Dragon School_Bright Hopes

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “My own nephew went with the soldiers north. I feel like I’ve been chained to a stone, ordered to stay here when others go to fight. At least I was here to see the best news yet – better than the news from Dominion City we received today - that our Dominar is not lost as men have said. He lives and wounded though he is, that is a great comfort. There will be celebrating in the streets like no one has seen in a thousand years! Though I doubt you’ll see it?”

  “Why is that?” Hubric asked casually. We entered a huge storeroom, cavernous enough to hold dragons and Ulif led us to a wide staircase.

  Dragons don’t like stairs. They aren’t our thing. Give me a sheer drop over stairs any day of the week.

  “Doubtless, the Dominar has kept you close to relay messages of his return to the surrounding cities – though I’m hoping you’ll tell me the full story first. Did you find him with his guards? They said he fled Vanika when the city fell to treachery. Was he the only survivor, or were there more? Was it a terrible retreat?”

  “I’ll tell you all of it over a game of cards. But first, what news did you receive from Dominion City today?”

  “By the vote of the Council and the sitting Generals, Castelan Starie Atrelan is the Chosen One of Legend and she shall go on our behalf to Haz’drazen and demand more dragons for the war effort. Together, we will roust these invaders from our Dominion and sweep over them like the tide until all of this world is ours. She prophesied our victory and wealth. It’s a certainty.”

  It was easy to make those sorts of promises when you were a self-serving liar. Had she thought about the innocent lives she would ruin with this war – or how ridiculous it sounded when our own country was overrun with enemies?

  I’m more worried about the part where she is off to make demands of my Queen. Haz’drazen has little patience. If the Council and the sitting Generals have given Starie permission to speak for them, she could undo a treaty that has linked our two people for hundreds of years. More than ever, we must hurry to the lands of Haz’drazen.

  I swallowed as the staircase narrowed around us. Savette reached out and took my hand. Her palm was as clammy as mine was.

  She shares our worry. None of this is good.

  The stairs ended suddenly at a doorway, and beyond the doorway, the room – large as it was – seemed to sway so that the doorway only lined up with the stairwell half the time. Was the whole room swinging?

  It’s suspended. I hope whatever Magikas built it knew what they were doing. I don’t imagine plummeting to my death inside a poorly built room would be a grand way to die.

  The worst part was that the possibility of dying in a falling box wasn’t even the most concerning part of our situation. Beside me, Savette began to cough. I stopped as she doubled over beside me and spat on the ground. We were running out of time.

  Chapter Eight

  Four days later, we still hadn’t been allowed to leave the Umtal Castel Dragon Riders’ barracks. Worse, we hadn’t been allowed to see the dragons in that time.

  We’re fine. We’re taking turns in deep sleep. I feel almost as good as new. Stop worrying.

  And Savette’s cough was getting consistently worse.

  That part isn’t fine. We need to get her south sooner than later.

  I spent most of my time with her. She wanted me close, hugging me often and holding my hand when she slept. It was like she wanted someone to tell her that she wasn’t really dying, but what could I possibly say? I just held her hand and tried not to cry when I thought about it.

  That’s all you can do.

  There was no way to escape. Our rooms were guarded, the barracks were guarded, the dragons were guarded – by black dragons – and we were kept apart from Hubric who seemed to be spending most his time playing cards.

  Sometimes he plays the type of cards where you get information.

  And the rest of the time?

  He really likes cards.

  There had to be a way out. There had to be something we could do. I sat on the edge of my bed, tapping my foot as I thought. Beside me, Savette slept on the bed, her fingers twisted in mine for comfort. There were windows, at least, so I could watch the sun rise and set over and over again counting down the days until we lost everything.

  “Amel? Are you there?” Was that Hubric whispering through the wall?”

  “Yes,’ I whispered back, carefully untangling Savette’s fingers from mine and getting up from the bed to crouch on the floor near where his voice was. I leaned in close to the wall.

  “Things are getting worse. The Lightbringers contacted me through our card game.”

  “Can they get us out of here?”

  There was a long pause. “They were hoping I could help them.”

  “Savette is getting worse, Hubric. Her time is ... short.”

  “I know. Trust me, I know.” Stress bled through his voice. “When Starie was embraced by the Council as the Chosen One, she made her beloved mentor her right-hand woman – Grandis Elfar of Dragon School now leads a group of elite Black Dragon Riders and soldiers known as the Dusk Covenant of the Chosen One. They are hunting down and destroying all the Lightbringers they can find. They say the fall of Vanika was our fault. The Dusk Covenant has been made the one true people of the Chosen One and they are absolved of all past guilt. It’s bad, Amel. Each piece of news I hear is worse than the last. They’ve found knots of Lightbringers and slaughtered them, burnt our safehouses and businesses. Lightbringers are hiding their tattoos and refusing to meet. We are in hiding. What’s worse, is that the Dusk Covenant have negotiated peace in some of the villages bordering the war with Baojang. They are being heralded as the people of peace.”

  “But, that’s all so twisted! That’s not how things are at all!”

