“Huh,” a man grunted nearby.
Tyber moved over quickly, then slipped around the next corner so that the rectangular chimney stood between himself and the courtyard.
A small noise grated the night. It was the sound of loose mortar beneath a boot. Tyber risked a peek around the edge of the stonework.
A man stood at the edge of the roof, his hands upon the parapet. He looked out across to the spot where the pigeons had landed.
Tyber squinted. It was too difficult to make out who the man was. He had dark hair slicked back, and a black cloak hung from his shoulders. The cloak had a deep slit that ran up the back, nearly to the man’s waist so that it fell open to either side around the man’s legs. It resembled wings.
Tyber shook his head. No. He had seen actual wings. A dragon’s head, its long neck curved back. He’d seen it. There was no mistaking.
He glanced to the front of the building. There was nothing. He hadn’t missed a dragon statue. The parapet was uninterrupted by anything atop the roof. He recalled the stonework dragons perched on the corners of the academy’s roof. The dragon he had just seen had been clearly perched upon the parapet, not the floor of the roof.
A boot scraped against stone.
Tyber peered back around the corner in time to glimpse the last of the dragon man as he plummeted over the building’s edge.
Tyber shoved his back up against the chimney again and waited for the thud of a body. It was a sound he’d never heard before, but he expected it would be a thump, perhaps the crunching of bone, and definitely the cry of a man mortally injured from a five-story fall.
He heard nothing at all.
He crept to the parapet and peered over. The door to the auditorium closed with a click. The courtyard remained still.
Tyber leaned forward and rested his hands upon the parapet and then stared at the ground directly beneath him. There was no broken body, no blood, not even an impression in the soft dirt of the courtyard.
He looked back to the auditorium door. Again, it felt as if his mind was playing tricks on him. What he had seen simply couldn’t be, but this place seemed full of things that couldn’t be.
He looked over his shoulder to the front of the academy. Nothing to be seen but the stars. Slightly off to the north, the top levels of the King’s palace reached to the sky, as if preparing to pitch itself onto its toes to touch the top of the Gods’ Reach spire.
Tyber returned his attention to the dark courtyard.
Who in the wilds was that? What was that? He replayed the memory over and over in his head, trying to parse it in a way that made sense. But every time he reviewed it, he saw a dragon condense into the shape of a man, then leap off the side of the building. He couldn’t have grabbed the pole and slid down. His hands had been in the air. Extended like wings spread to catch the night.
Tyber’s grip tightened on the edge of the parapet. He pushed himself up to standing, then reached to run a hand through his hair. His fingertips halted at the top of his brow as he recalled that his hair had been clipped and now hung around Rius’ neck.
His hands fell to his side.
Whatever it was he had seen, whatever it was that went on at the academy, he could ponder it later, safely inside his bunk.
With a last, slow look at the courtyard below, Tyber grabbed the pole and slid down to the third ledge, crept back to his window, and slipped inside. As he sat on the sill to remove his boots, Weiss propped himself up on his elbows and stared at Tyber.
Tyber pulled off his boots, picked them up in his hand, and tiptoed across the floor. As he passed Weiss’ bunk, he pressed his finger to his lips.
“Shh.”
Weiss laid back down, then turned over.
Tyber undressed, put his clothes away, and crawled into his bunk to stare at the wood slats above him until the morning light began to cross the bunk hall floor.
Chapter 19
Weiss said nothing about the incident to Tyber the following day. And though he struggled to stay awake through Master Gury’s lecture on the anatomy of dragons, Tyber found that he could hardly sit still. He peered into shadows and corners. He raised his face to the high ceilings above to search for dragons or men staring back with cold looks of stone.
He struggled still as the recruits assembled in the yard and Dragoneer Chanson introduced them to the hand signals that riders use to communicate with each other in the air. Tyber’s attention kept drifting to the roof of the academy. Each time, he found nothing more than an empty parapet, and the small, stone dragon statues that stood at the corners.
