Dragon Academy

by Devonnie Asher

  I did the same, tucking it away in my pocket.

  When we stopped, we were on the other side of the building.

  I chanced a look outside. My heart leapt to my mouth. All I could see was darkness. There was no courtyard here, no walls. This window dropped off into the cavernous depths of the mountain range below.

  “We’re gonna jump,” he said.

  I loosed my hand from his, searching his face for the hint of a joke. “Jump? Are you crazy?”

  His firm hands gripped my shoulders, one of them snaking up my neck to my chin.

  “Do you trust me?” He said.

  His charcoal eyes burned a hole through me. Something sprung to life inside me then, like a covered seed breaking out of its shell for the first time.

  “Yes,” I said softly.

  A small smile formed on his face.

  “Good. On my signal.”

  We moved to the ledge.

  “One, two, three...” I squeezed my eyes shut, wrapping my arms around him tightly. “Jump!”

  Avek’s hands were around my waist, and together we jumped off the ledge.

  The wind whizzed past us, and I dared not open my eyes.

  Panic was raw in my throat, all my blood had become crackling bolts of lightning, all my limbs stone. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. We were falling to our deaths, but something about falling with Avek made the idea a little less scary.

  Thud.

  We fell on something hard, and for half a second, I thought we had hit the ground.

  Then sounds slowly started to filter into my consciousness.

  I heard the sound of chains dangling, felt myself being strapped onto something.

  Flap, Flap, Flap.

  It was a familiar sound. Dragon wings.

  When I opened my eyes, I could see very little in the darkness. But I could see the starry sky above us, and the outline of a huge serpentine head.

  “Nurik,” I whispered, my throat burning. “Oh heaven, it’s Nurik.”

  Tears sprang from my eyes. The panic changed to relief.

  “You’re safe,” Avek’s voice was soft. “You always were.”

  I felt his words on my forehead and the warmth of his body pressed against mine.

  Heat filled my cheeks. We were still hugging.

  But I didn’t want to move.

  We flew like that until Nurik landed in a familiar clearing. It was the one where they had picked me up. Reluctantly, I let go of him. It almost felt like he resisted too. But I couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t making it up.

  Avek didn’t say anything, only looked at me with charcoal eyes. I expected him to say something, anything. I watched them slip off into the darkness.

  Maybe it was good that he didn’t speak. I had already felt too much. Now, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. The new information about my father and the Headmaster. Trusting Avek enough to jump to my death with him. Our wordless hug on the flight over here.

  It was too much.

  All I wanted was to fall asleep cuddled with Ignimitra.

  THE WALK TO HER CAVE drained me of all the energy I had left.

  When I got there, she wasn’t asleep like I had expected. In the darkness, I saw her bright amethyst eyes staring back at me.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” I said weakly, walking toward her.

  She snorted defiantly, then I felt her warm skin on my face.

  Feeling along her body in the darkness, I moved towards the crook where her forepaw joined her torso. There, I found the blanket I had been using.

  “Had you been waiting on me?”

  I laid down, wrapping myself in the blanket. I heard her move, then felt her tongue on my forehead. That was a yes.

  “I’m here now, angel,” a yawn escaped me. “I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”

  She closed in, forming a tight O around me.

  Her warmth was comforting.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, I told Ignimitra everything.

  She understood how I felt—from the horror of finding my father’s death log and realizing that the Headmaster was the lone survivor, to the adrenaline rush of jumping out of the window. Did dragons understand human feelings? I hadn’t told her about Avek and I, partly because I didn’t even understand what I was feeling. It could’ve been that we were both worked up from almost getting caught.

  “He was the only one who survived. That seems, wrong,” I said, leaning back on her.

  The sky was beginning to lighten. We had just a little more time together before our day would start.

  “Convenient, huh?” I scoffed. “The man who was his competition for the role of Headmaster, died on a mission with him.”

  They were probably teammates. I thought of Solra and Irikai, unable to imagine if they would’ve betrayed me like that. Suddenly, it all made sense.

  The way it felt like he was talking directly to me when he held the first Assembly. His thinly veiled threat before our Formation Flying retrial. It was bloodlust. He was insinuating that he had killed my father and he would do the same to me.

  Had he known from the moment he set foot in my village? My skin crawled.

  I looked at the rocks by my feet, rooting my foot into them.

  My life was chaos, my namesake. My mother had given me that name out of tribute to my fiery spirit, my father had written. It felt more like a prophecy, and I abhorred it. My father’s absence had overshadowed most things in my life, including my mother’s mysterious disappearance. His death was much easier to deal with.

  A military action had taken my father from me. He had been killed, against his own will. But there was no loophole when it came to Kat Kressin. After my father was killed, she chose to disappear. She made that choice, abandoning her ten-year-old to the mercy of a heartless village. She decided that her life was worth more than mine.

  In the years since then, I had worked hard to forget her. And I felt like I had succeeded—now, I rarely thought of the warmth of her honey brown eyes, or how she always made me sweet blueberry cakes whenever I was feeling sick. I no longer saw her when I looked in the mirror, and my curls no longer reminded me of hers.

