"You guys deserve a better teammate than the one I've been. We’ve been through so much and it must have felt like I just gave up on everything we had at the first opportunity I got." I had to resist the urge to point out that the Headmaster hadn't given me much of a choice. Turning this into an excuse would only derail the progress I had made. "You might not want to, but it would mean the world to me if you forgave me for how I treated you guys. You are my best friends. We're better together."
This was the moment of truth.
My words hung in the silence between us. I chugged the glass of water to distract myself from the throbbing I felt in my skull. I was so weak. So vulnerable. I was entirely at their mercy.
"I think—" Irikai began, but Solra cut him off.
"You'll have to do better than that," she snapped. He looked at her with a question on his face. "It takes more than a smooth apology to get my forgiveness. If you'll ever get it."
Her words felt like a stab through the chest. But something gave me hope.
In the months I had known Irikai, I had come to grasp that he wasn't much of a talker. He preferred to think. He only spoke when he was sure he had something of value to add, and he rarely spoke without conviction.
It was written all over his face that he didn't share the reservations of Solra.
But before I could press him, she had a hand on his arm, pulling him to stand up with her.
"We have class now. Let's go, Irikai."
Irikai looked at me, then looked at Solra. I smiled at him, trying to let him know that it was fine. It wasn't like I hadn't thought of this. The only person more stubborn than Solra, was me. It was going to take a lot to convince her to give me another chance.
But as I watched them disappear through the doors, a spark of hope sputtered to life within me.
I could get another chance. Irikai's change of heart was proof of that. I just needed to keep trying. And I would. They were my friends and we needed each other, even though Solra wanted to think otherwise.
When I finished my breakfast, I found Ignimitra lying down out front soaking up some sun, a contented look on her face.
This was all part of your plan, wasn't it?
She looked at me as if I spoke a language she didn't understand.
What was?
I walked up to her, arms akimbo.
You brought me here to get me to rekindle my friendship with Irikai and Solra, didn't you?
Instead of denying, Ignimitra held her head high and looked down at me. A haughty puff of ash left her nostrils, and that was all it took to confirm my suspicion. It wasn't until we were soaring through the clouds to our training session that she finally answered me.
As much as you think you're self-sufficient, you need your friends. I was only trying to help you realize what you already knew.
I wanted to be mad at her, but I couldn't. She was right. She had always been right.
My dragon was my protector as I was hers.
Thank you, angel. I smiled. Thank you so much.
OUR TRAINING CLASS that day wasn't any easier than the ones before it.
Every minute felt like this would be the moment that would break me, but it didn't. When the class ended, I felt grateful to have even survived.
We had been practicing our diving skills in a particularly deep part of Hu River with two-hundred pounds of weights strapped to our ankles. It was just a little bit easier than the other swimming classes I had to endure. When our Commander dismissed us for the day, I laid on the river bank just looking up at the blue sky.
A redhead blocked my view.
"Are you okay?" It was Cuinn.
This was our first conversation in weeks. I squinted my eyes, trying to see his face clearly. His hair had shrunk, and was dripping rivulets of water onto his bare shoulders. He wore a smile. I was almost certain that I was scowling in response.
"I'm alive," I said, forcing myself to sit up.
"You did good today," he said, crouching so we were on eye-level.
He was still wearing that stupid smile and for some reason that annoyed me. Why was he complimenting me? I didn’t need any compliments right now.
I shrugged. "Thanks, I guess." Then I added, "It didn't feel that way."
"I think making it out alive is as good a win as any." He shrugged on a shirt. "I think soldiers have died doing this training."
Well duh, we're cast into a near bottomless body of water with weights around our ankles. I think that's a pretty definite way to kill someone. But I kept my thoughts to myself.
I stood, shaking out my hair.
"See you around, Cuinn," I said, turning away from him.
I had made it a few steps when I I heard his voice behind me.
"Kaos, wait."
With a sigh, I turned to face him, quirking an eyebrow.
"Would you like to...I don't know. Um, go out...sometime?" His face had almost taken on the color of his hair. This was the first time I had ever seen Cuinn this nervous. It was a little cute, and a lot of awkward.
I shook my head. "No, thanks."
I looked him over. He was attractive—his reedy body was strong, and he was tall which was always a plus. The color of his hair accentuated his eyes and skin. He was kind, not to mention the fact that he had saved my life. Cuinn was a good catch, for the right person. I wasn’t her.
He wasn't doing a good job of hiding his disappointment.
"We have a war to fight," I said, hoping to make him feel better. And I have somebody else. But I didn't want to tell him that. Though there were no written laws against dating your fellow soldiers, keeping things quiet was always in our best interest. I didn't want anything coming back to hurt Avek. "You should focus on that."
With those words, I ended the conversation.
At least, so I thought. He shouted after me, "I'll get you to go on a date with me one day!"
I almost stopped in my tracks to list out the reasons why that would never happen. But I didn't have to explain myself to him.
"Have a good evening, Cuinn," I called back.
When Ignimitra and I started our ascent, he was still standing in the middle of the field, staring after me. My hand traveled to my necklace, the stone my constant reminder that my heart belonged to someone else.