After Dragoneer Chanson’s lecture, Tyber fought to keep his eyes open through archery class and lunch. A bite to eat helped, then they were led to the weyr and pressed into helping with the cleaning and care of the dragons. The activity helped him stay awake, as did his efforts to spot the one-eyed man from the previous night.
Later the recruits were gathered into the auditorium once more, and a slender man who introduced himself as Master Luremptor lectured them on codes of conduct and what would be expected of them as hordesmen. The lecture ended with Master Luremptor asking for a show of hands of those who could read and write. Tyber kept his hands in his lap and surveyed the audience. Ren’s hand went up.
Master Luremptor excused those who could read. The remaining recruits were informed that their afternoons would be spent in classes to teach reading and penmanship.
After dinner, Tyber excused himself from the parlor and went straight to the bunk hall. He undressed and fell into bed where he slept hard until a nudge woke him with a start.
“Should we tie you to your bunk tonight?” Weiss asked. His face was impassive, expressionless.
Tyber blinked at him. The rest of their bunkmates filed past, teasing and calling to each other. One of the boys stifled a yawn.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Tyber said, then rolled back over.
Weiss said nothing more, and then the floor creaked as he moved away.
As the other recruits settled into bed, Tyber considered getting back up and slinking out to the weyr once more. He had questions about the academy and what was going on. Could the one-eyed man answer his questions? Had he seen the dragon on top of the roof? And if he ran into Master Groal, could he tell Tyber what was going on?
Tyber had to admit he was enjoying the luxuries of the academy, especially the incredible food which always seemed to be plentiful enough that Tyber could eat his fill every night and know that no one else was going hungry because of him. He marveled at the building itself with its spacious halls and rooms and plentiful windows. He had a clean, comfortable bed every night, and each morning, a fresh change of clothes greeted him when he pushed back the lid of his foot trunk.
Yet, there was something strange about the place. It felt like secrets lurked everywhere. The weyrboys gave Tyber the creeps. And the dragon on the rooftop that somehow… The thought stopped there. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what he saw, and it seemed useless to try to make sense of something that couldn’t possibly be.
He thought of Rius’ dark eyes, the way she watched him almost the entire time he was in the weyr. She looked to Dragoneer Chanson now and then, as if checking on him, but then she’d look back to Tyber. And it began to feel as if she didn’t dislike what she saw. He smiled at the thought as he fell back asleep.
The remainder of the week slid by before Tyber realized it was the weekend. He had yet to revisit Rius’ stall in the night. Partly for fear of running into the dragon man, and partly out of fear of getting caught or ratted out, though Weiss appeared to have let the incident drop. The main reason though was that Tyber was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow every night. He didn’t wake again until the weyrboys drifted through the hall ringing handbells to summon the recruits to breakfast.
On Sunday, after breakfast and some time spent cleaning the weyr and caring for their dragons, the recruits were permitted a day of rest. Family members and friends were allowed to visit,
but only in a garden on the side of the academy.
There, Tyber sat with Ren and Fang as they chatted and joked until a weyrboy led Theola and Daramel, Tyber’s little sister, around the corner of the building.
“Daramel!” Tyber exclaimed, then bounded to the waist-high girl as she trotted forward, her big eyes glued to her brother.
Tyber scooped the girl into his arms and swung her around once before dropping her back to the ground. Daramel grinned and clutched the hem of Tyber’s tunic as she giggled.
“What happened to your hair?” Theola asked as she approached.
“What?” Tyber asked and ran his hand over the stubble. “You don’t like it?”
Theola shook her head. “No. I don’t.”
Tyber looked away quickly, over the garden and to the edge of the yard where another long, low weyr sat empty.
“They cut it off of us,” Tyber said. He gestured back at the garden filled with young men in black tunics slashed with red. “They needed it to imprint our dragons on us.”
“You have a dragon?” Daramel asked.
Tyber grinned down at his sister. “I do. Well, I mean...” he looked up at Theola as he rested a hand on Daramel’s shoulder. “Well, they’re all the King’s dragons, really. But they are teaching me to ride a blue one named Rius.”
“Can I see it?” Daramel asked. “Can I ride it?”
