by Jada Fisher
7
The Opposite of a Vacation
Mid-season exams passed in a hazy, sore blur. Eist had bruises that she couldn’t tell where they came from. Her bruises had bruises whose origins were a mystery. Her mind hurt, her eyes hurt, even her fingernails seemed to hurt by the time everything was wrapped up.
But she had passed. She was onto a crossbow and had been given a practice sword of tempered steel that she was now responsible for twenty-four/seven. Ale’a wanted her to fight with a halberd, considering her short range put her at a disadvantage, but such a weapon was only allowed after a fourth-year evaluation and all riders were required to be at least adequate with a sword.
She had placed high in her classes as well. Not first, and not second, but a third rank considering she still had trouble hearing certain teachers was nothing to sneeze at. Of course, it was Dille who ranked first, but Eist knew her friend most certainly deserved it.
But perhaps most importantly of all was Fior. After so much work, he had finally passed his flight test. While he couldn’t take to the air from the ground, he had succeeded in being able to hold a glide from a perch, and he even managed to gain altitude on a couple of strong gusts of wind.
Eist was so proud of him, and she probably showered him with far more treats than she should have, but how could she not? He had trained so hard to make up for her putting him behind, and she couldn’t be more grateful. Maybe once she might have resented being the deformed girl with the deformed dragon, but now she couldn’t imagine having anyone but her little guy.
After the mid-year exam results were announced, there was always a great and intense feast, one that might actually put Yacrist’s nameday supper to shame. Eist found herself sitting with her friends as usual, gorging herself on what might be the most delicious roast boar she ever had the privilege of scarfing down.
“So, we all survived,” Ain said, mouthing at a piece of bread. Eist noticed that he really did seem to love all of the things Braddock baked, which was almost too sweet of a trait for the sarcastic man to have.
“Well, not all of us,” Dille said. “Five of our class ranked too low to continue on with their dragon rider training.”
“Ouch,” Yacrist said loudly from the book he was reading. Eist smiled, knowing he was compensating for her to hear since his mouth was obstructed by the tome. “How’d you hear that?”
“I listen,” Dille said with a shrug. “Four of them are training to become messengers now.”
“And the fifth?”
“She said she and her dragon want to try working on the farms for a bit. Says they would rather help others flourish than fight.”
Athar nodded slowly. “I understand that. Sometimes I wonder if I’m cut out for fighting at all.”
“You’re practically the size of a mountain,” Ain snorted. “Of course you’re meant for fighting.”
Athar grimaced, and Eist didn’t miss it. “I don’t know. I don’t like hurting people.”
“Fighting isn’t about liking hurting people,” she corrected. “It’s about protecting those you love. It’s about doing what’s right. If you’re fighting because you want to hurt other people, you probably shouldn’t be a dragon rider.”
Ain let out a sarcastic snort. “If everyone thought like you, Eist, then we wouldn’t need any dragon riders at all.”
“In a perfect world, I suppose,” Dille said wistfully. “But enough philosophy. Who else is looking forward to the excursion?”
Oh.
That.
The excursion was a trip that third-years and up took after their mid-years. The class was broken up into groups of ten to fifteen people with a teacher and a dragon rider to chaperone, then they were supposed to survive for three weeks on the land. Traveling over wild terrain, foraging for food, learning survival skills. It was an intense, grueling process, and it wasn’t uncommon for several fairly grievous injuries to happen.
Sometimes students didn’t come back.
It wasn’t that Eist was scared of the prolonged trip. It was just that the groups were divided by the staff and friends were often purposefully separated. Some said it was to encourage new bonds. Others said it was to avoid codependency because dragon riders never knew when they could be sent off or who they could be sent off with. Eist mostly thought it was stupid, and she didn’t want to be apart from Yacrist and Dille for almost a month. Not when that slippery, sliding feeling of something creeping in her peripherals was stronger than ever.
“I’m looking forward to them posting the group results,” Yacrist admitted.
“Why, you have people you want to avoid?” Ain retorted.
“Yeah, actually. Darnialla is getting pretty insistent with her affections, and I don’t even want to think of what it would be like trying to fend her off from my bedroll for three weeks.”
“What a truly terrible burden.”
“Have you tried telling her no?” Dille added.
Yacrist rolled his eyes. “Of course. That’s the first thing I said. I don’t just walk around hoping to have a flock of lovesick or gold-hungry folks paddling behind me.”
“Could have fooled me,” Athar muttered so quietly that Eist couldn’t actually even hear him, she just saw the movement of his mouth.
“What was that?” Yacrist asked sharply, turning his head.
“We’re going to be together,” Dille said quickly, drawing the attention back to her. Eist heaved a sigh of relief at her friend’s quick thinking. There was still that strange, shifting tension between the two, and she didn’t get it any more than she had before.
“What?”
“We’ll be together. All of us.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” Ain said, leaning forward with his chin in his hand. His gaze was entirely too sharp, and Eist was reminded of his appraising stares where he learned too much about her too easily.
