by Jada Fisher
“That’s alright,” Dille said from beside her. “It wouldn’t be fair for you to be good at hand-to-hand fighting, melee weapons, and archery. You have to leave something for the rest of us.”
“You say that like you’re not good at all three,” Eist grumbled, loosing her arrow and this time managing not to hit herself.
But her bolt wobbled in the air before only just burying itself on the very edge of its target. She sighed and reached for her next bolt.
“No, I’m not good at hand-to-hand. I’m good at dodging quickly. You have to be in order to survive as an orphan.”
“You know, whenever you say those kinds of things, I always feel woefully inadequate,” Yacrist said, aiming his arrow and loosing it to hit nearly dead center. “Look at that. I’m good at something other than being handsome and rich.”
“It’s about time,” Dille teased.
“Just you wait,” Yacrist said with a wry smile. “I may be average at everything so far, but I’m going to find my hidden talent soon and then the two of you will be really jealous.”
This was one of the times that she appreciated Yacrist’s self-deprecation and humor. He sold himself short—he was actually quite talented at several things and not a bad student. He just didn’t have things to prove like Eist and Dille did. Without that fire, he didn’t need to push himself nearly as hard.
But at least he knew that. And that was what made him charming.
Not that Eist thought he was charming.
No. Not at all! That would be silly-
THWACK!
This time, it wasn’t her hitting her wrist. She looked down the way to see Athar a few people away, rubbing his bright red wrist. Ain was on him in almost an instant, fixing his larger friend’s stance and his arm position.
The taller boy must have felt her stare, because he turned her direction, his eyes quickly meeting hers.
Eist felt her cheeks color and she whipped her head back to her target. How terribly awkward. She wished that Ain hadn’t told her about that whole staring thing, because now she felt like she couldn’t look at him without causing more trouble.
She quickly nocked another arrow and took aim, but before she could loose it, a screeching sound thundered from overhead.
Instantly, all of their dragons reacted, jerking to attention, with those that could standing on their hind legs. Barks, chirps, and yips sounded as they looked upwards. The initiates craned their necks as well, searching for the origin of the noise.
All of that happened in only a moment, and then the clouds shot apart as a red shape plummeted down. There was the deep, bass-like feeling of the downbeat of wings before that shape crashed to the ground in the middle of the archery field, sending dirt and grass flying everywhere.
Suddenly, everything was chaos. A heavy bell sounded from inside while Ale’a raced forward, yelling at everyone to get back. But all the youngling dragons were trying to run to the dragon that had fallen from the sky, giving their companions scratches, bites, and even a few small shocks.
And of course, Fior wanted to be in the center of it, trying to pull Eist toward the massive dragon that was just lying in the field, blood seeping from a multitude of wounds. What had happened to it!? Everything was confusion as sounds all overlapped each other so that her poor hearing couldn’t differentiate one thing from the next. It was just all white noise.
But then more attendants came running out to the field and helped herd the students back inside. Eist could read a couple of scattered questions on what was happening from the mouths of those around her, but as far as she could tell, no one answered. While normally she felt that her lack of hearing was something that only occasionally slowed her down, now she felt completely overwhelmed by it.
She made a note to herself that she needed to train for more high-noise, panic situations, but that quickly faded as the outside door was slammed shut behind them and the attendants rushed them to their rooms.
But as they were being herded, they passed by the area that looked out into the dragon caves and Eist could see dozens of dragons taking to the sky, flying off to places she couldn’t see while even more bells rang.
Eist decided to take a shot and looked to the closest attendant. “What is going on? Is something wrong?”
“Just get to your room, please,” she saw them say, unable to hear their tone over the din.
Thankfully, they weren’t paying so much attention that Yacrist, Eist, and Dille all ended up in their room instead of just the two girls. Naturally, they all rushed to the window, where they saw even more dragons flying away.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Yacrist asked, for once sounding completely serious.
“I think so,” Eist murmured.
“That was a red dragon,” Dille said, clutching Verelda to her chest. “Did you see it? It looked like it was nearly ripped apart. What could do that to a red dragon?”
None of them had an answer, and no one gave them one as the hours passed. When night eventually came with none of them having been let out of their rooms to eat, Eist and Dille huddled together in one cot while Yacrist pushed the other next to theirs.
They stayed awake for a long while, talking, while their dragons all paced the room in concern. When they eventually did fall asleep, they still had no answers and far too many questions.
When Eist awoke, she was excited. Not for weapons, or food, or new lessons, but because she figured now at least someone would have some answers as to what was going on.
Except that didn’t happen either. The three of them stumbled through the halls toward the cafeteria, their dragons bee-lining with a purpose, but when they asked any of the attendants, nobody had anything to say.
“This is weird,” Eist said, sitting down with her friends. “Why won’t they meet our eyes?”
“Maybe these are all attendants who had off yesterday,” Yacrist supplied helpfully. “And they’ll explain to us soon what’s going on. After all, the sun’s not even up yet.”
