Dragon Guard

by Devonnie Asher

  Not everything had changed.

  I took the seat across from them.

  "That seat is—" Solra's eyes widened and she stopped mid-sentence. Her hair was pulled back from her face today, bound with a pink ribbon.

  "Taken?" I asked, pulling a smile.

  "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence, milady?" Irikai teased, getting out of his seat to feign a bow. Laughter erupted among us.

  For a few moments, it felt like we were back to our first day at the Academy, naive and hopeful. I would’ve paid good money to go back to that moment, when everything was...simpler. Now, I carried the weight of too many things, like a millstone chained to my ankles. We never spoke about it much, but that mission had changed us.

  "I figured we could grab breakfast together before combat training," I said.

  "You're just in time, we just got here," Solra chirped.

  Their plates were largely untouched.

  "Alright, I'll just—" I was cut off by someone appearing at our table.

  It was one of the women from the kitchen.

  "Your breakfast, ma'am," she carefully placed a plate in front of me then disappeared just as quickly as she came. The food had been carefully organized, some of it I recognized as pastry that I had only seen in the Administrative District. Pastry that they didn’t serve the cadets.

  The back of my neck grew hot. Usually, I could join the line and make it up to the counter before any of them recognized my uniform. Today, I was too slow.

  Stares burned into me from the other cadets in our cohort. Down here, I was treated like a Dragon Guard soldier. But a month ago, I had been a cadet. I knew exactly what motivated their “respect.”

  Fear.

  "Perks of the uniform, huh?" Irikai said, reaching over to take a piece of the cake.

  While all the other cadets wore standard brown leather uniforms, mine was light gray with gold piping. In their eyes, I looked like any other Dragon Guard soldier. But my uniform was missing the golden epaulets that real soldiers received at graduation. Not that it mattered to them.

  "It's torture," I whispered to them.

  Solra leaned over, bringing her ear closer to my mouth. Irikai bent forward too.

  "Torture? What do you mean?"

  "I'm too much of a Dragon Guard soldier to fit in down here, but too much of a cadet to fit in up there," I sighed.

  This was the first time I had tried opening up to them about how I felt. And I expected something, anything. But Irikai and Solra grew quiet. It only made me feel worse. Was there really nothing they could say?

  When Irikai broke the silence, I was almost finished with my food.

  "Any news about Avek?"

  My stomach grew cold at the mention of his name, the food in my mouth was suddenly tasteless. I forced myself to swallow it, taking in deep breaths to steady my pulse.

  I shook my head. "The first team returned without any luck and a man short. The second team should be back soon." I left off the fact that this would be the last search team they’d send for him in a while, and how that kept me up at night too.

  Solra put a hand on my arm. Gritting my teeth helped me resist the urge to flinch.

  "I can't imagine what you're going through," she said, stroking my hand. "I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Irikai on a mission.” She leaned into him, putting a head on his shoulder.

  A flicker of jealousy sparked in my throat. I could give her a good picture of what she’d do. Cry herself out of tears the first few nights. Then have nightmares about the hours leading up to losing him. She’d remember every detail about what happened, but forget the important things like the way he looked when the sunlight hit his face just right. Most of all, she’d blame herself for it.

  "Hopefully you won't have to," I said, mock concern in my voice. "But hope matters very little out there."

  I hoped that my words stung, but I didn’t look at her face. This time when they fell silent, I was happy they did. Clearly, more had changed than I realized.

  We finished the rest of our breakfast quietly.

  WE HAD THE ENTIRE TRAINING field to ourselves for the next few hours.

  It was close to the First-Year dormitory. A simple open field with trees on every side.

  When I had been provisionally accepted into the Dragon Guard, I asked for a few things. Most of them revolved around Irikai and Solra—that we could still train together, and that wherever possible we would be put on the same team. Apparently, that still wasn’t enough. I had suspicions that they would have preferred if I had turned down the promotion; for us to rise through the ranks together instead.

