by Gage Lee
It looked more like a death's head rictus.
"Look who it is," Moglan croaked. "The man who owes me his life."
The words were said with good humor, but they felt like an ice pick in Taun's heart. He crossed the room and took a seat in the chair next to the head of Moglan's bed. "That's me," he said in a choked voice. "I'm so sorry, Mog."
For a moment, the friends said nothing. Moglan was drifting in and out of sleep, his eyes alternately wide from the effort of focusing or drifting closed. Taun couldn't find the words to say. He'd nearly gotten his friend killed. And for what? To impress a girl? To teach Auris a lesson?
To show the world that even nobles are not beyond the reach of justice. That is worth more than you know.
Axaranth had repeated those same words while Taun paced the floor, waiting to hear Moglan's fate. While they were true, Taun couldn't find solace in them. No amount of justice was worth the shaman's life.
"Not your fault," Moglan said. "Auris earned that beating. You couldn't know one of his friends was a lunatic."
Which was also true, and also no comfort at all to the young knight. "They won't see justice. One word from Auris's father, and the school will pretend this never happened."
Moglan held up a gigantic hand and shook his head. The effort was almost too much for him, though, and his eyes fluttered up into their sockets. When he focused them on Taun again, there was sadness in his gaze. "Lira warned us, Taun. The world isn't fair. The dragon who stabbed me won't be punished, but that changes nothing. We won. And we'll win the Glory Chase, too. Your plan is sound. Stick to it. Finish what we started."
The shaman drifted away again, and Taun hung his head. The shaman might be right. They had a stockpile of mushrooms and serums, and Taun could purify junk iron scraps left in the workshop into steel with little effort. They still had ten weeks of school left. That would be enough to wrap up his work and finish Auris.
It had to be.
But even as Taun tried to convince himself of that fact, his anger grew. Because there was still a chance that the prince could throw everything into the dirt and steal the win. As long as Auris was walking around, there were no guarantees about how the competition would end. That thought enraged Taun, because Auris and the rest of the golds did not deserve to win.
They didn't even deserve to breathe the same air as the honest students.
Lira offered you a solution to that problem. Perhaps it is time to take her up on it.
For a moment, Taun considered that option. Lira seemed confident she could handle Auris. With her scout training, she moved unseen and unheard through the shadows. One surprise attacking might be enough.
"Stop," Moglan murmured. "Your anger will frighten away the healing spirits. It's already scaring me."
"Sorry," the knight said. "I was just thinking—"
"Of something best forgotten," Moglan said in a soft, even voice. "Promise me you'll let your anger go. Focus on winning the Glory Chase, not revenge. Make the lodge proud."
"He'll steal it from us," Taun said, keeping his voice low. He didn't know where Auris's spies were, or who might scurry off to report to the gold dragon. Selling information to nobles was lucrative work. "I don't know how, but he'll do something underhanded. I can't afford to let him steal this from us. It's too important."
Moglan's hand moved with surprising speed and clamped down on Taun's shoulder with even more surprising strength. He fixed the knight with a penetrating glare, and his voice was hard and unyielding as a length of iron. "Promise me you will not chase after vengeance. It's a fool's errand, and it will only end in sorrow. For everyone involved."
Taun wanted to shake his head and deny the shaman's wish. But there was sadness in Moglan's eyes and fear. Taun couldn't turn his back on a friend in need. "He deserves to die," the knight whispered, "but if you want him spared, I'll let it go."
I will not. A time of reckoning is coming. Be assured of that.
"And his allies," Moglan said. "Even the one who stabbed me. They're not worth the pain their deaths will cause."
"I don't agree with you," Taun sighed, "but I won't fight you, Mog. Not until you're well enough to make it a challenge."
Moglan squeezed the knight's shoulder hard enough to draw a wince from him. "I'm more than a match for you now. Even injured, I'm bigger than that sack of skin and bones you call a body."
Taun chuckled at that. "We'll see. Get well soon, my friend."
"I will," the shaman said, his eyes already drifting closed. "Come see me again tomorrow."
The shaman's chest rose as he drew in a great breath, and let it out in a great, snoring exhale. Taun shook his head at the impressive sound and hoped the other patients could sleep.
"I WILL NOT SIT IDLY by while my friend suffers in a hospital bed," Lira shouted. "What happened was wrong. I can make it right."
Sutari threw her hands into the air and shoved her chair back from the table. The silver warrior stomped across the floor to the scout, only stopping when they were so close together their noses practically touched. "That is not the way things are done," she said, her voice deathly quiet. "Maybe bandits kill nobles who cross them, but decent dragons do not."
Something flickered in Lira's hand as it swung up from her hip, a flash of steel so swift Taun wasn't sure he'd seen it. When the blade came to a stop, its razor-sharp tip dimpling the scaled skin below Sutari's chin, it stole the air from the room. No one moved as the deadly moment teetered between the two young women. Kam looked helplessly in Taun's direction, but the knight was terrified that anything he said would tip the balance the wrong way. He could not have another friend's blood on his hands in one day.
Sutari didn't flinch. She stood her ground, eyes locked on Lira. "Don't prove me right," she said through clenched teeth.
