“What is it?” Caron called. “Has something happened to your father?”
Trysten’s jaw tightened at the question. Once she reached her mother, she stopped and leaned forward. Her hands rested on her knees as she panted.
“Trysten?”
“I told… I told Father… that I want to be in the consideration.”
Caron lowered her bow to her side. Her shoulders slumped. “Oh Little Heart—”
“Don’t!” Trysten snapped. “Don’t call me that. I am of age now. And it’s my right. It’s my right to be in the consideration. I am under the protection of this weyr.”
Caron’s face softened along with her shoulders. “But women aren’t allowed to participate in the consideration.”
“It doesn’t say that women can’t. It doesn’t say anything at all about women. But he says that women can’t even be dragoneers, that we can’t connect with dragons like the men can. But he’s wrong! And if women can’t bond with the alphas, then why is there a law to forbid it? It makes no sense! But he won’t even let me try! He’s already decided that Paege will be the next Dragoneer. He’s already decided it before the consideration has even begun.”
Caron lifted her palm in a manner to suggest Trysten calm herself. “It is his choice to make.”
Trysten resisted the urge to stomp her foot, to let out a frustrated grunt that would undermine her claim to be of age. She peered out across the long grass, whipped and whirled into rolling patterns of shifting green by the winds cast from the winter storms in the mountains. Between the gusts, the River Gul babbled, let out a low chuckle as if amused by her simple, inconsequential frustrations.
Trysten looked back to her mother. “But he won’t even let me try. That’s the worst part. He’s still holding the consideration, and most of the hordesmen will compete, but he won’t even let me try. How fair is that?”
“It’s not fair at all. But it is life.” Caron reached out and touched her daughter on the side of her shoulder. “Your father is the Dragoneer. It his duty to choose his successor, just as his grandfather chose him.”
Trysten shook her head. “His grandfather didn’t choose him. Aeronwind did. It’s the alpha who chooses the Dragoneer, and Elevera isn’t going to choose Paege. He’s not… He doesn’t know the dragons like I do. He doesn’t… feel them the way that I do.”
Caron’s hand dropped back to her side. “You think Elevera will choose you?”
Trysten looked away again. Heat flushed over her face. “Why are you choosing his side? Don’t you think it’s unfair that he won’t let me try out just because I’m a woman?”
Caron didn’t respond right away. “I think it’s fair that he doesn’t want to see his daughter hurt. I think it’s fair to not want her to suffer like he has, especially for nothing at all. Paege will be chosen. The Dragoneer knows the dragons better than anyone.”
Trysten lifted an eyebrow and glared at her mother. Caron cracked a grin, then attempted to smother it.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Caron said with a shake of her head. “It’s just that you remind me of your father with that expression.”
The raised eyebrow dropped away. Trysten did her best to adopt a stony, impassible face.
“If the Dragoneer is the one who knows the dragons best, then I should be Dragoneer.”
Caron frowned and looked up the hill, to the long, arched hall of the weyr.
“Can you talk to him?” Trysten asked. “I just want a chance to compete in the consideration. I want to show him what I can do. If he wants to choose Paege, that’s his right, but he has to let me compete. Please, Mother. Talk to him.”
Caron returned her attention. A gust of wind stirred several loose ends of blonde hair about her face, wisps not long enough to be caught up in the braids she wore.
She shook her head. “I can’t, Little Heart.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is his decision to make. The other hordesmen are owed the right of the consideration. They’ve flown with your father into the fighting season. You have not. And since you will not be chosen regardless, I can see why he would not want to risk you, or even the safety of another dragon. Especially after what happened to Aeronwind.”
Despite herself, Trysten’s mouth fell open. “How could you say that? How can you side with him? Don’t you think it’s unfair to be kept out of the consideration? Why don’t the laws apply to me—to us—just because we’re women?”
Caron shook her head. “It’s not because you’re a woman; it is because you are his daughter.”
Trysten shook her head and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s not true! So if any other woman in the village were to make a declaration, he’d let her into the consideration?”
