day, the entire village had disappeared.”
My throat was dry, my legs suddenly feeling like they couldn’t support me.
Betheka’s blithe was still raw after decades. The pain of losing parents, friends, of losing a home seemed insurmountable, reminding me of the similar feelings I lugged around. If I hadn’t found Hakan then...
I reached out to put a hand on hers. In her eyes, I could see that she wasn’t finished.
“I never saw that white dragon again, but I never forgot it. A Deftero couple found me in the forest and took me in. Now that I was in a higher Order, I could learn more about dragons.” That memory made her smile. “It was years after becoming an alchemist here that I found a book which described a dragon that fit the white dragon’s description.”
“Will you show me it?”
“Of course.” The warmth in her eyes was back. “But first, let me finish fixing up this gem.”
Betheka added a third vial of liquid to Ignimitra’s wound, then bound it with strips of cloth that had been soaked in something else. At the end, she gave Ignimitra a handful of sweet berries for her good behavior. While she enjoyed her treat, Betheka led me into her home.
It was a deceptively simple home. I’d come to recognize discreet luxury when I saw it here at the Academy. Gold cups hung from hooks in the kitchen, and a glittering crystal chandelier glinted in the sunlight.
She led me down a narrow corridor to a double-locked door. She retrieved the keys from her bosom. It led to a narrow set of stairs that deposited us in the bowels of her home.
Dragon Academy Page 7