Pariah of Dragons

by Cordelia Castel

  “I have an announcement from Master Fosco,” said the instructor. “All dragonets, including the flying cat, are under a curfew and none are allowed to venture from their dwellings without the supervision of an adult dragon or four warriors.”

  My head snapped up, and I drew in a sharp breath through my teeth. Captain Caiman read from a scroll with a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, but this time, the ridiculous sight didn’t make me laugh.

  His brows formed a deep V. “If you see a dragonet wandering around on its own, you are to capture it and take it to the nearest dragon or group of warriors.”

  Gobi’s eyes widened. “Is Asproceros in Mount Fornax?”

  “We do not know if it is him, but somebody is trying to snatch dragonets.”

  “Spriggans!” Stafford hissed.

  All five dragons shook their heads.

  Stafford tilted his head to the side. “Why are they disagreeing?”

  “Dragons can feel a spriggan when they’re close, even if they try to disguise their magic.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “But you said a spriggan moved the eggs from the incubators to the royal carriage.”

  “It did, but everyone was at the opening ceremony. A blue dragon called Ardenti could feel their magic, but she was on the cusp of sleeping and couldn’t raise the alarm.”

  Captain Caiman clapped his hands together. “Right, class. Get on your dragons. After ten minutes of placing your hands on the dragon’s scales and focusing on your physical connection, you will practice speed drills.

  “Don’t forget what you told Niger about us learning how to fly using signals,” said Fyrian.

  “Thanks for the reminder.” I raised my hand. “Sir?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “Can I practice with one of the red dragons, please? Fyrian and I aren’t so great with signals, and we’d—”

  “Your mental connection is faster than any hand or leg signal,” he snapped. “Why would you encumber yourselves when you have the potential to be the fastest rider who ever lived?”

  My heart sank at his refusal yet warmed at the compliment. After months of floundering in the Magical Militia and then failing, it was nice to get good feedback from an instructor, even if it was dressed as an admonishment.

  “Never mind,” said Fyrian. “I’ll ask Flavo if he’s all right with swapping. Caiman is clearly too angry to see reason right now.”

  “All right, sir. Fyrian and I will practice speed drills together.”

  He clapped me hard on the back. “Good boy! All of you, get on your dragons before I make you run laps.”

  The rest of the class was a grueling ordeal of our instructor glaring and snarling. While everyone else was left alone to practice speed drills. Captain Caiman rode Rubens, the rapier red from our first lesson, alongside me, keeping up with our speed.

  “You should be faster than that!” he bellowed. “Tell Fyrian to flap harder.”

  Rubens opened his beak-like jaws and let out a squawk of agreement.

  “I’ll flap them in a minute,” she snarled.

  I clenched my teeth and opened up our bond wide. “Let’s combine power and give them what we want.”

  “Ha! They’ll choke on my farts of fire!”

  A laugh huffed out of my chest. “Fyri!”

  “I wouldn’t really do it,” she said in a small voice.

  My brows rose. Something told me she was only backtracking because of my shocked reaction. Had I been someone like Niger who found that sort of thing funny, she probably would have left Captain Caiman and Rubens in a cloud of foul air. I focussed on our bond. Heat surged through my veins, and I pushed as much power as I could through to Fyrian. The air around us shifted, moving in a current towards Fyrian’s snout.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I’m filling all my lungs with buoyant air. It will make me as light as a balloon.”

  I turned to where Captain Caiman flew atop Rubens. The half-ogre’s eyes bulged, and his mouth fell open. Rubens dipped his wing and swerved down and out of range. I stared after them. It was like they both knew we were about to do something spectacular.

  “Hold tight,” Fyrian snarled. “I’ll shut them up for life!”

  Excitement surged through my veins, hot and fast and sizzling. I leaned forward, pressing my thighs into Fyrian’s sides, and my gauntlet-covered forearms onto her scales. The enchanted armor wouldn’t let me waver an inch off her back if we reached a tremendous speed.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Nearly there!”

  “How large are a dragon’s lungs?”

