Dragon Mage Academy Box Set

by Cordelia Castel

  Roseate’s cheeks turned puce, and she folded her arms. “I’m not making two trips!”

  “Then you’ll have to take us both.” I suppressed a smirk. She would either waste her time to come back for me or prove herself a liar.

  Muttering under her breath, she flung open the passenger door. “Mind your head.”

  The ogres had finished loading the back of the float with their buzzing crates and held out a scroll. Roseate tapped it with the citrine end of her staff, and it glowed amber. When the ogres backed away, Ivan gave her a tired smile and boarded the float. The door frame twisted and whacked him on the head.

  I jumped to my feet, glaring at the witch. “You did that!”

  She smirked. “Prove it!”

  Rushing toward her, I opened my mouth to tell her that flying carriages didn’t attack passengers, but Ivan stepped out and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Leave it.”

  “But she—”

  “Forget about her.” He smiled. “In a few hours, we’ll be in the mess hall, eating with all the dragon warriors. Tomorrow, we’ll learn to become heroes, and she’ll still be driving this float.”

  Tension melted from my shoulders. Roseate’s petty victories meant nothing in light of everything I had to gain. “You’re right."

  I stepped into the float, a white, cylindrical space arranged into three sections. The front had been enchanted to appear transparent and housed a seat wide enough for three. Its wooden helm consisted of a receptacle, where a witch would stick the crystal end of her staff and use it as a steering lever.

  The back part of the vehicle was sectioned off by an opaque barrier, which could be moved to accommodate more cargo. We sat on a seat facing front, with windows giving views of both Capital Market and the marquee.

  I leaned into Ivan and whispered, “Why’s she still standing outside?”

  “The Flying Float takes produce to and from Mount Fornax,” he whispered back. “She’s probably waiting for more vendors to deliver their wares.”

  “Oh.”

  Across the street, a ten-foot-tall half-giant pulled a shrub that reached his shoulder. Coconut-shaped, lime-colored fruits jiggled from its branches. The entire plant was encased in a cage of wire mesh.

  I squinted. “What kind of fruit is that?”

  Ivan leaned across and gazed at the shrub. “The ones covered in little bumps? They’re monkey fruit.”

  “What do they taste like?” I asked.

  “They’re inedible. Look at the leaves. Each one holds hundreds of eggs.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “What for?”

  “They’re going to hatch into silkworms. Look carefully, you’ll see the moths flying about in the cage.”

  Before I could ask how he knew this, the half-giant disappeared around the back of the vehicle, and the buzzing doubled in volume, as though whatever was in the crates wanted to get at the fruit. “I-I think those crates contain bees.”

  Ivan’s face paled. “K-king hornets.”

  Roseate boarded the float and placed her staff in the receptacle.

  I leaned forward and shouted over the buzzing. “Could you thicken the barrier, please? Those hornets sound like they could get out of their crate.”

  The witch turned around, eyes narrowed. She flashed her teeth in a mockery of a smile. “No problem!”

  A thick, opaque barrier appeared behind her, cutting us off. The buzzing and knocking became even louder.

  Ivan spluttered. “S-she’s…”

  I turned to find the cargo exposed. The vehicle took off, and the crates inched forward. My stomach lurched to the back of my throat. She’d locked us in with the hornets!

  A mixture of unholy sounds filled the Fornax Flying Float. The buzzing of an untold amount of hornets would have been bad enough, but the scratching and scraping of their limbs over the wood made my hair stand on end.

  “Albert,” whispered Ivan. “What’s wrong? Are you scared of hornets?”

  “I-I’ve never actually seen one,” I said from between chattering teeth.

  We only kept bees in Mount Bluebeard, harmless honey bees trained to stay within specific paths to carry out their pollination duties. Except the bees were as long as a finger, and everything about them set my teeth on edge. Eyes that took up an entire head. A segmented body covered in orange fuzz. Stingers that could lance through a person’s eye. Beaky mouths that clacked together like a pair of scimitars. Transparent, fairy wings that suggested magical powers.

  “Those hornets are awfully loud,” said Ivan.

