“No.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, in case anyone was listening. “I was out looking for the heart.”
“Yeah, I figured that’s what you were doing when Kadryn told me you flew over Dragon’s Table last night,” Jallis said. “Did you and Lessie find anything? Why were you down in the catacombs?”
“We were running out of places to look,” I told him. I debated whether or not to tell him about the cultists, but decided against it. Really, what was Jallis going to be able to do? “But it doesn’t matter now. I’m back here.”
Jallis’s mouth softened in sympathy as he picked up on the note of misery in my voice. “The headmaster isn’t going to punish you or Lessie, Zara. He knows that Lord Tavarian is in Quoronis and you weren’t trying to desert. He didn’t even give Rhia or me demerits, even though we left without telling anyone, just a warning. I’m sure he’s just happy that you’re back safe after Salcombe kidnapped you. You’re still a cadet, Zara, which means that he and Tavarian are responsible for your safety.”
“Huh.” I didn’t really think about it, but if I were in their shoes, I would feel bad about letting me get kidnapped on their watch. “So, he knows Tavarian is in Quoronis?”
“Yes, although nobody has any idea if he’s made any progress with them.” Jallis’s lips twisted into a grimace. “I did tell the headmaster about the cannons, and he had me give a full report to the council, but I still don’t think they grasp the severity of the situation.”
“Lord Tavarian would,” I said with a sigh. “I wish he was back already. If Quoronis isn’t going to back down, then we need him more than ever so the council and the generals fully understand what we’re up against. The last thing we need to be doing is rushing into battle unprepared.”
“Speaking of rushing into battle,” Jallis said, “all the third-year cadets have been told to report to the forward camp near the Zallabarian border. Kadryn and I will be leaving tonight.”
“Tonight?” I twisted fully in my chair to face him. “But…but I just got back. I’ve barely had a chance to spend two minutes with you since you and Rhia rescued me from Salcombe’s ship.”
“I know.” He gave me a rueful smile and reached up to touch the side of my face. “That’s why I sought you out now. I wanted to catch up, and I wanted to say goodbye.”
The warmth of his hand sank into my skin, drawing me closer to him. Footsteps came down the hall toward us—probably another passing student—but if Jallis noticed, he didn’t care. He simply drew me to him and pressed his mouth against mine in a slow, tender kiss.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. This wasn’t fair. None of it was. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, Jallis and I had together, but I liked him and wanted to explore it. How would I have the chance to do that if he ended up maimed or killed? And what about Kadryn? Jallis’s dragon wasn’t a youngling like Lessie, but he was still only a few years old. I couldn’t bear the thought of him, or Lessie, or any dragon being shredded by cannon fire.
But that was the reality of war. Regardless of whether or not we’d provoked or bullied Zallabar into attacking us, we still needed to protect our land and our people. We would do what we must. Even if that meant sending these precious, rare creatures out to fight our battles.
Jallis stroked a hand down my back as he kissed me, sensing my grief and anger. The firm, comforting touch alleviated some of the turmoil in my heart, and I leaned into the kiss. The warmth his touch kindled inside me quickly began to burn hotter, and the kiss grew fiercer. It would be so easy to take his hand and tug him down the hallway, find an empty closet, and see just what else he could do with those hands—
“Miss Kenrook—” the headmaster began as the door opened, and then he made a strangled sound. “Mr. Lyton! What is the meaning of this?”
We flew apart, my cheeks burning crimson. Jallis’s face was rather red, too, but he covered up his embarrassment with a disarming grin.
“Sorry, headmaster. Just saying goodbye to my girl before I get sent off to the trenches.” He leaned in and pressed another kiss to my lips, though this one was far more chaste. “Don’t worry,” he murmured against my mouth. “Everything is going to be fine.”
I clung to those words, wanting to believe they were true, as I followed the headmaster into his office. Even if, in my heart, I knew he was wrong.
12
When I entered the mess hall the next morning, all heads turned to look at me.
I paused at the entrance for half a heartbeat, taking everyone in. Normally, the mess hall was a cheerful place, where cadets laughed and talked and bonded before and between classes, but today the mood was somber. Grim. The threat of war hung over our heads, and it showed in the faces of my fellow cadets. Shadows dogged their eyes, lines bracketed their mouths, and tension crackled in the air, so potent I almost believed it could ignite a powder keg and blow us all to smithereens, if someone brought said keg in here.
At least that will save the Zallabarians the effort of having to kill us, I thought sourly.
The moment passed, and I strode into the room, ignoring the stares. I was notorious around here for many reasons, chief among them having grown up in the lower city, away from dragon rider society. No one knew which dragon rider family I’d descended from, since I’d been orphaned, and I hadn’t even known I was a rider until a few months ago, when I’d broken into Tavarian’s house to try to steal the piece of heart he had hidden. Instead, I found what looked like a petrified dragon egg, and when I touched it, the dragon inside came to life and called to my soul.
Despite all the crap I'd had to deal with since becoming a rider, I didn't regret touching that dragon egg. Not one iota. I would face down the dragon god himself if he tried to come between Lessie and me—she was as much a part of me as my beating heart, and the thought of being separated even for an instant was enough to make my gut twist in misery.