  “The first pair are the size you’d expect for a creature our size,” she replied. “But the second have several times the capacity. I’ve never filled them completely.”

  The world stilled, filling my ears with silence and my heart with a tingle of anticipation. Then, Fyrian raised her wings and cleaved through the air like a thunderclap. No sooner had I cringed at the sound than she propelled us forward, leaving my stomach what felt like several leagues behind. She flew faster than the time we fled from her execution, faster than when she fell from the skies with a broken wing. My stomach caught up, a mass of writhing worms, fighting their way up my gullet. Clamping my lips together, I breathed hard to stave off my nausea.

  “Alba!” She must have felt my discomfort through our bond.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “K-keep going. I-I’m fine.”

  A moment later, I cracked open my eyes. The sky was its usual calm, cloudless cerulean, but beneath us, the landscape blurred into a bland mess of beige. Harsh winds made them water, so I slammed them shut and focussed on the darkness.

  “Look through my eyes,” she said. “It might make you feel better.”

  “A-all right.” I pushed myself into her side of the bond and opened my eyes. The world beneath us blurred a little around the edges, but colors stood out like one of Master Fosco’s paintings. My stomach settled, and a huge breath of relief whooshed out of my lungs. “That’s so much better. How fast are we traveling?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s really fast.”

  “What’s made the difference?” I asked.

  “My third and fourth lungs. I never used them until now.”

  I pushed myself upright, enjoying the wind through my hair. “Why not?”

  “Dragonets only have two, and I’ve only been in this body for a month and a half. Until the blue dragons offered to teach me to swim, I’d forgotten I even had the extra lungs.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you’re a lot stronger,” she added. “Before, I could only open and close my side of the bond, but since the plague, you’ve been able to use your side.”

  A warm glow filled my chest. We had General Thornicroft and his dream-horn to thank for that. “The dragon quest.”

  “We’re going faster than a wild dragon, you know.”

  “Really?” The memory of that iridescent dragon popped to the front of my mind. He had recognized me somehow. Perhaps he could access the memories of other dragons. If he could, why did he shake his head? I had to speak to him and find out.

  “How are you feeling?” Fyrian asked.

  I rubbed my stomach. “Much better.”

  “We shouldn’t fly much longer than this. As soon as you let go of the bond and get your vision back, you’ll feel just as bad.”

  “Right.” I glanced down into the landscape. “Let’s separate when we land… Just in case.”

  Fyrian flew around the waterfall side of the mountains, where a dragon nearly as pale as the one in the cage leaped out from the depths of a pool. We passed it in seconds and in no time, rounded the dry side of the mountain. The terraces there were rocky and narrow. In some places providing just enough space to accommodate a single person if they clung onto the walls with both hands.

  Rapier reds poked their heads out of openings barely large enough to accommodate their bodies if they folded their wings. Had the Forgo
tten King Fashioned them out of woodpeckers or another kind of burrowing bird? They really were the most peculiar type of dragon.

  Stomach worms writhed deep within my belly, reminding me of their presence. “Fyri, let’s land.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice!” she swooped down and landed on the surface of the mountain in a low crouch.

  Clamping my lips together, I withdrew from our connection. Nausea surged up my gullet, and I scrambled off her back and down her leg. The first spasm rocked my diaphragm before I reached Fyrian’s paw, and I leaped the last few feet, landing on my hands and knees. The contents of my breakfast, including two tankards of foamy mead, splattered onto the rocky ground in a series of noisy heaves.

  “Poor Alba,” said Fyrian.

  I coughed. “We’re not doing that again for a while.”

  “Maybe Jesper or Duclair can give you something to stop you from being sick. This level of speed will be useful when you’re fighting Magnar’s war.”

  The mere thought of King Magnar and his spriggans brought another load of breakfast surging up my gullet. “Oh! Don’t talk about him when I’m being sick.”

  “You’ll see him soon enough,” Fyrian muttered.