  I pressed my lips together, too nauseous to comment on his understatement. “Hmmm.”

  The thrashing within the crates sounded like fists, hammering against flimsy wood. Every thud, every reverberation caused tiny spikes of fear to stab through a stomach that had turned to lead. Even the moths in the monkey fruit bush were agitated and wouldn’t rest on their branches.

  Ivan tilted his head to the side. “Are you nervous about the dragons?”

  “N-not really,” I replied.

  He gave me a pat on the shoulder. My muscles seized, and he snatched his hand back. “Sorry.” He pulled out the rolled-up pamphlet. “Why don’t you read through this? It might put your mind at ease about riding dragons.”

  I accepted it, but the frantic banging on the crates filled my mind with images of head-sized hornets throwing their bodies against the wood.

  Focussing on the pamphlet through the float’s jerky movements made my stomach churn, so I gazed out of the window. We traveled through leagues of drylands, punctuated by the occasional sighting of the walled compound of a Noble House, and the rare human settling of sand-brick houses built around a body of water.

  Ivan took the pamphlet and read out the section outlining the history of Mount Fornax. It was nothing I hadn’t already learned at the Magical Militia. After signing a treaty with dragon-kind, Aunt Cendrilla and her fairy husband, Prince Vanus, worked with the Militia witches to create a mountain from the sand.

  Black dragons worked with agricultural witches from the Noble House of Bluebeard to supply the mountain with water and soil. Finally, Father and Uncle Armin provided seeds and livestock from Mount Bluebeard and the United Kingdom of Seven.

  “You’d think that three husbands wouldn’t work together,” said Ivan, “but according to this, they got the mountain self-sufficient within a year.”

  Grunting, I wrapped my hands over my middle. The fear and nausea twisting through my belly had taken over my thoughts. Roseate lurched the carriage forward, making everything feel worse. I just wanted this wretched ordeal to be over.

  Ivan nudged me in the side. “Like I said, stick with me, and I’ll teach you everything you need to know to become a dragon warrior.”

  “Mage,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s what I’m trying out for.”

  He stared at his hands. “I-I-I’m not actually all that powerful… magically speaking. If I don’t get to be a mage, I hope they’ll let me become a rider.”

  The vehicle stilled, and I glanced out of the window. In the distance, the sun hovered over a mountain twice the size of Mount Bluebeard and equally as lush. A waterfall cascaded from the dense foliage, its spray creating rainbows on both sides. Thick clouds, likely sustained by magic, hung overhead.

  My breath caught in my throat. “It’s beautiful!”

  “That’s odd,” said Ivan.

  A pair of blue dragons burst through the waterfall. One of them had scales the same deep blue as lapis lazuli, and the other was as pale as aquamarine.

  All traces of nausea vanished. I could no longer hear the hornets. I wanted to be with the dragons. “What did you say?”

  “We’ve been stuck here for a while,” he said.

  The lapis dragons swooped down into a lower level. I supposed it was a terrace, but it was wider than any we had at home. Then both dragons dipped their head into a pool.

  Warmth filled my chest, and
a smile broke across my face. “Hmmm…”

  “She’s probably stalling on purpose,” said Ivan. “The wards are designed mainly to keep out high fairies.”

  My stomach dropped. “Huh?”

  “Dragons hate them, don’t they?”

  My heart thudded. There had been talk of Aunt Cendrilla taking a large number of dragons from the realm of the fairies, but I’d never asked why. But more importantly, had the wards sensed my fairy blood? If they had, then it wouldn’t take long for the security staff to arrest me and uncover my true identity.

  My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips. “Why don’t dragons like high fairies?”

  Ivan shrugged. “It’s ancient history.”

  “I suppose you read that in the pamphlet.”

  “You can borrow my copy if you like.”

  The float jerked forward, once, twice, then came to another stop. Roseate lowered the opaque barrier and turned around. “Are either of you carrying fairy artifacts?”

  Ivan snorted. “Nobody our age has a fairy godmother. They stopped doing that decades ago!”

  I gulped. That wasn’t true. Aunt Cendrilla godmothered for the children in her orphanages who were most at risk of being abducted by violent relatives… And for me.