  Lies have a way of seducing people. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good in the eyes of those who see what they wish to see and are driven by their own selfish ambition and bitter jealousy.

  “Of course, it’s lies! But it puts us in a precarious spot. The Dominar has added his official sanction to their efforts and he has declared you and I and Savette to be Lightbringers. According to the guard, we are now officially under custody until there is time for an investigation.”

  But it wouldn’t take much to investigate us. Hubric doubtless bore the mark. We both carried the Ibrenicus prophecies and Savette – Savette was as Lightbringer as they came. All you had to do was look at her eyes to see that.

  This is dire news.

  What option did we have except escape and flight?

  There is no opening for escape – not yet.

  “Hubric?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there a way for you to come through the wall to join us? The guards haven’t let me into the common room all day. They bring our food to us. I think they don’t want Savette out there because they think she’s contagious.”

  Hubric coughed. “Since the Dominar ordered us under custody we are now locked in our rooms. And no, I don’t see an easy way to get through the walls. My card games are over and with them, the information I need to make decisions. We’re trapped, apprentice.” There was so much resignation in his voice. “And there’s more.”

  “More?” This was already too much.

  “The Dominar leaves today for the Dominion City. Ulif Fidelis has been ordered to follow him, bringing along both us and the other Lightbringers they’ve captured. Cages are being constructed for us and for our dragons.”

  Cages? Are they kidding? I will flame them all!

  “And if Raolcan and Kyrowat really do flame them, they will kill us in front of them and let them die of rot in the weeks after,” Hubric whispered, clearly hearing his own dragon’s objections in his mind. “We are well and truly trapped. This time, it won’t be us swooping in to save the day.”

  I swallowed, chewing my lip nervously. What did you do in the face of so much opposition? I took out the small book of Ibrenicus prophecies from my pocket and looked at the worn pages and scratched l
eather binding. Talsan had read it often. Had he found any hope in the pages when he went to them over and over again?

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Get some rest. We’ll need it for what comes next.”

  Did he hope we’d find a way out then?

  While there’s life there’s hope.

  I settled into a seated position on the bed next to Savette and opened up the book of prophecies. She leaned against me, coughing intermittently and drifting in and out of fitful sleep. Like Talsan, she was not done yet - not ready to go until she’d accomplished that one last thing - but her last thing was saving the world and I was starting to realize that maybe my role in life was to make sure she survived to do that.

  It was going to be a tough role.

  Chapter Nine

  They came for us the next day.

  “Gather your things,” the guard said, his face set in a grim mask as he delivered a breakfast of tea and bread. “Dragon Rider Fidelis has ordered you moved in one hour.”

  “The Dominar needed Savette’s cloak when he was wounded. She doesn’t have appropriate clothing to travel in.” I gestured to where she sat on the edge of the bed in her filmy white dress – dirty from travel – coughing in a way that made my own lungs ache.

  The guard set his jaw like he was about to refuse.

  “Please,” I said. “I’ll give you this scarf.” I unwound Ashana’s scarf from my neck. I had nothing else of value to offer. “It belonged to Ashana Willowspring, Top Rider of the Purples.”

  The guard took it in his hand, considering the fine weave and nodded. He left and returned after a moment with a worn grey cloak. It was fur-lined, despite the frayed edges and I nodded gratefully when he threw it to me.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t know why you bother. She’ll be dead by the end of the week.”

  There was something about the casual cruelty of his words that made me set my own jaw in defiance. There had to be some way to prevent that, and I – Amel Leafbrought – was going to find it. I placed the cloak gently around Savette’s shoulders and she smiled in gratitude. She didn’t talk anymore if she didn’t have to. Any words made her cough worse and she coughed all the time.

  There weren’t many things to grab. I collected the blankets and the water bottles we had. There was a little medical kit Savette had brought from the storeroom when we fled to the warrens. That was all we had. No food. No spare clothing. Nothing but these things and the tiny handwritten book in my pocket. I’d read it last night until the light had faded. One part stuck out to me in particular. Maybe because every time the prophecies mentioned “the earth” I thought of the Ifrits – the earth demons.

  In the last days, distraction will take the minds of the people. Their hearts will turn away from truth and to the comfort of lies. No longer will a man embrace the wisdom of his fathers or a woman the words of her mothers, but they will seek a new way – a way that leads to destruction. The powers of the earth will cloak themselves in peace and with lies, they will swallow up the people. They shall snuff out light from across the land and give the souls of the people to the earth in exchange for the power their hearts crave. When you see their sign in the skies, do not lose hope. Though blood soaks the earth and truth has fled from the land, the light will spread and heal. The light will choose as it wills and shine truth into the hearts of all men.

  I was getting as crazy as Hubric believing prophecies like that were meant for us. Maybe they were meant for someone else, generations from now.

  Or maybe they are meant for both you and that far off generation, Raolcan said.

  I was still considering the implications of that when the guards strode silently into the room and held the door open for us. There was no point trying to resist. There were five of them to our two – and I was crippled and Savette was coughing up her life a little at a time. I slung our tiny bundle of blankets and water over my shoulder, bracing my crutch under my other arm. Savette grabbed my belt, holding tight to what she could when I had no free hand to give.