Lira roared in frustration and hurled her blade across the room. The deadly stiletto tumbled through the air and buried half the blade in the wooden wall beside the door. The scout's dragon sign rippled down the length of her body, camouflage shadows` concealing her tortured features and tense posture from the other lodge members. "It's not right," the nearly invisible scout growled. "You know it isn't, Taun."
The knight hung his head and moved toward the door. He wouldn't let Lira leave until they'd talked this out, but he didn't know if he was ready for this argument. Because she was only speaking the truth. Everything about Moglan's injury stank to high heaven. It was all Auris's fault, and the noble would never, ever be punished for what he'd done.
"I know," the knight said. "But Moglan wants us to drop it. I'm not letting it go because I want to. I'm letting it go because doing anything else will only get more of my friends hurt. And I'm asking you to do the same."
Taun held his ground in front of the door. There was another exit to a stairwell behind the kitchen, but he'd hear Lira if she tried to get out that way. Not that he thought he could stop a dragon in full rage. She'd stomp right over him.
Do not be so sure of that. We are closer than ever, man-child, and that has benefits beyond my sage advice.
Lira's dragon sign faded, bit by bit, until she reappeared inches from Taun. She pushed her finger into his chest and glared at him. "For Moglan, I will let this go. But if Auris hurts any of us, ever again, I am through with him. He will vanish as if he had never existed. All those threats he made against you? I'll make them come true for him."
No one moved while Lira spoke. When she'd finished, the tension slowly leaked out of the room.
"So, uh," Kam said nervously, "everyone ready for dinner? I'm starving."
Lira glared at the occultist, but it was impossible to stay mad at Kam when he looked so hapless and nervous. She walked around the table, pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose, and headed into the kitchen. "I'll make some pot stickers, rice, and fried chicken breasts. Family style. Food will help put this behind us."
The scout gave Taun another angry glare, then stomped off. She wasn't as mad as she had been momen
ts before, but the thunderheads hadn't yet cleared. Taun wasn't sure she'd ever forgive him for what had happened to Moglan, even if it wasn't his fault.
When Lira had left the room, Sutari leaned on the table and looked expectantly at Taun. "You know who caused this, don't you?"
Taun let his hands fall to his side. He didn't need the silver warrior to remind him of how badly he'd messed things up. "I know," he said. "I won't let it happen again. I never should have fought back against Auris. It always ends badly."
Sutari came around the table quick as lightning and slapped Taun's forehead. The blow was harder than the knight had expected, but it wasn't strong enough to injure his newly enhanced body. "What was that for?"
I do not believe that was the right answer.
The silver dragon glared at Taun. "This is her fault," Sutari growled through clenched teeth. "The princess just had to flirt with you. I should have put a stop to it before we got on that wheel. Lira should have had her spot. Then Moglan would be fine right now, instead of trapped in a hospital bed."
Taun frowned. "You want to pin this on Karsi? She was only being nice. To all of us, I might add. This is not her fault. The blame belongs to Auris far more than anyone else. And then you can put the rest on my shoulders. It's not a human's place to stand up to a dragon."
"Not even when that dragon is being a useless sack of yak droppings?" Kam asked. "Maybe you shouldn't have hammered him into the dirt so hard, but you couldn't let him kill you."
Taun sighed, frustrated and confused. His friends were loyal to a fault, but he couldn't let them hang this disaster around Karsi's neck. The princess had meant no harm. She'd only wanted to give them all a nice time at the festival. "I don't know what to do," he said, at last.
"Stay away from her," Sutari said. "I know you're in classes together, but stick to that. Every time one of the Orichalcum Forge's members sees you around her, they flip out. And half the campus is just waiting for an excuse to run and tell Auris about something you did or said. For your own safety, for our safety, leave the princess to the rest of the upper crust, okay?"
"Fine," Taun said. "But not because I think it's her fault. I'll listen to you because I don't want anyone else to get hurt, and we can't trust Auris to be sane."
Kam laughed at that. "The highest levels of dragonkind are not known for their level heads. They get into those positions because they, or one of their ancestors, prized power above everything else. And they hang onto their position by making sure no one, not another dragon, and especially not a human, takes their place."
This whelp is disrespectful, but he is not wrong. The golds are vicious creatures who will not let you off the hook so easily. The princess is one of theirs, and they see the time you spend with her as an affront to their position. Until you are ready to kill the crown prince, let it go.
"I really hate it when you make sense, Kam," the knight said with a wry grin. "It makes me wonder if I'm the one who's gone insane."
Sutari raised an eyebrow and poked one talon into the center of Taun's chest. "Let's see. This year you've taken a dragon's soul scale, come to a school forbidden to humans, advanced your core, not once, but twice, when that is clearly impossible, caught the eye of a dragon princess, beat the crown prince in front of the entire student body, and merged soul steel with your body. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You are insane."
That broke the tension in the room, and the trio talked and planned until Lira returned with the food. Then they discussed their plans for the last few weeks of the school year. Taun reassured them they could still win, and they went to bed with full stomachs and churning thoughts.