Tyber looked back at Daramel and ruffled the girl’s long, thin hair. “No, you cannot. We’re not allowed to ride them yet. Not unless we do so with the Dragoneer. He actually controls them. All we do is just sit in the saddle.”
“You rode a dragon?” Daramel turned to Theola and pointed at Tyber. “See? I told you that it was him.”
Theola cocked an eyebrow at the girl. “It could have been anyone up there.”
“But his dragon is blue. I saw a blue one. I told you. It was Tyber!”
Daramel turned back to Tyber. “I saw you! I was outside with Jack, Bear, Unther, and Nos, and we all saw you! We saw the dragons fly over. Lin and Theola didn’t. They were inside because Lin is sick.”
“Daramel!” Theola snapped as Tyber looked up at her.
Color flushed over Theola’s face. It was her turn to avert her eyes to avoid Tyber’s gaze.
“Theola?”
“It’s nothing,” Theola said as she looked back at Tyber. “You know how it is. These things go around. Some bad water. Bad air. She’ll be fine in a few days. You know how children are. They bounce back quickly.”
Tyber stiffened as recalled three of his siblings who had not been able to bounce back. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She can’t stop pooping, and she cries a lot,” Daramel offered.
“Daramel!”
Tyber’s grip tightened on the girl’s shoulder. She stepped back until Tyber’s hand fell away.
“That sounds serious,” Tyber said.
“Daramel, I’m warning you this one time: Keep your mouth shut, all right?”
“Why shouldn’t she tell me?” Tyber asked.
Theola shook her head. She looked at the pink flowers that grew on a bush laden with dark, leathery leaves. The flowers themselves were a knot of soft petals, but the thorns on the stems kept anyone from trying to take one away.
“I didn’t want to worry you. You have enough going on here.”
Tyber drew in a deep breath. “Has Father called a healer?”
Theola shook her head. She sucked in her bottom lip as if to bite it. The question was a dumb one, and he shouldn’t have asked it. Of course Father hadn’t called on a healer. How would he have paid for such a thing?
“Magellea gave us some herbs,” Theola said quietly. “They seem to be helping. And I’ve been keeping the others out of the cottage as much as possible. For the air, you know.”
“And Fafa?”
A slight grin passed over Theola’s face and then fell away. “You know him. Nothing will ever take him down. He just sits at that table and waits for the world to fall down around his ears.”
Tyber looked away again, out to the empty weyr. For all the sky, what was he doing at the academy? Why was he dressed in this ridiculous outfit and even pretending to be a recruit? His place was at home. He could be doing something there. If nothing else, he could be getting the money together to pay for a healer’s visit. This… He turned back and looked across the garden full of flowering plants, winding paths, and benches filled with recruits and friends and family.
This was not for him. He didn’t belong here, and he wasn’t serving his family by being here. What good would the bonus be after Lin had died?
“Father’s quite proud of you, you know,” Theola said.
Tyber’s attention shot back to her.
“He tells everyone about you. A recruit in the royal hordesmen. He says he knew you were destined for great things, but he never dreamed you’d do this. You should see him. I swear his eyes get weepy whenever he speaks of you.”
A pang of discomfort caught Tyber in the gut. He ran his palm over the stubble of his hair, and for a second, it seemed as if Theola was speaking of some other father’s son and not him.
“Jack, Unther, and Bear say they’re going to ride dragons like you,” Daramel said. “Soon as they’re old enough. Nos says she’ll ride too, but she’s a girl, you know.”
Tyber sucked in a deep breath. There was no point in explaining it to her, and so there was nothing to say.
Theola moved in closer. “Speaking of which, have you heard anything about the dragon queen?”
Whatever it was that Master Gury had said about the matter was suddenly lost on Tyber. He couldn’t recall through the knot of worry for Lin. Without thinking, he craned his neck back to peer at the academy rooftop. The parapets separated the roof from the pale blue sky, but there was nothing more to see up there.
“What?” Theola asked.
“Thought I saw something,” Tyber said. “Out of the corner of my eye. Bird or something.”