Caron’s gaze fell to the grasses between them. Whether she found an answer there or not, she looked back up to Trysten. A stiff gust pushed her back, and she leaned into it, refusing to let the wind make her shift a foot forward and brace herself.
“I don’t know, but probably not. Your father has sworn to uphold tradition. He has sworn to uphold the things that make the kingdom what it has been for centuries. These things are important to him. He puts his life on the line every time he takes the village sword and flies off into battle. He would die for these things, for everyone in this village. For anyone in the kingdom. How can you expect him not to take our traditions seriously?”
Trysten glanced up to the weyr, then out into the space between the village and her mother. A man and a woman led a mule along the seemingly endless road that ran down into the low plains. The mule was weighed down with packs and bags that swayed with each of the animal’s steps. How long had it taken that couple and their mule to come from the mother city to trade goods for Aerona’s wool and knitted clothing? It would do her no good to descend into the mother city and seek out the Dragon Master. He would do nothing to help her cause anyway. If she couldn’t find an ally in her own mother, then there was no ally to be had.
“Here,” Caron said as she presented the bow.
Trysten took it without thinking, without questioning. Her mother then slung the strap of the quiver over her head and held it out to Trysten. “I am sorry, and I wish I could help you, but you were born in the time and place in which I was ready to give birth to you, and there was nothing that could change that. The world may be unfair, but it is not immutable. Join Paege. Support him. Become his closest ally. Use your special bond with the dragons to support him. He will need the help. Perhaps he will make a hordesman of you, and when the time is right, you may yet have a chance at being Dragoneer.”
“When Paege dies?”
Caron glanced up at the weyr. “Or Elevera.”
Trysten shivered at the thought. She then held up the bow and quiver. “And what am I to do with these?”
Caron nodded at the brambles behind her. “Take your frustration to the hares, then bring dinner back to the house.”
Trysten let out a sigh lost to the wind as Caron stepped past. She stopped, reached out, and drew her daughter into an embrace.
“It’s not fair, Little Heart. Not at all. But if life was fair, what would you have to strive for?”
“I’d strive to be a better dragoneer,” Trysten said, her voice muffled in her mother’s woolen vest.
A grating, clacking noise peppered the wind. Trysten and Caron turned to look up at the weyr. A minute later, Elevera, gold against the gray clouds, leaped out of the end of the hall and into the air. Though they were too distant to make out the rider, Trysten knew it was Paege. Behind him, several more dragons took to the sky. The multicolored dragons contrasted greatly with the gray of the clouds, and Trysten’s heart nearly stuttered to a stop in awe as she watched the patches of color climb and shift, writhe and rise, circling back, forming a wide ring of dragons and riders in the sky.
Caron stepped back. “I plan to make enough stew to feed all the weyrmen. Hunt accordingly.” She began her return to the village between glan
ces at the sky.
Elevera twisted her wings, nearly went sideways, and began to spiral back down to the village. She then folded her wings back and started to plummet. The other riders did the same, but none of the other dragons were as bright or as large as Elevera, and so they were little but the fading tail of a shooting star.
A shout and a snap pierced the wind. A dole of doves poured out of a pen and rose into the sky like smoke that would not dissipate. Elevera tucked her wings further back and dropped even faster. Her neck stretched out long and straight as if to make an arrow of herself, and the heights above served as the string that snapped her into her downward motion. At the top of her back, just beneath where her neck met her shoulders, a man clung to her, his feet buried in the stirrups of his saddle. His hands were tucked underneath him, but Trysten knew he had the reigns twisted up around his wrists. The reigns were more about keeping him in the saddle than they were about giving the illusion of control over a beta dragon.
With a flick of her wings, Elevera darted to the side of the dole, then snapped her wings open wide. She swooped down and around the dole. The doves, startled by the dragon below and then before them, shifted and began to climb to their right. More dragons fell from the sky and snapped their wings open to startle the doves into different directions, herding the dole to where Paege had indicated.