I HAD A VISITOR WAITING for me when I made it back home.
Jules was standing in my backyard, sitting under the tree with a book in her hand. For a soldier on active duty, she looked awfully relaxed. When Ignimitra landed, I approached her.
"You look like a whale coughed you up," she said, reaching out to thread a finger through my hair. It snagged halfway through. I had chosen the wrong day to wear my hair loose. It was going to be a pain to detangle.
"What are you doing here?" I retorted, since politeness was through the window.
She chuckled. "Can't I check up on you?"
I wrinkled an eyebrow.
"Fine," she sighed. "I found out that Alchemist Bankola is your grandmother."
My heart sank a little at the mention of Betheka. I really didn't want to talk or think about this right now. Not now when things had only begun to feel a little better.
"Look, I didn't know. It must have been real crappy to find out about her the way you did and I just—"
I held up a hand to stop her. "It's okay. You couldn't have known. I'm not mad at you or anything." I heaved a sigh. "I'd just rather not talk about her right now."
"That's fine by me," she seemed relieved. "That mushy stuff isn't my thing anyway. Wanna grab some lunch at the pub?"
My stomach was delighted by the idea. Ignimitra had settled into her favorite spot of the yard, shaded by the tree.
"Sure," I said, pulling a smile. "Let me just fill her trough first, then we can go."
Jules looked me up and down.
"I was serious when I said you looked like a whale coughed you up. You should get a shower too and change your clothes," then she pointed to my hair. "And do something about that."
"The shower, I can do. But I'm not touching this till later," I shot back.
She held up her hands in defeat, laughing. "Fine. Do you."
And that's exactly what I did.
AN HOUR LATER, WE WERE sitting in a pub on the outskirts of the Artisan District. The building was nestled just on the edge of the cliff, and built entirely of the rocky mountain it sat on. From the open windows, you had a clear view of the wooded hills below, and a sliver of the ocean on the horizon. It was truly picturesque—I couldn't believe I had never been here before.
Jules chose a table for us right by one of the windows.
"This view is unreal," I said, leaning over the wooden table for a better vantage point.
"I like it because it makes me feel like I'm flying on Phobos," she said, a thin smile on her lips, her eyes drinking up the view.
Phobos was Jules' dragon. He was a Rubyscale like Zelkor, but had the color of first light painting the night's sky. His scales were an iridescent mix of purple and orange that transitioned so seamlessly it seemed like a single color. I liked to see him in the sky.
"It does feel like you're suspended in the sky," I agreed, imagining flying on Ignimitra.
The pub-lady came over to take our orders. There was a menu written in chalk on the board behind the bar.
When she left, Jules spoke up again.
"I don't want you to think this is a pity party or anything, " she began. "I just know how hard it gets up here."
My jaw almost hit the table. Jules thought training was hard? My mind flashed to our first meeting, how she insisted on pushing us to our limits. She had always seemed like an impenetrable tower of strength. I didn't know she could find anything hard.
"I didn't expect that from you," I admitted to her.
She laughed, seemingly amused. "When you're a woman on the Peak, you've got to act tough. Otherwise, you'll get bulldozed."
That was definitely true. You could count the number of female Dragon Guard cadets and soldiers at the Academy. That kind of male-dominated atmosphere made for grueling training.
"So, you're not actually made of nails?" I smiled.
Her smile mirrored mine. "No, I'm not." She shook her head. "I'm made out of the algae that you can't get out of your uniform no matter how many times you wash it."
"Why'd you end up in the Guard?" Jules had never been this open with me. Now seemed like the best time to ask her all the questions I could.
"The way most people do." She looked down at her clasped hands. "Loss. Wanting more for yourself than what life gave you."
I understood that completely.
"I grew up Tertaro. I'd never seen a dragon till a storm blew a group of soldiers off their flight path and they had to land in our village until it passed." Her eyes had glassed over, and she looked like she had gone back to that place in her mind. "I remember feeling so awestruck by how big they were. I was about five or six at the time, and they were bigger than the houses."
I smiled, thinking about the first time my father introduced me to Jairyn.
"I drew the dragons I had seen at every opportunity. I dreamed about them. I wanted to be like those soldiers. Powerful enough to control beasts that dangerous." Her face grew stormy then, and I braced myself for the rocky turn that would come. There always was one. "But then my grandfather died. He had been my guardian. Overnight, I was homeless."
My throat worked as my own experience came to mind. I knew where this was going.
"I'm not sure if you know, but the municipality repossesses your house if the person who owns it has no living adult relatives. So, I started living on the street. I made it work. That's probably how I ended up so tough."
Her story didn't seem to be getting any better.
"Sergeant Vera was the light at the end of my tunnel."
I wrinkled an eyebrow. Sergeant Vera? As in, our first-year cadet instructor? "How did she help you?"
"She's from the same village I lived in. One day when I was thirteen, she came to visit her family. It was her first visit in almost two decades. When she saw me—saw how I was living— she asked if I wanted to come back to the Academy with her."