  But I wasn’t about to give the Headmaster that satisfaction. His public announcement had been a challenge. And though it blindsided me, I was determined to win. Why couldn’t they understand that?

  Despite the thick tension, we moved into our training paces.

  Our dragons had flown off together, their excited cries waning in the distance. At least Ignimitra's change in circumstances didn't ruin their friendship.

  The air was sweet today, the smell of pine needles and blooming flowers tickling my nose. The warmth of the sun felt like a gentle embrace; comforting and exhilarating all at once. I unsheathed my sword, relishing the glint of silver in the sunlight.

  It was new, just like my uniform. The blade had been smelted from lava from deep within Pyra Volcano. It bore a golden hilt, and was at least half a foot longer than the sword that I had as a cadet. This was the first time I was getting to use it with them.

  "Don't you think that gives you an unfair advantage?" Solra was in a similar stance, her own sword unsheathed. Her grip was better than I remembered, and she seemed more comfortable.

  I shrugged, testing it with a swipe.

  “This is all I have,” I said with a shrug. Then added as a joke, “Unless you want me to spar with you without one.”

  "I prefer it," she said, without the hint of a smile on her face. I looked to Irikai, who wore a blank expression. Was she serious? She thought I had an advantage so she sought to give herself one? My grip on the hilt tightened.

  “You’ve been training up top, after all,” Solra continued. “Doesn’t that already give you an advantage?” She was baiting me I could tell. I had seen her do it before.

  But I never thought I would be on the receiving end of it. Irikai was still quiet. A warm knot in my chest was growing hotter by the second.

  "Fine," I spat, tossing my sword aside. It fell to the grassy earth with a dull clunk. Cracking my knuckles, I looked between them.

  Irikai stood a way off, watching us with careful eyes. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but if he wasn't intervening, he was on her side. And despite how ridiculous the odds seemed, I wanted to make Solra eat her words.

  "Count us off!" I called to him, rooting my feet in the ground. Solra readied herself.

  Irikai came closer.

  "One. Two," he shouted.

  I hadn’t missed that much training with them. Despite her advantage on paper, I was more agile. I just needed to level the playing field, and she'd be mine. She looked surer of herself, but that didn’t matter. I had faced bigger and stronger than her with less.

  "Fight!"

  Solra stormed towards me, then lunged at my head. I ducked out of the way, feeling the air shift as her blade narrowly evading my cheek. So, she had gotten quicker.

  I evaded another strike with a back-flip, but she was on me before I could right myself. I blocked her strike with the metal cuffs of my uniform. Another cool new addition. Sparks flew between us as she leaned into her sword. The pressure would knock me off balance if I didn’t do something.

  Her face looked like a raging storm—eyes aflame with something that looked like a mix of anger and pain, flaring nostrils and gritted teeth. She looked fierce, like she actually wanted to hurt me. I blinked and suddenly she was the Astraphotian I had killed.

  I had to protect myself. Reaching deep for the strength, I dug my heel in
to the ground and pushed her off balance.

  The second it took her to get back into her fighting stance was enough for me to land a hit on the soft skin of her forearm. She winced but didn't let go of her sword. I knew her hand must've been on fire, but she came at me again.

  Her blade was aimed at my stomach. With one hand, I deflected her, running my cuff along the length of the blade. Then with two fingers, I jabbed her in the crease of her wrist.

  She shrieked in pain, taking her eyes off me to look at her hand. First rule of combat: never take your eyes off your opponent. I hit her other wrist in the same spot. Her hand slackened around the blade.

  Before it could fall, it was in my hands, the blade dangerously close to her neck.

  "What did you do?" She screamed, holding up her hands. Her fingers were tensed as if she still held the blade. I could feel the heat of her anger, and it satisfied me.

  "I won," I said with a smirk, withdrawing her sword. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For me to show her what I had learned in my training.