  As her light fades, she is losing her sight.

  That made sense, I supposed, in a grim way. Together, we limped out of the room as silent as the guards. In the common room, there were more guards and Hubric, too. They’d tied his hands. I supposed they realized they didn’t need to tie Savette or me. We followed their silent direction out of the common room to the dragon cotes. Would we fly down from here?

  Hardly. Prepare yourself.

  His warning didn’t come soon enough. As soon as I saw him, I froze in my tracks, fear stabbing through me like ice. Raolcan and Kyrowat were already in metal cages. The cages hung from cables and were being slowly lowered to the ground by a pulley system.

  I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Not even my first days at Dragon School. They will pay for this. They will all pay!

  But Kyrowat and Raolcan kept their mouths tightly closed, not a flame escaping them as they were lowered to the ground.

  We were ushered to another cage nearby. The door was held open. It was large enough for a dragon, but instead, there were two other people and some wooden benches along the sides. My heart sank as I realized we would be lowered in the same silent, terrible way.

  Below, on the ground, teams of horses were hitched to long trailers. I realized, belatedly, that the trailers were the exact size of the cages. We would be loaded on one of those and spend our journey bumping along Dominion roads in a metal cage. Horror, raw and yawning filled me, so that it was only the pull of Savette’s hand on my belt that gave me the courage to step forward into the open door of the cage. We sat, side by side, on the hard bench. Hubric was shoved onto the bench on the opposite side, but when they began to lock the door, he hobbled across to sit beside Savette instead, helping to support her as she doubled over with coughs again.

  Across from us, two silent figures in grey cloaks stared at the floor. They were both women – one young and one about Hubric’s age. Their fingers tangled and untangled in their cloaks, and they sat close together as if they were friends. Neither one lifted her eyes as the lock clicked with a strange finality and the cage was raised, pivoted, and then was lowered down, down, down through the hole into the air beneath.

  The wind howled around us in exact tune with my howling, raging thoughts. If only we – me and the wind – could fly free together and we would rip apart this smug city with the hanging nets and laughing people with their sense of superiority while the rest of their nation battled for their lives. We would blow it over so that it couldn’t be rebuilt and then the people of Umtal would pay for believing the lie that Iskaris was the Dominar and that we were their enemies.

  You sound like their enemy, Amel. Don’t let anger cloud your mind. You are only humiliated if you allow yourself to be. Don’t accept their judgment of you, but don’t be driven by revenge, either. Revenge is a double-bladed knife. It will cut you as easily as your enemy and innocents will always be hurt in the process.

  His words sounded true, and yet they went exactly against the bent of my heart.

  Then take your heart in hand and bend it the right way, Amel. We are victims, yes, but if you let your heart bend you the way it wants it won’t be your enemies who suffer. It’s up to you to manage your heart and to make it bend to your will, not the other way around.

  I fought my heart as we were loaded on the trailers. Fought as the horses pressed against their harnesses and we went from stop to go. Fought as the soldiers traveling with us surrounded the cages on prancing black horses and spread out all around us. Fought as the chill of the morning was burnt off in the haze of the sun’s eye and the burning rays baked our shade-less bench. But it was no use. My heart only wanted one thing, and it wasn’t forgiveness or peace.

  Chapter Ten

  “Why do her eyes shine?” It was the first time anyone had spoken since we began to move, hours ago. It was the older woman, addressing Hubric and at first, I thought she was talking about Savette. Her eyes nev
er left me, though.

  “Amel?” Hubric asked. I met his eyes and he drew back slightly. He cleared his throat but was drowned out when Savette burst into another fit of coughs.

  “Her eyes shine. I thought maybe it was just a trick of the light up in the city, but it’s noon now, and I can still see the glow,” the woman said. Her brow was furrowed like she was thinking. “You two are Dragon Riders?”

  “I am Hubric Duneshifter of the Purple,” Hubric said, “and this is my apprentice, Amel Leafbrought. I don’t know why her eyes might glow.”

  “And you’re Lightbringers,” the woman said, pulling her sleeve up to expose the mark of a rising sun over a hill. She nodded at two other cages being dragged up ahead of us. “Like the rest of us.”

  “I am,” Hubric said. “Amel has yet to be inducted by us. No opportunity.”

  The woman smiled at me. “I’m Analia Berrycrusher and this is my daughter, Haskel Berrycrusher. We were apothecaries in Umtal. No one special. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. They rounded up everyone I know in the Lightbringers. Those still alive. The Dusk Covenant has been after us for months. There have been accidents. Suspicious deaths. Mysterious circumstances. At least the worst has finally happened. There’s no more waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  Her daughter spoke for the first time. Her voice was throaty and deeper than I expected. “This isn’t the worst. Is it?”

  It was Hubric she was looking at, not me. His expression was grim as he nodded.

  “We weren’t allowed to bring our herbs,” she said, gesturing to Savette, “but maybe we can help your friend.”

  Savette’s head lolled against my shoulder as she half-slept, half-coughed her day away. She was getting worse, and I didn’t want to think about how bad it was going to get for her.