Dragon School: The Dark Prince

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  We were like a shooting star, darting toward the horizon, the island below us becoming nothing but a blur beneath our feet. I gasped, clinging to the saddle horn and just grateful that I didn’t need to direct Raolcan like most dragon riders did. He was capable of flying this course without direction.

  Woooeee! Now, this is the life! Get them to take you out like this every day!

  Our launch had thrown us right into line behind Orra and now Raolcan spun in a quick barrel roll like she did, exactly in time. As soon as my head cleared I saw that we were right where we should be in formation, not crowding Orra, but only a heartbeat behind her, just as she was only a heartbeat behind Artis. Beside me, Lenora gave a dragon rider signal, a single thumb held up. I needed someone to teach me these signs as soon as possible, although judging from her huge grin she was pleased with my performance.

  We swooped in our “V” formation around the island, throwing in the occasional trick move and then Artis gave a hand signal and suddenly instead of a “V,” Olla and then Orra and then Lenora formed a long line. Raolcan moved to his place at the tail of the line without any need for me to prompt him.

  It’s easy enough to see what she wants, and we dragons can talk without hand signals.

  That would be nice. It would make it less confusing trying to guess what people were feeling and thinking. We trailed in the long line and then Artis dove and the line followed her until we were formed in a vertical ring, snout to tail to snout again. It was exhilarating and dizzying to spin like that, but another hand signal and the ring shifted to turn horizontal. A third signal and we were back in the “V” racing toward the island.

  We spent the entire morning drilling formations until my thighs were weak as jelly and my head was light and swimming from the constant shifts of direction and altitude. When it – at last – became clear that we were headed back to the alcoves, I breathed a sigh of relief. I needed solid ground under my feet for long enough to recover. Not that I didn’t love flying, but it was hard work.

  Not for me. I hope they drill us every day.

  Don’t worry, Raolcan. Grandis Elfar said it was one of only two things she wanted me taught – although I’d also like to add those hand signals.

  Good. Hold them to that. I like stretching my wings.

  Our landing was violent, like a hawk catching a rabbit. We flew full speed toward the alcove and at the last second Raolcan grabbed it with his feet, arresting our movement and flinging us into the alcove. My heart was like a hurricane and it was several short breaths before I managed to slow it down enough to steady my shaking hands. Was I cut out for this life?

  You’re doing great. Even little dragons aren’t put through their paces this quickly. Just keep trusting me and you’ll pass with flying colors.

  I leaned down and pressed my cheek to his warm back, comforted by his supportive thoughts. My leg twinged badly, and my back was sore from traveling so much with the leg dangling to one side. I needed to make a proper sling or something to hold the dead weight.

  Reluctantly, I slid off his back with a last caress and set to work removing his saddle and tack and rubbing him down with the basil oil he loved so much. Did he need food?

  They’ll feed me again soon. They fed us this morning. It’s different here than at the school. There are stable masters who tend to those things.

  At least he was being taken care of. He’d tell me if he needed something more, wouldn’t he?

  Of course, I would.

  I smiled to myself and finished the work. I was getting hungry enough to eat whatever they were going to feed Raolcan.

  Day old sheep. Mmmm.

  Or maybe not.

  “Amel? Are you there?” The silvery voice made me freeze in the act of adjusting my crutch. It couldn’t be ... could it?

  Chapter Twelve

  “Savette? Is that you?” The sun was right behind her and I couldn’t make out her face. She was wearing a filmy dress. I hadn’t seen Savette in a dress since our first day at Dragon School.

  She stepped into the alcove so that I could see her and then threw her arms around me. I gasped, so stunned that it took me a moment to remember to hug her back.

  “I thought you were angry with me.”

  “I was.” She sounded like she’d been crying.

  “I don’t think you’ve hugged me before.”

  “I don’t hug people, as a rule.” She pulled back and I studied her expression. What had happened over the last few days? Her expression was hard but underneath it was a trembling softness like she was fighting off fear. She grabbed my upper arm and began tugging me. “Come on.”

  “I’m supposed to go and eat.” I couldn’t just leave my knot and follow her, could I? What would Artis say?

  “There’s food where I’m bringing you.”

  I licked my lips nervously. I wanted to make peace with Savette. It troubled me that we had left each other on bad terms. But, what kind of trouble would I get into if I abandoned my studies to chase after her?

  “Amel, I’m about to be married to a man I’ve never met. I think you can spare me your lunch hour to talk.”

  It seemed reasonable enough. I gripped my crutch more firmly and followed her. She led me out of the stables and down the long ladders to the bridge-woven city. Savette seemed familiar with it already, ducking under a bridge here and pulling me through an alley there. I was grateful that Leng’s crutch made movement easier, but even with that new burst of energy, I found following her difficult. She stopped every few minutes and waited for me, but she was impatient. I felt like it was all she could do not to roll her eyes.

  Isle City was packed with people – even in the back alleys and under the bridges. Some people slept, huddled in crannies and nooks along our path. Others pushed wheelbarrows of fish, clearly delivering them to customers, while still others pushed wheelbarrows of waste to who-knew-where. Smells of spicy food and bread wafted from the back doors of what must have been restaurants and even in the alleys, sellers hawked their wares – mostly things of a practical nature such as cut cloth and baskets.