Lessie’s consciousness rubbed against my own, a silent, reassuring touch, and I smiled despite the grim mood in the room. No matter what happened, even if we did get thrown into this stupid war, at least the two of us would have each other. The bond that tied us together ensured that we were never truly separated, even if we were miles apart.
“Hey,” Rhia said as I sat down across from her. My breakfast tray was loaded with eggs, toast, and oatmeal, and I immediately tucked in. “You sleep okay?”
“As well as anyone else in this place,” I said with a shrug. “You?”
Rhia grinned. "Like a log. Major Falkieth worked us hard yesterday, so Ykos and I were both exhausted."
“I bet.” My shoulders tightened with tension. “She introduce any new drills?”
“Mostly evasive maneuvers for us first-years,” Rhia said. “Although I heard a rumor we might start stealth training soon.”
“Stealth training?”
“Learning how to stay hidden in the sky, day or night,” another cadet said, his brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “I think it’ll mostly be night flying, though. Word is they want to use us for reconnaissance and possibly carrying messages.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “I had a feeling that might be the case.” Even though I wasn’t happy about getting pulled into the war at all, at least the academy was going to give us proper training. All that night flying Lessie and I had been doing was about to come in handy.
“I don’t know why everyone is so gloomy,” another cadet, this one a second-year named Kade, said with a scoff. “So what if the Zallabarians have a few cannons? We should still be able to outmaneuver them. Our dragons are fast, and they breathe fire. What do you think happens if you breathe fire onto a barrel of gunpowder?”
“It explodes!” another cadet crowed, and the crowd rippled with laughter.
“You’re idiots,” I snapped, anger heating my blood at their lackadaisical attitude. The room grew quiet as eyes turned to me, but I stood up rather than shrinking away, refusing to back down. “Rhia and I saw those cannons
up close, and her dragon, Ykos, got a taste of what the shrapnel bombs could do. They’re going to have more cannons than we have dragons, and for all you know, they might have other weapons that we don’t even know about.”
“So what?” Kade sneered. “Are we supposed to just sit here and cower in our beds because of what the Zallabarians might be able to do to us? We’re dragon riders. We fear no one.”
Cheers rose from the crowd, but I raked them all with a scathing look. "Look at you all. So eager to rush into battle. How many in this room have dragons?"
The room fell silent again as eight people slowly raised their hands. I shook my head in disgust. “Eight. The rest of you have no idea what it’s like to bond with a dragon, to share your soul with such a magnificent creature, and yet you’re so happy to send us all off into battle. Some of you will eventually become lieutenants and captains, maybe even generals someday, ordering us into battle. Perhaps, before you get there, you might want to think about how to save lives, not just how to take them.”
I snatched up my tray and stormed out of the mess hall, still fuming. Whispers trailed in my wake, and a couple of the cadets scoffed and snickered, but as I left, the whispers turned to worried buzzing. Good. Maybe I’d given these jerks something to think about.
I finished the rest of my breakfast in the garden, then reviewed the new schedule. All normal classes had been canceled; instead, we’d be dividing our time between the greenhouse, the blacksmith, and the training fields, preparing for war.
The next couple of days passed in a blur of activity. All of us were assigned to different professors to help with the war effort. I spent half my mornings with the herbology professor, mixing up poultices and potions to be sent to the camps, and the other half with the blacksmith, helping him at the forge as he crafted and repaired weapons and armor. In the afternoons, we were all out on the field with Major Falkieth, who put us through our paces, along with two other drill instructors.
“Very good,” Major Falkieth said in my headpiece as Lessie and I successfully executed a barrel roll together. “Lord Tavarian has been training you well.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a pang in my heart even as my chest swelled with pride. I’d been worried Major Falkieth was still angry with me, but she seemed to have put my transgression behind her. Even so, her words reminded me of my missing benefactor, and my mood sank. Was Tavarian ever going to come back? Of the three countries we were about to go to war with, Quoronis was by far the most civilized, but that didn’t mean Tavarian was completely safe. I wished he’d gone with an escort, even if he did have magic to protect himself with. There was only so much one man could do against the might of a nation.
As we moved into the second week of training, Major Falkieth did indeed start us on stealth training, as Rhia had predicted. “You’ll each be given a specific building on Dragon’s Table to seek out,” Major Falkieth said as she paced back and forth in front of us. A cadet came down the line with a box, and we each reached in and grabbed a piece of paper. “Your task is to fly to that building, jot down as many details about it as possible, and then return, all without being spotted by the city guards. They are on alert to expect you, so don’t think this is going to be easy.”
“But Major Falkieth,” one of the cadets complained, “how are we supposed to see anything when there’s no moon out, and we’ll be so far away?”
Major Falkieth grinned, hoisting up a leather sack that had been sitting nearby on the ground. “With these.”
She opened up the bag and walked down the line, handing each of us a pair of goggles. My heart rose in excitement as she pressed one into my hand—I’d been missing the goggles that Carina had given me, which I’d left back at Tavarian’s along with every other valuable I owned. They didn’t have the same dials and knobs that my other ones did, but my treasure sense told me that they were valuable, and magical in nature.