  But this was dredging up all those feelings.

  The pain in my chest returned. It had sapped my energy so much the last time I thought of her that I had barred myself from ever thinking of her again. The pain had made me so sick I missed school for a week because I couldn’t get out of bed.

  I lay my head on Ignimitra’s belly, desperate to get rid of the feeling. But the sun rose. My day had to start.

  We were late to class. Sergeant Vera had begun doling out today’s lesson.

  I found a spot beside Irikai, who looked at me curiously.

  “What scrimmage did you get into last night?” He said

  I shrugged.

  I had skipped combing my hair—my thick coils were loose. I’d even forgotten to bring my blade. Perhaps I had done it unconsciously. I didn’t need that reminder right now.

  Sergeant Vera’s voice pulled me back to the present.

  “As you all know, we’re nearing the Mid-year Test. What you will be doing in today’s class will go towards your final grade for the Test.”

  The Mid-Year Test happened every five-months, and was dedicated to improving our core skills. Outside of that, there was little we knew. Failing a Mid-Year was a one-way ticket off the mountain, and into the Headmaster’s murderous clutches.

  Great.

  There were hushed whispers among the cadets about what we’d be doing.

  “We’ll be taking a trip to Blazebreak Forest, just south of here,” the excitement in her voice was jarring. “You all will be racing through the forest.”

  Suddenly, I regretted not getting Ignimitra more to eat.

  “Saddle your dragons, cadets! We leave in fifteen.”

  Saddle your dragons? A cheap dig at Ignimitra and I. We were still without a saddle.

  I pulled Irikai aside before he could g
et on Titan.

  “Did she tell us that this test would be today?” I said in a coarse whisper.

  These days Ignimitra had more stamina, but I couldn’t guess how well she would do on an empty stomach.

  He nodded slowly. “Where’s your head?”

  I scowled and walked away.

  A few minutes later, our cohort was in the air. We flew a tight V formation, with Sergeant Vera and Slade at its convergence.

  “Try to conserve as much energy as you can,” I said to Ignimitra, stroking her scales.

  She tittered in response, turning around to brighten my insides with a smile.

  I smiled back.

  WE GOT TO BLAZEBREAK Forest when the sun had reached its highest point.

  Thin dark-barked trees stretched towards the sky, with only a few branches sticking up. Despite the fact that it looked like a fire had just ravaged the land, the calls of birds and frogs echoed through the sparse forest. I didn’t have to guess how it got the name Blazebreak.

  “Listen up cadets!” Sergeant Vera shouted. “The rules of this are simple. You fly through the forest, not above it. Slade’s eyes can see for miles, so don’t try to outsmart me.” The dragon grunted. “Break that rule, you’ll have a null score going into the Mid-year Test.” Her smile was sinister. “Now, make a line along the forest’s edge.”

  We assembled.

  “Get ready,” My heartbeat was in my ears. “Go!”

  Ignimitra leapt sluggishly, but wasn’t the last to make it to the air. We had to fly lower than we were used to because of the trees’ low-hanging branches.

  One whizzed by, scraping my skin.

  The trees in Blazebreak Forest weren’t just leafless. They had a prickling of thorns along their bark. Avoiding them was the only option.

  “The tree barks have thorns,” I shouted as Ignimitra banked hard to avoid hitting one. “If you hit them, they’re going to really hurt.”

  If we hit one too fast it would rip away some of her scales. Safe was always better than fast. Despite this, we had a slight advantage because of Ignimitra’s impressive handling. The sound of dragon wings and guttural growls gave the forest an eerie feeling. Birds scattered, anxious to get out of our way. The wing beats grew deafening; they were gaining on us.

  Ignimitra responded by speeding up. She was going faster than I liked.

  “Remember the tree bar—” A tree limb whizzed towards me so fast that I had to duck. “You don’t need to go so fast!”

  She didn’t want to listen. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing her reason.

  Gaining on us fast was a familiar dragon.

  Aresa.

  The thought of Vulknor sparked a newfound burning inside me, one that made me want to stamp out his very existence. Ignimitra was right. We had to win this.

  I flattened my body against hers, feeling her scales pull me in closer.

  My anxiety was melting with each ferocious flap of her wings. It was an exhilarating feeling—the wind rushing past me and through my hair. At that moment, there was nothing else in the world. I didn’t have my father or my mother on my mind. It was only Ignimitra and I, flying as one.

  I reveled in the feeling.

  I could see the brightness ahead, where the forest fell away. We were nearing the end.

  More dragons were gaining on us.

  “You can do this, angel!”

  My dragon responded to my heart.

  We exited the forest first, by a long shot.

  THAT EVENING, WHISPERS among the cadets told of a grueling Mid-Year Test.

  Solra had caught wind of it—from the lips of Vulknor himself in the supper line—and returned to our table with the details.

  “It’s going to be a test on something we’ve never done before,” she whispered across the table at me. Irikai was beside her, his eyes closed, seemingly oblivious to the urgency of her tone.

  I nodded, spooning some food into my mouth. We had placed first today. Nothing could dethrone me from this high. Perhaps this all meant more to her because she and Zelkor came in nearly last.

