Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles)
Page 20
“We won’t have our dragons to help us. They’ll have some kind of goal for us, usually it’s to evade capture as long as possible, and you have to survive being eaten by monsters or starving to death. Then once everyone’s been caught, the instructor’s start the mock interrogation.”
“Mock interrogation?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
Felix just shrugged. “Yeah, but we’ll get specialized training on how to handle it. It’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t so sure. Well, I knew Felix would probably be all right. He was strong and probably one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in our class. My own skill set was still questionable, though. I wasn’t sure talking to animals would do me any good.
When training finally began to wind down, the other fledglings made preparations to go back home for our three-month break. Felix was going back to his parents’ estate. He kept asking me over and over if I wanted to stay with him and train. He insisted his parents wouldn’t mind, or that they probably wouldn’t even notice I was there at all.
“They barely notice me and I’m their only child.” He chuckled as he packed his clothes and uniforms back into his bags.
“It sounds great,” I said. “It’s not because I don’t want to. There’s just, well, there’s someone I need to see.”
He turned a sly grin in my direction. “Your girl, huh?”
I blushed. “I told you, it’s not like that. But I promised her I’d see her as soon as I could.”
He kept grinning as he went back to packing. “Sure, sure. You’ve got quite a tale to tell her, huh? You think she’ll believe any of it?”
“I don’t know. I guess it is kind of a wild story.” I rubbed my thumb over my mother’s necklace, toying with it while I sat on the edge of my bed. I’d already packed all of my things up, but I didn’t want to leave until I absolutely had to.
Going back home was bittersweet. On the one hand, I was excited to see Katty again and tell her about everything. But then there was my family. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing them again, and being forced to sleep in the loft, or blamed for everything by my stepmother and her two little demon daughters. I knew being a dragonrider wasn’t going to change anything when it came to them.
Felix finished packing and picked up his bags, nodding for me to follow him as we left our room behind. We walked together one last time down the stairs, out of the dormitory, and across the open grounds toward the Roost. I took my time putting Mavrik’s saddle on. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Felix was doing the same. Neither of us wanted to leave, I guess.
When we met back outside the Roost, it was awkward. I didn’t want to admit it to him, but I was going to miss Felix. He’d become my best friend to replace Katty when she wasn’t around. Not having him there to watch my back, or tease me about my love life, was going to make it hard to get through three months of dealing with my family.
“Well, if you need anything, send me a letter. Or just show up, if you want.” He was looking at me with a worried expression. “Hey, uh . . . you’re a dragonrider now. So don’t let anyone push you around. You don’t have to put up with that anymore.”
I smiled at him. “I’ll try to remember that.”
“And keep training, like Lieutenant Rordin said,” he added. “Next year will be twice as hard as this one. You need to be ready.”
“Right.”
“And, seriously, if you want to come visit for a few days—”
“Felix?”
He paused. “Yeah?”
I smirked, reared back, and gave him a punch in the arm as hard as I could. “I’ll be fine. See you in three months.”
He just rolled his eyes because my punch didn’t even make him flinch. “Says the kid with noodles for arms,” he mumbled under his breath. Finally, he just gave me one of his sly, crooked smiles and gave me a swat on the back of the head.
I stood there for a few moments and watched him walk away. He climbed up onto Nova’s back, fastening down his luggage before he gave me one last wave and took off into the sky. I watched them go, climbing higher and higher, until they were nothing more than a tiny dark speck on the horizon.
Mavrik lowered his head and started making those curious chirping sounds and blinking his big yellow eyes at me. A crystal-clear image of Felix and I playing chase through the sky on the backs of our dragons flashed through my mind. I knew it came from Mavrik.
I turned around to pat his snout. “Yeah,” I told him. “Don’t worry. We’ll see them again.”
To be continued in Book Two:
AVIAN
COMING SOON!
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two
Three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two