“Maybe…” Dille said doubtfully, her dark eyes scanning the room. They narrowed when they seemed to spot something over Eist’s shoulder and she pointed. “There, getting food. Isn’t that the attendant who led us to our room?”
“You remember that?” Yacrist asked, his head swiveling around.
“You don’t?” she retorted.
“No. It was frantic, and everyone was asking questions at once while we were being herded. I didn’t even realize that we were all in your room for several breaths.”
Dille shook her head, resting her chin in her palm. “How are you alive?”
“Extraordinary luck and a talent for being glib.”
“I’m gonna go ask her,” Eist said, getting up from the bench and striding purposefully to where the woman had just sat. She faintly heard Yacrist trying to stop her, but then promptly ignored him.
She reached the woman as she was taking her first bite and cleared her throat. “Uh, excuse me?”
The woman looked up at Eist, her dark eyes flashing. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, uh, I don’t know if you remember me from yesterday, but you led me back to my room. I was wondering if you had more information on what happened.”
“I’m sorry,” the attendant murmured, taking another huge bite. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
Eist blinked at her, surprised by the blatant lie. “W-what do you mean? We spoke yesterday, in the hall. You practically shoved me into my room.”
She shook her head. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Uh, I highly doubt—”
Another flash from her eyes and then she was finally putting her fork down. “I realize that we attendants are just background figures to your life, but I assure you, we are actually different people. I never herded anyone anywhere, and as far as I know, nothing exciting happened yesterday at all.”
Eist stood there, blinking several times and utterly at a loss. Why was this attendant clearly lying to
her?
“Can I help you with anything else?”
“Uh…no. I suppose not.”
Eist wandered back to her friends, who leaned in conspiratorially, and she felt bad that she had to disappoint them.
“The attendant says that she never saw us yesterday and that nothing happened.”
“Wait, what?” Yacrist objected. “How are they denying it? We were all there? We all know something happened.”
Eist shrugged. “I don’t get it. I really don’t.”
“Maybe they’re not allowed to say anything because someone in charge wants to do an assembly and make sure that all of us hear the same story at the same time, so rumors don’t start.”
“Maybe,” Eist agreed, chewing at her lips. She was feeling an uncomfortable mix of confusion and uncertainty bubbling inside of her. It was like something dangerous was sneaking up behind them, and they were all being kept completely in the dark.
That made her feel like prey, and Eist didn’t like feeling like prey. She liked being proactive and making sure nothing ever crept up on her and nothing tricked her.
It seemed like she was going to be hanging out in the library again.
7
Two Heads are Better than One
It was a bit strange to return to the library after so long without a single visit. Eist walked along the bookshelves, her fingers tracing the bindings of the old tomes that she had desperately poured over. Thinking back to those times and how scared she had been that she was going to lose her grandfather made her nervous, and she was glad this time her method would be far less urgent.
She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. Perhaps a book on academy protocol. Or even something on dragon injuries. Maybe more on dreams and green dragon gas?
The healer’s eyes flashed into her mind, how they had been almost entirely black and glowing with malevolence. How they’d hungered for her blood, and violence in general.
…maybe something on possession as well.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Eist shrieked and whirled with her fists raised. Yacrist jumped back, and Alynbach squawked from behind him, clearly alarmed by her reaction.
“Don’t you know by now not to sneak up on me?” she said testily. What was he doing here? She hadn’t mentioned anything about her intent to go to the library, and she knew from experience that he didn’t really frequent this place of his own volition.
“I wasn’t exactly quiet about it. Bach has just recently come into bellowing and Alyn was screeching trying to mimic him.”
“Bellow?” Eist repeated, unfamiliar with that phrase.
“Yeah, like this.” Yacrist opened his mouth and let out a single note, deep and pleasing to the ear. Bach’s head shot up immediately, and his jaw widened only to release a rumbling, baritone of a punch into the air.
Before Eist could be impressed with any of that, however, Alyn’s head jerked up as well and he tilted his little maw back, taking a deep breath only to let out a sound that was somewhere between a cat getting its tail stepped on and a child crying at the top of their lungs.
“Ow!” Eist cried, covering her ears with her hands until it stopped.
“See? Like I said, not very quiet. I just figured you were concentrating really hard on something.”
“No, just reminiscing.”
“Right. You found that book here, right? The one that tipped you off about your grandfather.” Eist nodded. “So, what are you looking for now? Hoping another mystery will fall into your lap?”
“I… I’m not sure what I’m looking for. All I know is that it feels like something else is going on, but for some reason, all I’ve got is surface knowledge.”
“Ugh. That’s frustrating. This probably has to do with the runaround they’ve been giving all of us and how our classes have been cancelled today, right?”
Another nod from Eist as she looked back at the books. Did she even know where to start?
“Maybe I can help out? Why don’t you start at this case, and I’ll go to the other ones? What am I looking for?”