  “Vulknor just wants to scare everyone.” The apple never falls far from the tree.

  “I still think we should prepare,” Solra said, pointing a finger at me.

  “How can we prepare for something we’ve never done,” Irikai said.

  His eyes were still closed, but I glimpsed the hint of a smirk.

  Solra fell for the bait, an exasperated look crossing her face.

  “We can guess, Irikai!” She said, flicking him on the ear. “We can work on all our basics because whatever it is, has to be a new combination of them.”

  Irikai shrugged, rubbing his ear.

  For the rest of supper, we traded speculations.

  Indulging Solra was the easiest way to keep the conversation going. This was her coping mechanism. So, it wasn’t a surprise that she managed to convince us to train with her that evening.

  WE EACH HAD IDEAS ON what to do first. Solra wanted to practice sword fighting, while Irikai felt that our test would involve formation flying. I believed that our speed in the skies would be the deciding factor. In the end, we drew sticks to determine what we would do.

  Solra’s idea won out.

  Since there were three of us, we each took turns fighting the other two. I was the strongest of us, so I took on Solra and Irikai. I won. Next, Solra and I sparred with Irikai, who did better than I expected him to. He overpowered us both. On the other hand, Solra couldn’t take us both. She still had a lot of work to do. Despite this, she wasn’t as weak as she had been that night when we met in the clearing.

  Tired, we reclined on our dragons who had fallen asleep together in a heap.

  Titan was the largest of the three, taking up as much space as Zelkor and Ignimitra combined. Ignimitra was curled up in the crook of his tail, while Zelkor was half-up, half-down across his neck.

  They were undisturbed by our presence, drained from the race today.

  “Answer me seriously,” Solra said, taking a sip of water from her bottle.

  We paused our own drinking to look at her.

  “If I was in an enemy land without you guys, how long do you think I would last?”

  Her question took me by surprise. She wouldn’t want to hear my answer. I gulped down more of my water to buy time.

  “That depends. How long would it take for someone to discover you? Because you’d lose to the first person you meet.” Irikai’s bluntness nearly made me choke.

  I braced myself for the blow back, half expecting Solra to wallop him in the face. Instead, she just looked at him, pensive. He set down his water bottle and walked over to her, picking up his cadet sword in the process.

  He raised her to stand.

  I watched them quietly.

  “You fight too much with here,” He touched her forehead. “You need to fight more with here,” a finger touched her chest.

  He moved to stand behind her, guiding the backs of her hands to grasp his sword.

  “Your heart has all the answers,” he said. “You can’t prepare every step before the fight. You have to trust your heart to lead you through everything you’ve learned at just the right time.”

  Solra didn’t speak at first, only turned her head to look at Irikai. They stood like that for a few moments. I didn’t realize that I was holding my breath.

  “I think I understand,” she said. “Thank you, Irikai.”

  We had only the glimmer of moonlight for illumination, but I could see the red coloring her skin. I hid my smile behind another waterfall from my bottle.

  “So, Kaos,” Solra scratched the back of her head, her voice high-pitched. “Why didn’t you make it to breakfast this morning?”

  Her question burned away my amusement.

  Suddenly, I was brought back to my early morning flight with Avek and the harrowing discovery we had made. It was on the tip of my tongue to lie that we’d overslept.

  But something wouldn’t allow me to. Irikai and Solra
had opened up to me about the darkest parts of their lives. We were friends. They deserved to know my truth—or as much of it as I was allowed to tell them.

  “I was sleuthing early this morning,” I said. “What I found had me in a funk.”

  The puzzled look on their faces was my invitation to continue.

  “I’ve never told you guys this before, but...” I took a deep breath. “My father was a Dragon Guard soldier.”

  There was silence.

  A rush of heat licked my bones. What if they were upset at me that I hid this from them for so long? What would they think of me? It wasn’t lost on me how privileged it would make me seem. Privilege that they were desperate for. We didn’t like people from the higher Orders.

  I leaned back into the side of Ignimitra’s slumbering body, bracing for the impact.

  But there was none.

  They moved closer to me, a look of concern and intrigue coloring their expressions.

  “You said was,” Irikai said.

  I nodded, feeling the heat settle in my stomach.

  My mouth was dry and filled with gravel. I knew that this conversation was necessary, but the feelings that it dredged up made me want to hide. Or jump off of a cliff. I wasn’t sure which one most of the time. My eyes were burning by the time the words came out of my mouth.

  “He was killed in action when I was ten,” the words felt strange when I said them. Almost as if I didn’t understand what they meant.

  I felt two pairs of hands wrap around me, and my tears found a resting place in the fabric of Solra’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys sooner,” it felt pathetic to say. “I just didn't know how you would take it.”

  There was a soothing hand on my neck, rubbing circles.

  “It’s okay,” Solra’s voice was soft. “Only you could have decided when the right time to tell us would be,” she held me by my shoulders, pulling back enough to look me in the eyes. ‘And now is as good a time as ever.”

  When I had composed myself—that is, dried my tears in the sleeves of my shirt and drank some more water—Irikai spoke.