"Is she even allowed to do that?" My jaw was slack.
Jules shrugged. "I'm not sure, but she did. I spent the next few years here. She raised me like her daughter, and she got me Phobos when he was just an egg. I'm not sure where I would be without her. Maybe still living on the street."
"She helped you realize your dream," I finished.
Jules nodded. I sucked in a breath.
"I would've never guessed you had things so hard growing up," I said.
She smiled, looking out the window. In the afternoon light, I noticed that her skin was riddled with faded marks. The more I looked at her, the more what she said made sense. She didn't just look tough, she looked like she had lived and that made her infinitely more appealing.
She shrugged. "Everyone's got their own iceberg."
"Iceberg?" I leaned forward.
"You've never heard that before?" She grinned, her eyes twinkling at the opportunity to tell me another story. "They're huge floating chunks of ice. I've seen some flying close by the Ryme Tundra," she began. "They look huge above the surface. But most of their mass is actually in the depths of the ocean below. People are icebergs, Kaos. Most of them lurks beneath the surface."
I pondered her words for a few moments. People were like icebergs.
Betheka was an iceberg, for sure. Avek too. Solra, Irikai. Even my father was, judging from the little I'd been learning about him. It struck me then that I'd never thought of things like that. I was definitely an iceberg, but so was everyone else and I had to treat them like that.
"Why are you telling me this?" My curiosity got the better of me. Jules and I had been hanging out for weeks. We had made more progress in these couple hours than all of that time.
She chuckled. "Truthfully? I feel like crap for talking about your dying grandmother the way I did."
Fair enough. But she had more.
"And I've never met anyone like you. In a year at the Academy, you've done more than anyone I've ever met. Even volunteering to help us get closer to ending the war, it's—"
"I didn't volunteer," I cut her off.
She quirked an eyebrow. "What?"
Instinctively, I lowered my voice. The pub was mostly empty, but I wouldn't risk it. The lady who had taken our order was busy behind the counter preparing our meals.
"The Headmaster is punishing me, I suppose." It was my turn to stare longingly out the window. "I saw something I wasn't supposed to, and he threatened me so I would stay silent." A terse smile formed on my lips. "But I didn't, and I guess this is my punishment."
Jules had leaned so far over the counter I could smell the sorrel-scented shampoo she used to wash her hair. Her eyes brimmed with questions.
"What did you see?"
"I saw the alchemist testing his 'war-winning' potion," I grimaced. "On a dragon." I gritted my teeth against the onslaught of images the words brought back to mind.
Jules’ mouth fell open.
"It was horrible, Jules. They had it bound and had tortured till it was barely alive. Ignimitra said it didn't even feel like a dragon anymore, just an empty shell. Some nights I still hear it's cries."
"How long ago did you see this?"
"Maybe a couple weeks," I said.
Her countenance fell even further. "There's no way that serum is ready by this."
"I know that. He just trying to silence us." I had thought this through a million times by now. "He’s going to turn Ignimitra into a mindless shell, and that’ll hurt me worse than death ever could."
Jules' laugh was anything but humorous. "Looks like you've figured out the Headmaster," she said. "I wondered how long it would take you."
"How does he get away with this?"
"When yo
u're as powerful as him, you can get away with anything," she whispered. "Rumor has it that he's close to achieving Complete Meld with Slavidi."
Complete Meld...that was "The highest fusion bond?"
She nodded slowly. "He's devoted his life to the pursuit of power. I don't doubt him."
In that moment, a wave of hopelessness came over me. Headmaster Vulcan Archer didn't deserve all the power he held. Clearly, he was only using it for the wrong reasons. Everything was spiraling out of my control.
Seeming to sense my mood, Jules put her hand on mine. I looked up at her—her eyes were unnaturally warm. "Don't worry about it too much," she said. "If anyone can figure this out, I'm sure it will be you."
Her words were a nice sentiment, but I didn't think I could believe them. There was no way I could ever protect Ignimitra alone. I needed my support system, and at the moment the well had run dry. Well, except for Avek. At the thought of him, I thumbed the stone of my necklace.
Jules’ hand was on it the next second. Recognition flashed in her eyes.
"Avek gave you that, huh?" She said, her voice full of something I couldn't quite read.
I lowered my eyes to the table. "Yes, he did." I had been jealous of them the first time I saw them together. Was she going to tell me that I had good reason to be? My throat tightened. I couldn’t take any more bad news.
"He's a great guy," she said. Her face was devoid of malice. "And I can see what he sees in you. I think you guys will be good together."
Together. The word made me squirm in my seat. It had a serious ring to it, an air of finality that I didn't know how to process. But I swallowed my feelings and nodded. This was something I had to work on alone.
"Thanks," I managed to say.
Fortunately, the woman approached with our meals just then. I took one of the plates from her, delicious steam coating my face. Suddenly, I was appreciative that Jules had dragged me to lunch. This was better than the fruit and nut salad that I had been planning on making for myself.
We tucked in heartily, trading ideas about how to outsmart the Headmaster over the meal.
Chapter 14
Dragon Guard Page 16