  I thought I was probably seeing a side to the city that I wouldn’t have seen with Grandis Elfar.

  “Have you been here before, Savette?” I asked. “You seem very familiar with the place.”

  “One city is much like another,” she said with a shrug. It was hard to reconcile this hard, indifferent Savette with the passionate, high-minded Savette from Dragon School. Eventually, she led me through a white iron-wrought gate in a white iron-wrought fence. It looked like it was woven of rose vines and roses, interwoven and connected to such a degree that I couldn’t tell which were the real roses from behind the gate and which were the false ones of the gate.

  “Stop staring at the gate, come on!” Savette threw the gate open and pulled me into an enclosed courtyard with plants growing in glorious sprays and carefully tended blossoming.

  “Where is this place?” I breathed.

  “It’s my private garden behind the High Castelan’s North Court – or at least it is for now. There are hot springs. Have you ever soaked in a hot spring?”

  I shook my head. I never had.

  “I have an extra bathing dress. Follow me. It will feel amazing after sitting on the back of a dragon all morning.”

  I followed her, still stunned by this new, slightly raw Savette. She was so different from the frosty, controlled Savette of Dragon School. I noticed as I hobbled after her that the ground was smooth, but rippled, like it was raw stone, not flagstones laid down. I couldn’t help but follow the patterns of it with my eyes as we moved into her rooms – it was still the flooring there, too, even when she deposited me behind a silk screen and handed me a black linen bathing dress.

  “Dress quickly. We have so much to talk about.”

  I shed my leathers, put on the small bathing dress and stepped out to see Savette in a matching one.

  “It’s through here,” she said and we went back out to the garden to where a rock
face seemed to merge with the side of the white palace.

  The rock face bent inward, the rippled rock looking natural and very shallow water flooding over the rocks here and there. To one side, it flowed in a narrow channel out into the garden and as my eyes adjusted to what was definitely a natural cave in the rock, I saw a wide pool with blue lanterns lit and hung all around it. Food was laid out on a tray beside the spring. Savette was already stepping into the warm water, and I carefully set my crutch to the side and sat down so I could work my way toward the water as well. It smelled of salt and some other sort of mineral that I didn’t know the name of, but it felt invigorating as I slipped in and let the hot water ebb the pain in my muscles away.

  “And now we talk,” Savette said, looking at me intently. I was pretty sure that she wouldn’t let me go until I told her everything – and I swallowed as I realized suddenly that to do that I would have to go against everything Grandis Elfar and Leng had told me to do.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She cleared her throat and looked around her nervously. “I have no allies here, Amel. But you saved my life, so I think you may be one. I’ve been thinking about you and your courageous heart. We can’t talk about this anywhere else, do you understand?”

  I shook my head. What was she talking about?

  “You’d think sound would carry here, but the way the cave is shaped and the pouros stone of the walls and floor make it a dead zone. It’s impossible to eavesdrop on anyone in the pool.”

  “So, that’s why you brought me here?”

  She nodded her head. “I have to talk to someone! I got a letter from my father saying he had agreed to allow the Dominar to give me to Baojang as a peace offering. War is brewing, and it is their hope that a marriage between the prince of Baojang and a High Castelan family will prevent hostility.”

  “Why you? Why not Starie?” If the Magikas were to be believed it was meant to be her.

  Savette nodded. “I thought you knew nothing about Castelan politics, but you are correct that Castelan Atrelan would have been the more natural choice than Castelan Leedris, but the Dominar knows our loyalty.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to cause a war. I know what war means. Innocent people will die. Little children. Families. And not just from the conflict. I was taught history well by my tutors. War causes shortages and accidental cruelty. People won’t be able to feed their families. There will be orphans and widows. There will be farms that fail and people who lose everything. I can’t let that happen if I can prevent it.” Her eyes teared up. “But I don’t want to marry a man I know nothing about.”

  I cleared my throat. Now was the time to say something. I felt my face heating and my heart beating quickly. I hated drama and conflict, but I needed to be brave, didn’t I? Savette was being brave.

  “I know something about him.” Her mouth formed an “o” of surprise. “I met him on my way here. He was on a ship – or rather he found me on an island when his ship sheltered there in the storm.”

  “And what was he like?” She asked it like the answer meant life or death for her. I supposed that in a way it did. I gauged my answer carefully.

  “He was young and fit. Attractive.”

  “And? Did you speak? Did he say anything to you?”

  “He wanted to know about the woman he was going to marry and he seemed unhappy when he heard it was you – like maybe he doesn’t like your family.” She was nodding like that made sense. “He wanted it to be Starie.”

  “So, he knows about her.”

  “And he wants them to give him twenty dragon riders and dragons as a dowry.”

  Savette snorted, adjusting herself in the hot water. Already sweat was beading on her brow and I felt a little light-headed myself. My leg did feel better in the water, the ache in my hip easing a little with the warm heat and whatever salts were mixed in the springs.