Trysten’s breath caught at the display. If the sun had broken through the clouds and shone on the outstretched wings of copper and silver, maroon and emerald green and a pale blue, she would have dropped to her knees beneath the power of such a sight.
It was her place. She had grown up in the village, and never had she stepped foot beyond the pastures that swaddled it. But it was not her home. Her home was up there, in the air and skies. The sight of it filled her with a longing that brought an ache to her teeth and a dampness to her eyes. Her toes curled inside her boots as if trying to slip free of the constraints of gravity.
Elevera swung around, flapped her wings and gained altitude. She spread her wings, tilted to catch the wind, and let it thrust her back, careening towards the doves like a net. At the last minute, she flapped her wings once and shifted her body in a fluid, serpentine motion that sent the doves scattering to the south. Two of the smaller dragons dropped down and sent the doves flying to the east again.
Trysten glanced at the bow and quiver still clutched in her hands, then up at the dole of doves spiraling in a tight knot under the harassment of the dragons.
It was a lucky day to be a hare, and not so much a dove.
She slung the quiver over her shoulder and headed for the weyr on the hill above.
Chapter 6
The weyr was mostly empty when Trysten arrived. Likely, the weyrmen stood outside watching the sport with her father. The stalls, too, were largely empty, though a few dragons remained behind.
Trysten jogged down the aisle to survey the mounts that remained. She stopped before the stall of the green dragon that had tripped her that morning. He was a courier dragon, a bit larger than a horse, but small even for a male. He was used largely for errands, for flights to the mother city and back. He was a brilliant, emerald green, but he had never demonstrated the ability to assert himself like the other, larger dragons in battle exercises. She had seen him in flight, however, and what he lacked in brawn he made up for with speed and nimbleness.
“Want to take a flight, Ulbeg?” Trysten asked.
The dragon appeared to give a nod, a slight flick of his head as if he understood.
Trysten grinned, then retrieved riding gear from a nearby rack. The dragon stood in his stall and watched as Trysten threw a saddle blanket over his back and smoothed out the wrinkles. As she reached for a stool, the dragon crouched, going down onto the elbows of his forelegs. Trysten’s eyes widened a bit at the gesture as if the dragon not only understood, but was impatient to get underway. Trysten patted the dragon at the base of the neck, just above where it met the shoulder. The scales beneath her hand were hard, tough, and warm, like living stone.
Ulbeg let out a soft sigh, nearly a hiss. Trysten threw the saddle up and over the dragon’s back. He immediately stood and cleared access for her to reach the straps and buckles that would keep the saddle in place no matter what maneuvers the dragon made in the sky.
A man cleared his throat.
Trysten looked up. A weyrman named Bolsar stood at the head of the stall, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t think your father would approve.”
Trysten returned her attention to the straps and buckles. “I’m just getting Ulbeg ready.”
“For what?”
Trysten glanced at the man again. He appeared to be irritated as if his time was being wasted.
“For a flight.”
“And who will be flying him? Your father left us orders that you are not permitted to be around the dragons until after the consideration.”
Trysten’s brow hardened at that news. Her teeth clenched. Her hands drew the slack of the leather straps through the buckles with a little more force than necessary. The well-oiled straps creaked. Ulbeg didn’t budge.
“Surely that doesn’t apply to Ulbeg? Who would fly him in the consideration?”
“I don’t care who does what with him. Your father said you are not to touch any of the dragons. Now please step out of there before I have to go fetch him.”
Trysten fed the tongue of the next strap through the buckle. To the wilds with it. She wanted her father to see her determination.
“Fetch him, then.”
“He’s out supervising the games. They’re running a round of dole herding.”
“I saw.”
“Wait,” Bolsar said. “Why do you have a bow and quiver? What is it that you think you’re going to do?”
“I think I’m going to take Ulbeg for a flight. If you want to tell my father, then I suggest you step to it. I won’t be in here much longer.”