She just shrugged and went back to eating her food.
“But…th-that’s a third of a group. It seems unli-unly-un-un—” Athar stopped and took a breath. She hadn’t seen him so flustered in a while. “Improbable.”
“You don’t have to believe me. It’s just a feeling.”
Eist knew exactly what she meant by that. It wasn’t just a feeling. Dille knew. Or maybe she had done something. Eist wanted to ask, but she knew she couldn’t right in front of the others. Although Ain and Athar were friends of hers now, there were some things she didn’t want them to know.
She still wanted them to think she was normal.
Perhaps that was foolish, but she didn’t like being Eist, the orphan who had been viciously attacked twice and barely survived her second year at the academy any more than she liked being Eist, the fat orphan with the weird eye. If possible, though, she wanted to stay the latter as long as possible.
“Well, as much as I doubt it, I hope you’re right.”
Dille was right.
Not that Eist was surprised. She had been expecting it ever since Dille had stated what she felt. But as she finished packing her roll and double-checking everything, she couldn’t help but feel nerves coiling in her gut.
It was easy to feel cut off from the outside world in the academy. To feel safe and protected from whatever was lurking at the edges of the world, teething at what was good and bright, coiled tightly like it couldn’t wait to attack.
If they were out in the open, what was going to protect her? She didn’t even go to the market anymore, her heart thundering at the thought of running into more mercenaries paid to steal Fior. Or hurt her.
Although Eist didn’t want to admit it, she knew that something had changed since she met that terrifying man in the woods. He knew her face now. He knew what she sounded like when she was hurt and how to see right through her goading. She felt like too many eyes were on her, always watching. Always looking for some weakness so they could take her and…and…
She actually didn’t know what. But every time she felt the crescent scar on her tongue, or the jagg
ed one through her shoulder, she was reminded that there were a lot of dark and dangerous things that she knew nothing about.
“Hey, are you alright?” Dille asked, her gentle hand on Eist’s shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “But I’m scared.”
“Are you thinking about…him?” Dille didn’t have to clarify who she meant.
“Yeah. I am.”
“He’s not going to be there. Our class is split into about ten groups, and we’re scattered all over the mountains and woods west of Rothaiche M’or. Even if he did know exactly when and where our class was going on the excursion, how would he find you? You’ll be like a needle in a haystack.”
“I know that in my head,” Eist said, collapsing on her bed and sprawling across it. Fior, seeming to sense her troubles, hopped on, and immediately curled across her chest. He was heavy, but his presence felt warm and comforting. “But I feel like I’m marked.”
“I… I don’t think you are. I think I’d be able to tell that. Besides, we have the son of the Lord of the House going with us. You think they’re not gonna have us with the smartest, strongest teacher and the best dragon rider? I would bet money I don’t have that any group Yacrist is put in would be wrapped so tightly in securities and protections that his own mother wouldn’t be able to find him.”
“You think?” Eist asked flatly.
“Yes. I’m still figuring all this out, but some things are clearer than others. And I know that man won’t find you on this trip.”
“You know you’re handling this whole magic thing very well.”
She made a vague gesture. “Am I? Just seems right, is all. Like I’ve been walking around with one eye shut my whole life and I’ve finally been able to open it.”
Eist groaned. “Let’s not talk about eyes, shall we?”
Dille laughed at that and offered her hand. “Fine. But we should get going, yeah? We agreed to meet the others in the training fields before it got too crowded.”
Eist took the hand and let her friend pull her to her feet. Grabbing their things, they strode out into the courtyard where Veralda—who had clearly been waiting for her rider—practically tackled the two of them.
“Hey, my big lady,” Dille cooed. It didn’t seem possible, but in the half year that Veralda had arrived, she had grown by another quarter. She was nearly the size of a full-grown dragon, and she still had quite a bit of expanding to do. Her long, toothy snout was almost the length of Eist’s body. “Did you sleep well, my love? Are you getting along with the others in the cave?”
While the red dragon still often chose to snooze on the balcony of their dorm, she’d become so large that she’d taken to roosting on the outcropping of rocks or inside the dragon caves themselves. Eist could tell that Dille missed cuddling with her charge, but on the excursion, she’d have plenty of time to cuddle into the red beast’s side.
Veralda let out a deep growling-purring sound and nuzzled Dille happily. The sight of them together made Eist feel a little sappy herself, and she reached down to haul Fior into her arms.
Oof, he was getting really heavy. But it was worth it when his back legs went to either side of her body while his front ones flopped over her shoulders, his blunt snout nuzzling into her neck. For a split-second, she almost hoped that he never got any bigger and she could just hold him forever, but she realized that wouldn’t exactly work out with the whole dragon rider thing.
“Hey, you two! Over here!”
She heard a faint shout and opened her eyes to see the boys standing a bit away, all hunkered down with their gear. Setting Fior down, they headed over to them. There wasn’t much conversation to be had before the headmaster arrived and began doing her speech thing. Eist wasn’t overly invested in what the woman had to say, and she could hardly hear her anyway, so instead, the young dragon hopeful looked over what remained of her class.