“These are special night-vision goggles,” Falkieth shouted as she came to stand in front of us again. She held up her own pair for us to see, the torchlight flickering across her face. “When you put them on, you’ll notice a green haze come over your vision, but that’s normal. They are enchanted to be unbreakable, but I wouldn’t drop them if I were you. I think you’ll find it a lot harder to remain undetected if you have to swoop to the ground to retrieve them.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd as we all put the goggles on. As Falkieth had said, a green haze immediately covered my vision, but suddenly I was able to make out details the torches hadn’t been able to illuminate. I could see the academy building and the stables clearly now, and as I swept my gaze across the field, I caught the rustle of grass as a rodent scampered away.
“They don’t zoom in like my other ones do,” I said ruefully to Lessie, who was lined up with the other dragons behind me. She had grown almost fifty percent larger since we arrived—the stable masters were practically force-feeding her, and her body, eager to catch up after being stuck in that egg for so long, happily gobbled up all the energy. When she wasn’t out training with me, she slept, her body using that food to grow her muscles and tendons.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have excellent night vision.”
“This is one of those exercises where the bond between dragon and rider becomes even more important,” Major Falkieth said, almost as if she’d read my mind. “Your dragons have fantastic vision, day and night, and can see things from far distances that you and I cannot. While you may not be able to make out certain details from a distance, they will, so use that. The more detailed your descriptions are, the more points you will get.”
With that, Lessie and I mounted up, and we all flew into the night sky. Ironically, the building we'd been given was Barrigan's Antiques, the shop of the antiquities collector I used to work with who'd been trying to drive me out of business. I wondered what he'd think if he could see Lessie and me now, flying over his building.
“Here we are,” Lessie said, hovering above the building. She’d positioned herself far enough away that the guards on the ground would not be able to see her, and now that her wings had grown stronger, she was able to hold herself more steadily in one position. “You have your pen and paper?”
“Yep.”
I whipped out my notepad, and between the two of us, filled several pages with notes. In addition to the basic decorative details about the building, I jotted down the number of windows, exits, and entrances, how many guards were in the area, and other important details, asking Lessie questions to help clarify things with her superior sight. As someone who used to break into places like this for a living, it was practically second nature, and the night-vision goggles as well as Lessie’s sight made the job even easier. In no time, we turned around and headed back to the field.
Major Falkieth was very impressed with my notes, and the following nights she made sure to give Lessie and me tasks that were slightly more difficult than the others’. On more than one occasion, she and the drill sergeants looked at Lessie as they talked, which made me uneasy. Were they singling us out for a particular task?
Lessie, of course, was thrilled about it. “Of course they are going to give us a mission,” she said, puffing her chest out with pride. “I may be small, but I am much faster than these other dragons, and you have the eyes and brains for this sort of work.”
“That’s not reassuring,” I grumbled.
She flicked her tongue out, her fiery gaze sparking with annoyance. “I know that you don’t want to be involved in the war, Zara, but since we have no choice, we may as well make ourselves useful. Perhaps you do not care either way, but my pride will not allow me to be relegated to the bench when so many lives are at stake.”
“I don’t mind benches,” I shot back, stung and a little surprised by the dig. I didn’t think Lessie had it in her to be catty toward me, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She was sassy to everyone else, after all. “They’re sturdy, supportive, and they don’t generally
put you in the line of fire.”
The next night, Major Falkieth changed things up a bit. “Tonight, you are going to work in pairs,” she announced, the wind whipping her steel-colored braid through the air. A storm was brewing in the air, and I shivered a little as the chill blew straight through my riding leathers. “Earlier tonight, we hid a series of boxes in Briarwood Forest. Each box has a symbol on it, four boxes per symbol, twenty boxes total. Your objective is to retrieve your boxes only and return with them to base within two hours. Those who fail to complete the task within the allotted time will be mucking out stalls tomorrow.”
Groans went up from the other cadets, but I stifled a grin as I felt a surge of excitement from Lessie. They might only be boxes, but this was a treasure hunt, and as such, I had a distinct advantage.
To our mutual delight, Major Falkieth paired Rhia and me up. “This is going to be so fun,” she gushed as we studied the symbol we were given—an eight-pointed cross.
“Mount up!” Major Falkieth shouted. “Your time is about to start!”
Hurriedly, we scrambled up our dragons and into the saddles. Major Falkieth blew her whistle, the shrill sound echoing in the night, and all ten dragons launched into the air, heading for the forest.
Briarwood Forest was roughly half an hour’s flight from Zuar City, a small patch of sparsely wooded forest split down the middle by a minor river. The stinging cold was even worse up here, and I ducked my head as icy drizzle began to spatter my cheeks. I was certain Major Falkieth had deliberately picked a night with bad weather—after all, riders didn’t have the luxury of waiting for clear skies to do battle. We were expected to perform in all kinds of weather.
“Here we go,” Lessie said, coming in low. She twisted to the side to maneuver through a narrow space between the trees, and I squeezed my legs against her sides as I gripped the pommel, clinging tight. “Do you sense anything?”
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