  An armored vehicle flew out from the mountain. My stomach tightened. It was covered in fairy iron, a substance toxic enough to repel even the Queen of the Fairies. Ivan was saying something about the security in Mount Fornax, likely regurgitating whatever he’d read in the brochure, but my pulse was thudding too hard in my ears to hear his words.

  The sun glinted off the vehicle’s metal covering, and my stomach twisted. It might have been fear, it might have been the approaching fairy iron, but I wanted to be sick. With each passing second, panic wrapped around my windpipe, cutting off my breath.

  Then, two more of the same vehicles emerged from both sides of the mountains.

  “Roseate Nudibranch!” A female voice seeped in through the walls. “Identify your cargo.”

  “W-what’s wrong?” she squeaked.

  “Answer me!” The voice rattled the frame of the Flying Float.

  With my forearms resting on my thighs, I lowered my head, breathing hard. Ivan might have patted me on the back, but all I could think about was being caught, sent back to Father, and shipped off to the Savannah Empire.

  “S-six crates of king hornets,” said Roseate, “a monkey fruit tree… a-and two new recruits.”

  “Explain the dragonsbane seeds.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  I raised my head and sucked in a breath. What in the Known World was going on?

  The voice ordered Roseate to reverse out of the wards and to land. Everything else happened in a blur. The three armored vehicles landed on a patch of drylands within the barrier, and the witch carrying the largest staff told us to walk through to Mount Fornax’ territory on foot.

  I clutched my wooden trunk to my chest and followed Ivan on shaky legs. The air became thicker, and what felt like millions of thin needles pricked my skin. Since Ivan wasn’t flinching, I guessed that this was the fairy iron built into the wards. Fortunately, I didn’t have enough high fairy blood to trigger any alarms.

  A snowy-haired witch stepped out of the middle vehicle. “Sorry for the mix-up, boys. My name is Sula Maritimus, head of Mountain Security. I’ll take you to the Director of Admissions.”

  She turned on her heel and opened the front door with her staff, indicating for Ivan and me to sit with her.

  I didn’t have time to wonder what would become of Roseate and whether she’d deliberately tried to smuggle seeds of a plant known to kill dragons. I didn’t have the wherewithal to appreciate the breathtaking surroundings, the frolicking dragons, or the giant lake within the mountain’s flat top. A deluge of relief, more thunderous than a waterfall, filled my being. I was one step closer to freedom!

  We landed in a courtyard that seemed to be carved out of the sandstone. Around us was a one-story building with a set of double doors signposted ‘RECEPTION.’

  Madam Maritimus stepped out of the armored vehicle and opened one of the doors. “This way, boys.”

  It led to a foyer made of the same polished sandstone as the building, lit by a six-foot square skylight.

  “Welcome to the interior of Mount Fornax.” Her voice echoed off the walls. “This is where you’ll live, sleep, and have most of your lessons.”

  “Where do the dragons live?” I asked.

  “Blue dragons prefer to dwell on the waterfall side of the mountain, blacks above ground.” She paused. “Greens like a view of the landscape. You’ll learn about the other four types later.”

  My insides thrummed. I couldn’t wait to meet the dragons close up. Madam Maritimus opened another set of double doors that led to a reception area. Polished sandstone lined its floors and walls. The ceiling consisted of skylights with a view of the clouds.

  “Here we are,” said Madam Maritimus. “I’ll leave you with Evolene.”

  A young woman about my age with shoulder-length, chestnut hair sat behind a long, wooden desk. She scrambled to her feet, gray eyes widening. “H-h-hello! C-can I help you?”

  I tilted my head to the side. She was petite with human features, and there was no trace of leather armor or a staff, which meant she wasn’t a witch. While I understood the existence of security and agricultural witches in the mountain, it seemed peculiar that a brotherhood of ogre hybrid males would have a human female working the reception.

  As Ivan remained silent, I stepped forward. “We’re new students. Mr. Jankin sent us a letter.”

  “Oh…” Her gaze darted to a door that said, ‘Bradford Jankin.’

  “Can we see him?” I asked.

  She chewed her lip. “Yes?”