  Irikai rushed over to us.

  "I can't move my fingers," Solra said to him, her face crumpling as he drew closer. He took her hands in his, running his fingers over them.

  There was a reddish blotch on both her wrists.

  "You're not bleeding or anything," Irikai began, "Unless..." He looked at me with harsh eyes. "You attacked her pressure points."

  He had the audacity to look at me as if I had done something wrong. As if he hadn't been silent when Solra goaded me into a spar where she had the unfair advantage.

  "All is fair in war," I shrugged. “You asked me to show you what I had learned, didn’t you?” I pressed. “And I did.” I clinked my metal cuffs together. They were meant to protect my pressure points.

  "This isn't war!" Solra screamed. "This was a friendly spar, though I'm not sure about that anymore." Her brows were furrowed, her face pink.

  My levy of restraint broke under the pressure of her words. The emotions that I had been keeping at bay—ones I didn’t want to feel in the day—came rushing out of me.

  "What do you think we're training for?" I shouted back. "We're training to be soldiers, Solra. Beyond these walls, your opponent won't put down their sword on your whim. And they sure as hell won't numb your hands, they'll stop your heart." She didn’t know what it was really like. And she didn’t know what I had to go through at the hands of other soldiers in Meridian Training just to learn to do that. I had been entirely paralyzed for half a day. She would be fine in a few minutes.

  "It's been three weeks, and you're a completely different person," I was so busy seething at Solra that Irikai's words caught me off guard.

  But they didn't quell the fire that had erupted in my chest. They were like kindling.

  "Of course, I'm different!" I boomed, my entire body feeling like it was made of paper and electricity. "How could I not be? My whole life is upside down, the world is falling apart and we’re expected to go out there and fix it. And the two people I thought I could count on are jealous because they weren't promoted too."

  I shouted so loud that I thought my body would burst. The words felt wrong, but I didn't want to take them back. I wanted them to feel hurt, to understand what I was going through. To know how their petty actions made me feel. To know that I was suffering and they were focusing on the wrong things.

  Solra laughed, but it was hollow, mocking. I should’ve paralyzed her face too.

  "Why would I be jealous of you, Kaos? You couldn’t even save your boyfriend from the Astraphotians.”

  I felt blind. Like the world had faded away into a stippling of red and ember. My grip tightened around the blade in my hand. I wanted to make sure she could never say that again.

  "She didn't mean that," Irikai's voice was loud.

  I didn’t know when he moved to stand between us, but suddenly I couldn’t see Solra anymore. My breathing was loud in my ears, the sun only heating up my insides more.

  "Look, none of us have been the same since that mission," Irikai began, looking down at me with darkening brown eyes. "But when we needed you the most, you chose those up the mountain instead of us. You can blame the war, but war only reveals what’s truly in your heart. You have to choose who you will be."

  His words were a slap across the face.

  So it was that simple to them. Nevermind all that they knew about the Headmaster. They thought that I was choosing to leave them. It didn't matter that Ignimitra was too advanced for our classes and it didn't matter that nobody ever got choices on this mountain.

  Somehow, they'd managed to simplify it to the point where only the three of us mattered.

  "I wish my life was as simple as you make it seem," I said to them.

  Irikai had shifted slightly, so I could see some of Solra's face.

  "You're right. I am a completely different person."

  I placed Solra's sword on the ground. Then, I went to retrieve my own.

  Ignimitra still hadn't returned, but I could sense that she wasn't far away. I would wait by the mouth of the clearing until she got back.

  Chapter 3

  By the time Ignimitra returned, my heart had burned a hole in my chest. All my blood had turned into hot lava, melting my insides into a steaming goop of sadness.

  Everyone left me in the end it seemed.

  First, Avek. Now, Solra and Irikai.

  I'm still here.

  Ignimitra's voice was cool. We were soaring up from the clearing towards the Administrative District. The rush of air against my skin soothed me. Flying always helped.