  I was too busy rinsing my mouth out with the contents of my water skin to ask what she meant. After giving my face a good splash of cold water, I pushed myself off the ground and stood on shaky legs.

  “Have you finished?” she asked.

  “I-I think so.”

  “Because I don’t want any of that lodging itself under my scales.”

  I shook my head. “If it comes to that, I’ll pull off my knapsack.”

  She snorted. “You’d never get your notes dirty. Come on, let’s go back to class.”

  We took the short ride to the cliff at a leisurely pace, and I closed my eyes, letting the breeze cool my sweat-dampened skin. That ride had been unbelievable, and Captain Caiman’s chastisement had given us the push we had needed to improve. Between the two of us, we had unlocked some hidden potential for speed, and if only I could handle the nausea, we would fly faster than any rapier red and become almost as uncatchable as a purple dragon.

  Fyrian and I landed to a round of applause, and I opened my eyes. Captain Caiman, Stafford, Rufus, and Gobi all stood on her left side, grinning up at me. I rubbed the back of my neck. They probably wouldn’t be so congratulatory if they had seen me heaving out my guts five minutes ago.

  I climbed down Fyrian’s side to be swept into an ogre-tight hug.

  “I knew you could do it, boy!” cried Captain Caiman. “That speed was incredible.”

  My breath left my lungs in a single whoosh, and I wriggled in his grip, trying to get some air. Not even Father hugged this tight. When my head spun and I thought I’d pass out, he released his grip and gave my shoulder a bone-crushing squeeze, making me shudder. Did the Captain not know to be gentler with quarter-ogres?

  “He wouldn’t be so rough if he knew you were female,” muttered Fyrian.

  “How did you do it?” Admiration shone in Gobi’s eyes.

  I blinked twice. Was the boy talking to me or Fyrian?

  “You, silly.”

  “We used our connection, and Fyrian filled her third and fourth lungs.”

  “Then I will never be able to fly like that!” he whined.

  Captain Caiman clapped him on the shoulder. “You are the youngest dragon warrior who ever lived. Think of what you will achieve by the time you are Bluford’s age!”

  Gobi’s chest puffed out, and red spots appeared on his round, fuzz-covered cheeks. If I didn’t know him to be an annoying brat, I would have thought he looked cute.

  Stafford and Rufus both clapped me on the shoulder. Rufus more gentle than Stafford.

  “Well done,” said Rufus. “That was impressive.”

  The thud of a dragon landing from behind made us all turn around.

  Fyrian hissed. “Byrrus!”

  The dragon with the ox-blood colored scales dipped his head with shame, and Fyrian roared something that made the red dragons chitter. Byrrus’ posture sagged further.

  “Fyri,” I snapped. “Are you bullying that dragon?”

  “It’s only what he did to me.”

  “But he was under the influence of the loyalty elixir.”

  She tossed her head. “That doesn’t excuse him.”

  I was about to bring up Fyrian entering my name for King Magnar’s stupid sky commander tournament when a blond head poked out from behind Byrrus’ back. I bared my teeth. “What are you doing here?”

  King Magnar climbed down from Byrrus, as though the dragon was an extra high royal palanquin. He strode up to me with his nose in the air and said in a loud, clear voice, “I wanted to thank you.”

  Chapter 6

  Panic laced through my heart, and I glanced from Captain Caiman to Rufus and to Gobi. If King Magnar mentioned his sisters, anyone with half a brain would work out that they had broken into the Magical Militia. And they’d also correctly guess that I’d somehow collaborated with them to free Evolene. It was no secret that they used spriggan artifacts to commit their crimes.

  “There's nothing to thank me for, apart from not killing you,” I hissed. “Go back to your dung house.”

  “And I’m here to nurture my bond with my dragon.” King Magnar stepped forward, arm outstretched, as though he wanted to shake my hand. For a fraction of a second, I pictured myself squeezing his fingers to splinters of bone with an ogre handshake, but I threw off the image. The longer I stayed in his presence, the more chance he might blurt out something incriminating like our betrothal or how I hadn’t really been in the jailhouse yesterday.