Theola moved forward half a step more. Her fingertips reached out and touched Daramel’s shoulder as if to still her, freeze her in place.
“I know what you’re thinking, Tyber,” Theola said, her voice soft and quiet. “Look at yourself. You have a haircut, a crisp uniform that looks like you’re the first person to ever wear it. Shiny leather boots without a single hole in them. I bet they fit you, too. And you look healthier than I have ever seen you.”
Tyber looked into Daramel’s blue eyes. They were light compared to those of the rest of the family. Her pale face stared up at him, her eyes and expression were confused, perhaps afraid that Tyber was in trouble. By the wilds, she didn’t know the half of it.
“People gather at the end of the lane to watch you, Tyber. You and the other recruits. Hordesmen are respected here—”
“I don’t respect them,” Tyber snapped. “They enforce the laws of a king who leans on his—”
“This isn’t about you, Tyber!” Theola countered, and her face flushed into a red that advertised just how low her tolerance was for him and his complaints. It was a look that the others knew well. She was a storm about to unleash the lightning of her tongue.
“Wait for me over there, by that pool, but don’t you dare touch that water! All right, Daramel?” Theola ordered.
Daramel nodded once, then looked at Tyber again as if to check on him. Tyber nodded in the direction of the round, stone basin overgrown with some sort of water plants that he’d never seen before.
Daramel walked off.
Theola planted her finger on Tyber’s chest as if to drive it between the edge of the red stripe and the black fabric and pin Tyber’s heart to his spine.
“You listen to me, Tyber. Whatever you are thinking, you are going to put it out of that thick head of yours right this second. I’ll be spitting wild if you mess this up. I don’t know how you ended up in this situation, and the truth is that I don’t even want to know. What I do know is that you are not going to use it as an excuse. You are
going to stick this out, and you are going to collect the money from the academy and you are going to turn it over to Father because if you don’t, you will have broken our father’s heart, and you will have wasted our time as well as yours. If you finish this, you will never want for work again. Do you understand?”
Tyber inhaled deeply and drew his shoulders back. His breastbone pushed at his sister’s finger. “Dead men don’t need work. Do I need to remind you of how the King got so desperate that he lets men like me in here?”
Theola shook her head but kept her eyes on Tyber’s. “You don’t get it. You completely miss the point of this, don’t you? Look at you.”
She pulled her finger from his breastbone to gesture at the uniform. “I wasn’t kidding, Tyber. I swear on our mother’s grave that if you come home not wearing one of those fancy gray tunics with the braids on the shoulder, then I’m leaving. I am willing to stay and see the little ones cared for until they’re old enough to take care of themselves. I’m willing to do that because you have a chance here to really make a difference. I am willing to sacrifice what I want for now so that you have this chance—”
“I don’t want—”
“I don’t want to be a nursemaid to my younger siblings!” Theola spat. “I don’t want to be their surrogate mother. I don’t want to wipe noses and lips and little bottoms. I don’t want to clean up after Lin and Fafa and fall onto the floor at night and pray that no one needs me through the gods’ watch so that I might get a bit of rest! I don’t want it. But it’s what I have. And I do it because I’m needed. You do what is needed. You do it not for yourself, but for your family. You do it because you are a good person. And I know you are a good person, Tyber. You have to stick this out. You must. You don’t have a choice. I’m telling you this as the eldest child.”
“Wait, what? I’m the oldest,” Tyber said as he placed the tip of his finger where Theola’s had been. “I was born first. Father said so.”
Theola crossed her arms over her chest. “Then act like it.”
“Theola—”
“I love you, Tyber. I really do. That is what you get for being a good person. You get love. When we have nothing else in this family to give, we have love. But I swear to you, if you throw away this opportunity, then it’s your turn to be the eldest child. It is your turn to rock bawling little girls to sleep and clean away the grit from scraped knees. I will be going out to Aerona where women are allowed to ride dragons. I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat, but they won’t let me in here. I am barred. Do you get that? I am barred from doing what I most want to do simply because I am a woman, and here you are riding dragons and still thinking about throwing away my dream.”
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