  I don't think you have much of a choice.

  She chuckled.

  You forget that I chose you, not the other way around?

  The smile was fleeting, but it was a smile nonetheless. She always had that effect on me, even in my worst moods.

  Solra and Irikai are dealing with their own difficult feelings, I think. Zelkor told me that Solra took us leaving very hard.

  It certainly didn't feel that way, angel. She forced me to spar with her without a sword, then got mad when I still won. I didn’t need to tell Ignimitra that I had temporarily paralyzed her. That wasn’t exactly the fairest thing to do.

  If I suddenly lost you and it felt like you chose to leave me, I'd be upset too.

  Her words resonated with me, and I hated that. I didn't want to imagine what it was like for them. To do that would mean accepting that they were right. My choices didn’t feel wrong, and I refused to let them make me feel that they were. My struggle was just as real, maybe even realer. Their lives largely remained the same.

  Mine was now as different as night and day. There was no way they could understand that. They weren’t even trying to. But maybe Ignimitra had a point.

  There was one other person I could talk to about all of this.

  Ignimitra, take us to Betheka.

  Oh great! Do you think she has sweet berries?

  We descended into the Artisan District a few moments later. Sandwiched between the Academy District and the Administrative District, the Artisan District was home to the cooks, the dragonhands, the builders, and the farmers who lived on the mountain. There were even a few shops, inns and pubs here. Betheka was the Dragon Guard's alchemist. We had grown to be fast friends, partly because she and my father had been the same.

  I had been so caught up in the whirlwind of changes that I hadn’t been to see her in a while. Ignimitra set us down in her backyard.

  Betheka's backyard was large enough for two dragons and housed an outdoor shed that doubled as her workshop. Her home was a single-storied brick building, the same quality as in the Administrative District. It was deceptively discreet. I hadn't realized before that her home was different from all the others here. But now that I lived in a house like this, the superior craftsmanship stood out like a sore thumb.

  I jumped off Ignimitra's back.

  Be sure to ask her about the sweet berries, she pressed. I laughed so hard my shoulders shook.
Sweet berries were the quickest way to her heart.

  I'll bring them out as soon as I get them.

  Satisfied with my answer, Ignimitra sprawled out on the grassy lawn, her tongue lolling in the light breeze. Her romp must have tired her out, for her eyes fluttered closed shortly after.

  The back door was slightly ajar.

  I knocked.

  "Betheka?" I called. No answer.

  Maybe she was in her little room in the basement. I pushed the door open, continuing to call her name. The door to the basement was locked, but I heard shuffling in the living room.

  It was there that I found Betheka, lying in the sofa with an ice pack on her forehead.

  "Betheka!" I exclaimed, rushing over to her.

  She seemed surprised to see me, a crinkly smile growing on her face.

  "My gosh, child! I haven't seen you in so long."

  She pushed herself into a sitting position as I approached, but her movements were slow and pained. That was new.

  Betheka seemed as old as time itself with dark skin and a curtain of white wavy hair braided into a bun on her head. Glittering pins adorned the bun, and she was dressed as opulently as ever in an embroidered satin dress. Despite her age, I had never seen her this weak. I rushed over to help her up. She took my hand gratefully.

  "How is my girl?" She asked, looking up at me with wide eyes. There was a twinkling in them, the spark of curiosity I now knew. Time hadn’t taken that from her.

  "She's grown out of our sight," I smiled. Thinking of how just a few months ago Ignimitra was so tiny she could fit in my backpack. “As big as the house, probably.”

  "There are some sweet berries in the kitchen," her voice shook.

  I found the berries in a woven basket on the counter. I took two handfuls out to the yard, placing them by Ignimitra's head. She had dozed off into a light sleep—she would be ecstatic when she awoke to them.

  When I returned, I found Betheka in the kitchen attempting to make tea. Though she was leaning against her carved wooden walking stick, she looked unsteady on her feet.