  I turned to Captain Caiman. “May Fyrian and I fly away to do more speed drills?”

  Our instructor gave me a toothy grin. “Go ahead. Practice away!”

  I clambered up Fyrian’s foreleg and positioned myself between her wing bones. We didn’t need to use our connection to leave. Fyrian disliked Byrrus as much as I despised King Magnar.

  “His sisters are in that hut,” she said. “Should we fly above it and make scary noises?”

  I snorted. “They’d deserve it after what they did to Evolene, but I don’t want to waste any time on that pair.”

  “Where are we going, then?” She glided over the dry side of the mountain at a steady pace, wings outstretched.

  “Let’s talk to the wild dragon.”

  “Oh.” Her voice turned dull.

  I tucked a lock of magically darkened hair behind my ear. “What?”

  “They’re not good influences.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Remember the story I told you about the wild dragon and all the black females he tried to tempt into running away with him?”

  “The wild dragon who convinced one of them to burrow a hole under the wards?”

  “That’s the one.” Fyrian continued over the rocky terraces. A pair of rapier reds flew out to join us, and she gave them a little spin. “Well, they’re all like that.”

  Behind us, the rapier reds mirrored her movement. Fyrian raised her head and soared up into the skies. The smaller dragons followed. I squinted at their pointed faces. One of them looked like Vermiculus, the red dragonet who had lived in the palace with Fyrian. I would have asked, but Fyrian’s reluctance to meet the wild dragon was far more fascinating. “You think he’s going to make you do something?”

  “When you say it like that, you make me sound stupid.”

  “But that’s my point,” I gave her a pat on the smooth scales between her wingbones. “You’re clever and have your own ideas and opinions. No wild dragon in a cage can make you do anything.”

  “Ha!” She leveled out and blew a huge smoke ring. “He can try.”

  I turned around to find the rapier reds producing their own little rings of smoke. A laugh bubbled up in my chest. “That’s the spirit.”

  For the next few minutes, Fyrian flew around the mountain, leaving its dry side and
over an expanse of orchards. At the sight of lemon trees, she landed on the widest part of the terrace with a thud. The rapier reds flew back to their side of the mountain. Unlike green dragons, reds preferred bitter tastes to sour.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Having a snack. Want something?”

  I glanced around. Most of the trees contained the usual kind of lemons only palatable when mixed with sugar, but at the end of the terrace stood a sweet citrea tree. “Hold on. I’ve found something.”

  While Fyrian shook the branches of the lemon trees and scooped up the fallen fruit with her tongue, I slid off her back and jogged to my target. Like most citruses, the citrea’s leaves were waxy, but their fruits were four times the size of regular lemons and infinitely more sweet.

  I glanced up at the lowest branch and scowled. These trees had obviously been cultivated with dragons in mind because their fruit hung beyond the reach of the average six-foot-tall person. I jumped high, barely grazing the tip of my longest finger on the bottom of the fruit’s bumpy, lemon surface.

  “Here you go.” A huge shadow appeared above my head, and Fyrian butted one of the taller branches. A dozen citrea fell onto the ground.

  “Thanks!” I rushed forward and picked up enough fruit to share with Stafford later. Niger and the others didn’t like sweet things.

  After finishing our snack, we flew down to the base of the mountain, where the tamers had left the wild dragon’s cage in a low overhang out of the sun, but far enough from the residents of Mount Fornax that no one would be disturbed by his presence.

  The wild dragon sat on his haunches with his forelegs outstretched, surveying the dry land with the grandeur of a King surveying his subjects. The scales around his body were as smooth as a blue dragon’s, making me wonder if he could swim. Three horns stood on his pointed snout that looked like they could gore the largest of animals.

  As soon as he caught sight of us, he raised his head and followed our descent. There was something in his eyes, a cruel, cunning intelligence, that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Fyrian landed on the sandstone in front of the cage, and the dragon leaned forward and pushed his snout to the bars. His nostrils flared, giving me the impression that he was testing my scent for weaknesses.