  “He won’t get dragon riders – except for me. The Dominar would never allow that. We, alone of the nations, ride the skies and the Dominar would never allow otherwise.”

  I shifted, uncomfortably.

  “What? You know something, Amel.”

  “Some of our dragons have been taken already. The Magikas who were with me stole them.” I told her the story, sparing no details.

  She sat in silence when I had finished, a line of worry in the middle of her forehead, her expression knotted like she was thinking through a problem.

  “It’s unbelievable,” she said eventually, motioning for me to eat.

  I helped myself to fruit and bread. “It’s true.”

  She looked for a long time at me as I ate, like she was trying to decide whether to believe me. “Maybe you misunderstood.”

  “Maybe you have more enemies than you think.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Even my friends are enemies now, Amel. I only came to you because I know you have no connections, no friends but me, and no allies. I know that sounds harsh, and I guess I’m sorry, but we both know it’s true. You’re the only person I can trust not to use this somehow.”

  I twisted my hands together nervously under the water. “I was told not to tell anyone. Including you. Maybe you shouldn’t trust me, Savette.”

  “Or maybe that is why I should trust you. I need your help, Amel. Not just for me – although, oh sweet skies I need it! – but to prevent war and save innocent lives. We need to figure out what is going on with the Magikas and the Prince of Baojang, and if it is what you say we need to figure out what to do about it.” She paused for long enough that her eyes had time to grow glassy with tears again. She seemed desperate. “Are you with me, Amel?”

  I nodded, swallowing to try to wet my throat. It was dry as sand.

  She grasped my hand under the water in a tight clasp. “I need you to say it.”

  “I’m with you.”

  Now that I’d said it, I knew there would be no going back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Savette snuck me back to my rooms a few hours later and I hobbled in to find the other girls in my knot sorting through a chest of fabric.

  “Amel! Where have you been!” Artis dropped the cloth she was holding and hurried over to me, hands on her hips. “We did so well in practice and then you just disappeared. I had to make up an excuse for Grandis Elfar.”

  “The rest of us have been practicing etiquette,” Lenora said from where she was running her hands over an ivory cloth. “Not that we need the practice. If you fail that, you’ll wash out of Dragon School and then we won’t have to pick our own dresses for the welcome gala. You can pick them for us – and alter them and dress our hair while you’re at it.”

  Artis tsked at Lenora before turning back to Amel. “I know that it’s hard for you, but that’s no excuse to think that the rules don’t apply. I won’t make excuses again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Artis,” I said contritely.

  “Were you upset about something? Did you struggle with something in the formation? You held your place just fine.”

  Should I tell her about Savette? No. Savette hadn’t sworn me to secrecy, but I’d told her things I wasn’t supposed to tell. It felt right to keep our friendship or alliance or whatever it was a secret.

  “I don’t understand the hand signals.” After all, I needed to know those and they were a convenient excuse.

  Artis clapped her hand over her mouth and Orra began to laugh from her place beside the chest. She made a few hand signals to her twin who joined in the laughter. I felt my face growing hot. What were they saying about me?

  “I didn’t think of that!” Artis said, her voice muffled by her hand.

  “Stop covering your mouth,” Lenora said from where she was sitting. “It’s a bad habit. The rest of us manage to confess our failings with our hands at our sides like human beings. I’m taking the rose silk. I think it will suit my complexion. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  She sauntered over to a painted silk screen – similar to the one in Savette’s room but simpler in design – and disap
peared from sight. Artis’ hand fell from her mouth.

  “I’m sorry. It’s something that they teach you as soon as you learn flying formations, but you haven’t learned that yet, have you? It’s amazing that we didn’t lose you out there, and the prince could arrive any day! We have to be perfect!” She paused like she was waiting for input so I nodded gravely, hoping it would mollify her. “We’ll start drilling you immediately.”

  “Maybe she should at least choose a dress first,” Olla said with a smirk for her twin.

  “Oh. Yes. A dress. Grandis Elfar only left us the chest for one hour. Come on over and choose one, Amel. They’re on loan from the High Castelan and we have to give them back when we’re done, but we can’t go to the Prince’s Gala in Dragon Rider leathers!”

  Why not? After all, we were dragon riders. Would the military men be in out of uniform, too?

  “They aren’t bad,” Lenora said, stepping out from behind the screen in the rose silk. It suited her, which made sense since she was born noble. Her gait was graceful and the dress seemed to flow along like water over ground.

  “You look pretty in pink,” Orra said, pulling a bright orange dress from the chest.

  “Soft colors are fashionable right now,” Lenora said with a frown. Her rose dress had a soft, flowing skirt, but the bodice was completely made of rose lace. It suited her thick black braid.

  “I like orange,” Orra said, stripping off her leathers in the middle of the room to try the dress on. Olla had a turquoise colored dress out and she was inspecting the length of the skirt.

  Artis spun a soft green silk this way and that under her critical eye.

  There were too many eyes on me to make a good decision. When it was my turn, I reached into the chest and pulled out the first one that I found, a filmy cream dress with a long flowing skirt and a high lace neck that went right up to my collarbone. It had no sleeves, which was fortunate because it should make using my crutch easier.