“Anything on red dragon physiology, what can cause large wounds on a dragon, or anything about how the academy should respond to emergencies.”
“Huh, well, that’s a mouthful. Let’s get cracking, shall we?”
Eist nodded for the third and final time, and they went to work.
The hours passed quickly, with Yacrist often asking her if the book he had chosen was one he should check or not. They pored over tomes and tablets, learning plenty, but nothing that was really relevant to the present situation.
By the time they were due to leave, Yacrist was leaning over the table, his face pressed against the old wood.
“By the Three, did your head feel like this every night you used to hang out here?”
“You get used to it,” Eist said, picking up their books and putting them back on the shelves.
“I’m not sure I want to.” He sighed, and one of his blue eyes opened to look up at her. “I don’t know if your paranoia is rubbing off on me, but I feel kind of nervous too.”
“That’s just my survival skills leaking onto you.”
“Ugh, when you say it that way, it sounds gross.”
She laughed and reached over to ruffle his thick, dark hair. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Uh, Eist. I have something I need to tell you…”
She looked over her shoulder at him, already halfway to a bookshelf. Something about his tone stood out to her, and she gave him a curious look. “What’s that?”
He stared at her a moment, as if he was thinking, before seeming to suddenly deflate. “Do you think I could stay with you and Dille again? I just… I don’t want to be alone tonight with all these thoughts bumping in my head.”
“What about your dormmate?”
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Eist shook her head. “He broke his leg during weapons training. He’s living in the healer’s hall for the next few months.”
Eist paled at the thought of being there for so long. “All that time for a single break?” She knew there was a particularly long recovery with a leg bone, but surely, he would be able to get around with a crutch and good binding?
“Apparently, he hit his head pretty hard on the ground. His memory’s pretty spotty. He only really remembers his dragon and his mother and that’s it.”
“Wow. That’s really something.”
Yacrist shrugged. “That’s the life of a dragon rider, right? Half of us will be dead before we’re thirty.”
Something about the way he said it made Eist’s heart squeeze for him. He sounded concerned, and a little worried, which was quite different from his usually playful tone. “I’m sure Dille will be alright with it.”
He perked up almost instantly. “You think so?”
Eist nodded. “Our beds are already arranged for you to stay, and given the weirdness that’s going on today, I don’t think anyone will stop us.”
“If they did, I’m sure you’d just have to stare them down and they’d go running.”
“I doubt that but thank you.”
They finished cleaning up after themselves and then headed back to her room. Like she predicted, Dille didn’t mind, but she was interested in why the two of them were together.
Eist told her the truth, because she always tried to be honest with her friend, and they all settled down for the night, Eist and Dille in one bed with Yacrist in the other. The dragons were still prowling, clearly aware of something that the three humans didn’t know.
Hopefully more answers would come in the morning.
They didn’t, and the initiates returned to their training as usual. It was decidedly bizarre, but every time Eist asked someone, even a teacher, they changed the subject firmly or said there was nothing to worry about at all. But with Ale’a missing from training, and the dragon glen and caves seemingly empty, Eist couldn’t help but wonder if the administration thought they were all complacent, or just stupid.
Naturally, with such things going on and suspicion tearing at her mind again, it was a bit hard to concentrate. Weapons training was cancelled and replaced with more physical training, yet she couldn’t get on cadence or control her breathing like she normally did so easily. And listening in class was completely out the window.
So, when dinner finally rolled around, she was exhausted, cranky, and feeling that paranoia coil quite deeply in her middle.
“Whoa,” Yacrist said, joining her across the table. He had been a few minutes behind her and Dille due to Alynbach insisting on eating a whole squash at their own dinner despite the fact that they knew it took them forever to do so. Even with two of them going at it at once, both Verelda and Fior had finished well before them. “Someone’s grumpy.”
“What do you mean?” Eist asked with a sigh, not even bothering to look up from her plate.
“You always eat a lot of meat when you’re grumpy, and I spy a whole lot of it on your plate.”
“You noticed that?” Dille asked teasingly.
“Of course. Someone has to pay attention to you two busybodies to make sure you actually care for your bodies.”
“Oh,” Dille replied wickedly, her tone meaning that she was about to verbally trounce the handsome boy. “So, you’re saying you notice Eist’s body?”
Before he could answer, someone cleared their throat loudly behind Eist. Or at least she assumed it was loud if she could hear it over the general din of the dining hall.
Both Dille and Yacrist looked upward, their necks craning and their eyes wide with surprise. Given that, Eist was pretty sure she knew exactly who was behind her.
“Yes, Athar?” she asked smoothly, managing not to sound awkward.
“M-may I s-s-sit with you th-three?” Interesting. His stutter seemed to get worse when he was nervous. Or at least Eist assumed that he was nervous judging by the fear radiating from him.
Funny to think that someone as large as him could ever be afraid of someone like her.
The others were still gawking at him like he was some strange giant, but Eist just shrugged. “The seat’s empty.”