There was a chance that she might never see some of these folks again. That they would be too injured or actually die and their dreams would be snuffed out forever.
However, given her track record of always being violently maimed at the end of every year, maybe it was more likely that she was the one who wouldn’t be returning.
The thought sent a shiver up her spine, and she quickly dismissed it. It was just an excursion. A camping trip. An expedition. There was nothing to worry about beyond the normal threats that came hand-in-hand with survival.
Maybe if she repeated that to herself enough, she’d actually believe it.
8
The First Night
“Alright, this is our zone for the next three weeks. Now that we’re here, can anybody tell me what our first goal should be?”
“We find water,” Eist said, shifting from foot to foot. While she wasn’t tired, the bottoms of her feet were a bit sore and achy from all the hiking they had done since that morning. She had thought that she was fully recovered from her months-long stint in the healer’s hall, but apparently, there were still little things she had to build up, and her callouses were one of them.
“Very good,” their dragon rider, Fjorin, said. He was a tall fellow, with flowing blond hair and a truly magnificent beard. Perhaps a little stereotypically, he had a large red dragon that circled the air above them. The massive beast had only occasionally dropped to the ground during their journey, clearly confused why his rider was walking instead of flying.
Of course, that complicated things a little when Veralda kept trying to fly up to play with him. Despite her truly impressive size, Veralda was the only one of the group that could truly fly for any significant length of time, and Eist got the feeling she sometimes wished her friends could wheel around with her. Naturally, Alynbach didn’t like every time she went up and would hiss in jealousy or squawk petulantly until she came back. At least it made the hike to their spot entertaining.
“But we all have waterskins,” another student argued. Eist squinted at them, trying to remember his name. Freidrick, maybe? “Shouldn’t we seek shelter first?”
Eist could have corrected him, but the teacher was doing that for her. Luckily, they’d ended up with the seemingly nice Professor Wycoff. Seemingly because they had only met him at the beginning of the year when he was introduced as their equipment instructor, teaching them how to maintain, clean, and repair everything that they could possibly have as a dragon rider, but he always had a cheery smile and a kind thing to say.
The only downside was with his thick mustache over his mouth and his tendency to mumble words together quickly, Eist often found herself having to ask him to repeat whatever he had just said.
“I can see how you might think that, but what happens if we’re not able to find water today? Or maybe even tomorrow. Tell me, what happens when that water runs out, which it will, quickly? You can’t boil any food, you can’t quench your thirst, you can’t clean a wound if you’re injured. Unless you are in a deadly storm or otherwise similar situation, water is always your first bet.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright, spread out. No one goes alone. If anyone finds water, remember how to mark your paths so you can lead us all there and we can evaluate where we might want to build shelter from there.”
Eist looked to Dille, and they hurriedly joined hands before anyone could say anything else. Yacrist clicked his tongue disappointedly and Alynbach just melted to the floor like they had been given the worst news. Eist had never seen a jealous dragon before, but the purple beast really did seem more and more besotted with Veralda with each passing day.
“Alright everyone, head out.”
The two of them walked off, still hand in hand. They didn’t even seem to need to talk about which direction they went, their legs taking them a bit east as they cut through the big trees.
Eist looked up, taking in how the sun cut through the leaves and the branches seemed to wave together to make a sort of canopy for them. It was pretty, and she took a deep breath to relax herself.
“How are you feelin
g?” Dille asked.
“Not bad. The air is nice here. Crisp. Clean.”
“That’s what happens when you get far enough away from the city’s sewage and filth.”
“Rothaiche M’or isn’t that dirty.”
Dille sniffed. “Please, if Margaid hadn’t introduced aqueducts to you, your whole city would be knee-high in waste.”
“It’s not my city,” Eist argued.
“Isn’t it. You were born there. You live there now. You will swear your life to its defense.”
“I’ll swear my life to defense of all man,” Eist corrected. “And a city is just a city. I really only care about people.”
Dille let out a quiet laugh that Eist barely caught. “When did you get so soft?”
“Probably since I’ve almost died a couple times. It puts things into perspective.”
Fior chirped at her feet in agreement.
“Sometimes I swear they understand all of human speech and not just our commands.”
Eist nodded, chewing at her lip. “I think they do.”
“Are you saying that because you just feel like they do, or you feel like they do.”
“That’s getting confusing,” Eist said drolly. “But I guess, uh, somewhere in between? I don’t think it’s like they understand us word for word, but they get sentiments. And ideas. They know certain key phrases.”
“Like death?”
Fior let out a little warble from below, and Veralda did one of her barks from where she was trundling along behind them.
“Yeah, definitely death, it seems,” Dille said, her tone telling Eist that she was thinking and putting together things that the hard of hearing girl would have never thought to join together. “Interesting.”
“You know, whenever you say that, it sounds like you’re plotting something.”
“I’m always plotting something. We’re just all lucky that I’m on the side of good.”