Do not give up hope, man-child. You are my host, and we will not be denied our victory.
"What do you plan to do if Auris won't accept a loss?" Taun whispered to the dark ceiling.
We cross that bridge when we come to it. Likely it will be slick with the blood of our enemies when we do.
Chapter 22
THE LAST DAYS OF THE school year slipped between Taun's fingers like grains of sand. The Orichalcum Forge lodge had twelve hundred and fifty glory, and the next closest lodge had amassed over a thousand. While Sutari had continued her efforts in the warrior's path class, with a new challenge every week, she couldn't beat Auris. She consistently came in second place during warrior's path challenges, which was better than nothing but didn't put the Broken Blades anywhere near the top of the Glory Chase rankings.
Taun had done the math again and again, becoming more frustrated each time he ran through the figures. The problem lay in how the challenges were scheduled. While the warriors had a new test every week, the other initiate paths only received a new challenge every ten weeks. Over the course of a forty-week school year, that gave Auris and his cronies an enormous leg up. The hoard class had more frequent challenges, once a month on average, but Auris and the Broken Blades shared that class period, so the best they could ever hope for was second place. That widened the gap between the gold dragons and the rest of the lodges.
With only a week left in the school year, the Broken Blades had eight hundred and twenty glory, at least four hundred less than Auris's lodge. And while Taun spent countless hours in the workshop after dinner each night, he still wasn't sure he'd made enough soul steel items to tilt the balance in favor of his lodge. The worry that they'd fall short of winning the Glory Chase haunted Taun, even while he was working on creating a dragon blade in his servant's path class.
"You keep frowning like that and you'll turn that iron brittle," Karsi teased him from her position at the forge.
"Just thinking," the young knight said, forcing a faint smile. Though he'd avoided the princess as much as possible outside of class, they'd been partners in the workshop for the entire year, and she'd been intent on maintaining their relationship even after what happened to Moglan. The other shamans in Taun's class weren't about to go up against a member of the Scaled Council's royalty, which left him with no simple way out of the situation.
Not that he'd tried too hard to find one. Karsi was easy to work with, and they'd learned to anticipate each other's needs while working at the forge. The princess knew exactly when to increase the temperature and when to back off. Taun had learned to anticipate when she was low on pneuma and needed time to recharge, so there was never a moment when he needed more fire and didn't get it. If things had gone differently, if Karsi hadn't been a princess, who knew where that might have led?
Things could still lead almost anywhere. You are becoming something more than a mere human. When we present our case to the Scaled Council, they will recognize me for what I am. And that will reflect well on you. Even after we part ways, you will always be known as the host of Axaranth the Dread. You will be a hero to dragons after this year, Taun.
While all that seemed great, if it were true, Taun wasn't sure things would work out the way the dragon expected. He was no fool. Dragons viewed humans as disposable tools. While he doubted the Council would extract the soul scale from his chest, there were a dozen other ways this could go wrong. For starters, those powerful dragons might not believe that the scale belonged to Axaranth.
They will hear me. They will know the truth. And they will treat us with the respect we deserve.
"Will you return to the Ruby Blade Keep when the school year finishes?" Karsi asked. "My parents want me back in the capital for the summer, but I think I might stay at the Academy. Professor Hyph'nan is offering a special wilderness foraging class for shamans."
Taun winced at the mention of that class. Moglan had wanted to attend it, but he was still in the infirmary. The wound he'd suffered was slow to heal, even with all the elixirs and serums available at the Celestial Academy. If things didn't improve, the shaman would spend the whole summer stuck in that bed.
"That sounds interesting," Taun said. He didn't want to bare his feelings to Karsi while they were working. Or ever, really. Best just to get through the year and hope they wouldn't be thrown together again after the
summer break.
Keeping the promise he'd made to his friends was getting harder every day. The princess clearly saw him as more than a friend. The attention she paid to him, a mere human still, made Taun feel like he truly belonged here. If only Auris wasn't such a fool...
The dragon blade saber glowed as Taun removed it from the forge. He made a connection between the iron and the elements stoked by Karsi, prolonging the window he had to mold the metal according to his desire. The touch of her pneuma against his was comfortable and familiar. They were in total harmony as Taun held the shape of the saber in his mind, sculpting the hot iron with the power of his thoughts. The weapon had to be perfect, because he intended to bond it with his core as he had with the breastplate. He wanted to manifest a dragon sign, and claws seemed the perfect choice. If he could get the dragon blade right, the next step would be far easier.
Twinges of pain flickered through his core, like the pricks of icy cold needles. The distraction annoyed the knight; he couldn't afford to lose control over his work at such a critical juncture. The connection he'd bound to the fire wavered and nearly came apart, forcing him to stop molding the soul steel to regain control over the pneuma coursing through him. He drew fire pneuma in with a deep breath, filling his core with power that he planned to use in rebuilding the connection.
"Careful," Karsi warned him. "Give me a moment to replenish the fire spirits in the forge before you do that again."
"Okay," Taun replied. He breathed the fire pneuma onto the blade. It wasn't as efficient as heating it through a connection to the forge, but it would do in a pinch.