  My brow furrowed. What in the Known World was wrong with her? I hoped she wasn’t being bullied by the ogre-hybrids. The laws against fraternizing with human women in Steppe were unforgiving. “Can I go in now?”

  “H-he's o-over there.” She pointed at the door.

  I glanced at Ivan, who raised a shoulder. After the journey we'd had, it wasn't surprising that we'd meet another odd character. Suppressing a head shake, I walked to Mr. Jankin's door.

  “Um…” she said from her desk.

  Whatever it was, I was no longer interested. I needed to sit down and have a long, cool drink. Perhaps Mr. Jankin would be kind enough to guide us to the mess hall after he'd finished our registration.

  I pushed the door open, and the acrid scent of brimstone and burned meat filled my nostrils. Flinching, I clapped my hand over my nose and mouth. Oily soot glistened on the wall and floors, and the desk and chair had curled into shrunken, black husks.

  Something long, something charred, something human-shaped lay on the ground.

  A scream ripped from my throat, and my wooden trunk fell to the ground with a thud.

  It was a dead body!

  Chapter 6

  Although every instinct in my gut told me to run, I couldn’t force my gaze off the charred corpse. My stomach spasmed in time with my thundering heart and I staggered back into the reception area, not wanting to throw up in someone’s place of death. I collided with a smaller body and tripped.

  “Ouch!” yelled a high-pitched voice.

  I rolled to my front and rested my hands on the sandstone floor. “Sorry!”

  Something wooden and pencil-like rolled out from beneath us, and my heart froze. It had to be my useless magical staff. It was the type of staff sold only to apprentice witches. If either of them found it, I’d be exposed as an impostor pretending to be male.

  “M-my pencil!” Evolene crawled after the item, which had rolled to Ivan’s feet. She picked it up, rushed to her desk, and fumbled through the drawers.

  Whatever relief that might have washed over me from not being caught with an apprentice wand was drowned by the sight and smell of the burned body.

  “What’s going on, Albert?” Ivan rushed toward me, hi
s face as pale as ox milk.

  I pulled myself to my feet, breathing hard to stave off the nausea. Although the door to Mr. Jankin’s room had swung shut, my nostrils still twitched from the stench of burned flesh.

  “What in the name of the realms is this noise?” A male voice boomed out of an adjacent office. It belonged to a clean-shaven man a head taller than me, but without the heavy brow and strong features of a half-ogre.

  If he hadn’t been scowling, and if I hadn’t been sickened half to death by a burned-out dead body, I might have considered him handsome. He wore leather shoulder plates and a matching doublet that exposed muscled biceps. The intricate carvings on his armor were hidden by his long, burgundy hair, which hung down in gentle waves.

  “M-master Fosco!” Evolene pushed herself off the desk, and sprinted toward the man. “H-h-he’s dead!”

  “What?” His maroon eyes bulged.

  My heart spasmed, urging me to find Madam Maritimus and beg for a ride back to the Capital Market. “T-there’s a burnt corpse in Mr. Jankin’s room.”

  Master Fosco’s features hardened. Then he pulled back his shoulders, walked across the reception area to Mr. Jankin’s door, and cracked it open. He stared at the blackened room for a split second before muttering, “One of the dragons has gone rogue.”

  My throat dried, my knees turned to water, and I leaned my back against the wall. I shouldn’t have been shocked. What else could have generated that much fire? But Dragons were supposed to be intelligent creatures who knew the difference between right and wrong.

  “Someone put dragonsbane in the cargo of the Flying Float.” My words came out strangulated. I glanced at Ivan, whose prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He hadn’t seemed to hear me, either.

  Master Fosco grabbed the receptionist by the shoulders. “Tell no one.”

  Her jaw dropped. “But—”

  “No! If word spreads of the murder of a human in Mount Fornax, the Magical Militia will descend on us like emperor locusts. This would mean the end of my beautiful Sanctuary!”

  Sweat beaded on my brow, and I wiped it off with the back of my hand. What about Mr. Jankin, the victim of the rogue dragon? I was about to ask, when Madam Maritimus burst through the doors flanked by a dozen witches.