“Now Trysten, if I have to go out and fetch your father while he’s supervising the hordesmen, you know how irritated he’ll be,” Bolsar pleaded with her as if she were a child.
Trysten tightened the next buckle. “I don’t plan on hiding from him.”
Bolsar took a step forward. Ulbeg swept his head down past the weyrman. Trysten looked up in time to see the light and the shimmering heat of a small puff of fire as Bolsar backpedaled a few steps. His eyes grew wide, and his face pale. He glanced from Ulbeg to Trysten and back.
Ulbeg lowered his head and held his jaw open. Another hiss escaped the normally meek dragon.
Trysten reached out and placed a hand along the base of the dragon’s neck, as much to calm him as to reassure herself that it was there, that she had seen Ulbeg fend off the weyrman with threat of fire. Would he hurt Bolsar if the man tried to physically stop her from taking the dragon?
“Did you…?” Bolsar asked.
Trysten’s hand dropped away from the dragon’s neck and resumed the practice of buckling up the saddle. “I’m taking Ulbeg for a flight,” Trysten said. “You best go tell my father.”
Bolsar stood a moment more, and then took off down the aisle. He’d have help in a mere few minutes.
With renewed concentration, Trysten finished strapping up the saddle. Again, when she bent down to grasp the stool and bring it close, the dragon lowered itself to its elbows.
“You’re too kind, Ulbeg. A real gem, you know that?” She patted the dragon on his neck, thrust a foot into the stirrup and pulled herself into the saddle.
Ulbeg rose almost the moment Trysten’s bottom hit the leather. The dragon trotted forward in the awkward way of dragons as she hurried to fasten a leather strap around herself that held her to the saddle.
Ahead, several weyrmen advanced down the aisle at a trot. At the sight of Trysten and Ulbeg, they shouted for her to stop and for Ulbeg to stay. The dragon snapped its wings open as he tossed his head. The muscles in his shoulders writhed beneath Trysten and she clenched the lip of the saddle before her and leaned her we
ight forward as she dug in with her heels.
In response, Ulbeg folded his wings along his back and lowered his head. A second later, he crouched. The muscles of the dragon shivered with a pent-up energy, a barely-restrained excitement.
A weyrman pointed back to Ulbeg’s stall. “Take him back there now, Trysten. Bolsar is seeking out your father. You don’t want to make things worse for yourself, do you?”
Trysten cocked an eyebrow at the man. Though it was true that she didn’t want to make things worse for herself, she didn’t see how following his orders would make anything better. Her father had already told her as much when he insisted that she would never succeed him as dragoneer. No, if he would not allow her in the consideration, then this would be the only way to show him and the other hordesmen what she could do on the back of a dragon.
With a spur from her heels, Trysten leaned forward and rested her weight on the lip of the saddle. Ulbeg crouched. His wings flipped open with a snap that whipped the air back. The weyrmen paused.
“Ulbeg!” one of the men called out. He held his hand up, his palm out at the end of his arm almost as much to brace himself as to command the dragon to remain still.
“Fly,” Trysten said, and patted the dragon on his neck.
Ulbeg leaped off the floor of the weyr. His wings beat down and back. Trysten’s fingers curled around the lip of the saddle. She crouched closer to the back of the dragon’s neck as he took to the air, undulated briefly, then brought his wings back up and thrust them down again.
Two of the weyrmen broke from their stance and rushed to either side of the promenade. The weyrman who held up his hand stood his ground for a second more, then dropped to the floor as the green dragon flew past. His wingspan barely cleared the promenade, but the smaller dragon was able to manage the tight quarters before he reached the open door at the end of the vaulted hall.
Gray sky and dragons lay beyond.
Chapter 7
With a roar, Ulbeg shot into the sky and aimed for the horde. Trysten allowed herself a small glimpse of the ground below. At the edge of the weyr yard, a small group of men pointed at her and Ulbeg. It was Bolsar, and before him stood her father.
The Dragoneer: Book 1: The Bonding Page 4