by Katie Pottle
“I guess we should try to keep clear of Gregor for the rest of this trip,” Cadin said as they paused for a moment to watch Gur. The dragon was now thoroughly confused and delighted by the eruption of cloud-hoppers disturbed by his frolicking in the dry grass.
“Yep, that guy has one too many loose feathers. Best to just stay away,” Bart said.
“Are you guys talking about me or that crazy guy at the square?” They all jumped and spun around. Ferris smiled, standing with four kids close to their age.
“Oh, ah… we, I mean I wanted to say thank you for helping me…with Gregor and all.” Cadin stumbled to get through his sentence as Gur dutifully flew to his shoulder with three or four cloud-hoppers hanging from his mouth. Two were still kicking, trying to escape, tickling Cadin’s neck in the process.
“You are most welcome,” Ferris said, eyes trained on Gur. The girl that Cadin recognized from before, tugged on Ferris’ arm. “Yes, Lana?”
She looked at Cadin, and stood on her tiptoes to whisper in Ferris’ ear. Cadin couldn’t quite hear what she said.
“I don’t know, Lana. Ask them.”
Lana looked at each of them and pointed to Gur. “Is that a dragon?” She spoke so quickly, Cadin almost missed it. He nodded.
“Well, isn’t it dangerous?” She took half a step behind Ferris as if expecting Gur to respond by eating them.
“He is just a rock dragon. I’ve raised him since the day he hatched. He is normally agreeable unless you try to take something he wants away. And even then, he can only produce really small fireballs.” Cadin smiled.
“Rock dragon?” Lana’ brows furrowed. Cadin had never met anyone who didn’t know what a rock dragon was. Surly they had them here on Condor. No one else they had encountered even looked twice at Gur.
One of the other boys stepped forward. Cadin guessed he was about the same age as him. The boy smiled. “You have a miniature dragon that can spit fire?”
Cadin took a moment, trying to decipher the quick cadence of speech. “Well, he is not miniature. He is one of the largest rock dragons I have ever seen. Don’t you have rock dragons on Condor?”
“We are not from Condor. We live on the fringelands east of here; and the only dragons on the fringe are dire dragons.”
“Wow! Have you seen an actual dire dragon?” Lep cut in.
“Yep, a few times. Last month, James saw one eating a wrath!”
“Cool!”
“I’m Devin, by the way. And this is Lana,” he said pointing to the youngest girl of the group who was still half hiding behind Ferris. She had shiny new wings Cadin guessed had only emerged a week or two earlier. “She’s our little sister.” The three of them had light skin and platinum blonde hair. “And this is Cinna and Crow.” If the other three’s blonde hair was the lightest Cadin had ever seen, then Cinna and Crow’s hair was the darkest. They all wore their hair slightly too long in that it hung in their faces – making them appear wild. Their clothes were pieced together out of different animal hides. Any cloth they wore was worn and patched.
“It’s nice to meet you guys,” Sun said.
“Oh, yeah—great to meet you,” Cadin finally said. He had been caught up in the realization that they were all from the fringelands when he noticed that they all had white Auras. “I’m Cadin. This is Sun, Bart and Lep.”
“You gotta be here for the Games—though you look younger than the other teams that we have seen today.”
Cadin was doing his best to pick up on the slightly different speech mannerisms. Some of the words were clipped and flowed quickly off their tongues.
“Yep,” said Lep when Cadin was slow to answer. “We are the youngest team to ever qualify for the Games. We are all sixteen or turning sixteen this summer.”
“I turned seventeen last week,” Bart said as his face turned slightly red.
“Why didn’t you say something? We would have celebrated!”
“I didn’t want to take time away from our training.”
Sun stepped up and gave Bart a hug. “Happy birthday.”
“Yeah, happy birthday. We are going to celebrate tonight, okay?” Cadin asked.
“Sounds good. Sorry to interrupt introductions.”
“No worries, man. Happy birthday.” Devin seemed to be the talker of the group.
“So, are you guys competing in the Games too?” Cadin thought they were about the right age, though Ferris was obviously older.
“Naw. We are fringelanders and they don’t let us compete.” It was the boy, Crow that spoke up.
“Why not?”
“Cause they aren’t officially citizens of the Calvarian System,” Ferris said, stepping forward. That burn came back to light his eyes. “At least that is the answer the Games Commission gave me when I tried to register them. They are all very good.”
“It doesn’t make sense that they won’t let you at least attempt to qualify…especially if you are as good as Ferris says you are.” Cadin smiled.
“Are you challenging us to a mock battle?” Devin’s excitement laced his words and reached his bouncing feet.
“That’s a great idea,” Sun cut in. “We don’t have to get back up to the condos for hours.”
“Just don’t go crying to the Core Counsel when we lowly fringelanders whoop you,” Devin said with a huge smile on his face. His feet were hardly on the ground now.
“I’m in,” Bart said, stepping forward. “What’s the game?” Bart was the second biggest there after Ferris, and Cadin guessed the least coordinated as Bart somehow tripped over his own feet.
Cinna and Crow nimbly stepped out of Bart’s way before he righted himself with a helpful nudge from Cinna. “Why don’t we play a simple game of capture the flag?”
Cinna was calm and beautiful on the surface, but a fire blazed behind her deep brown eyes. Cadin guessed that she wanted to challenge herself against a team that qualified in Games that were inaccessible to her.
Cadin stepped forward and reached out his hand to Cinna. “You’re on.” She grabbed his hand with a vice grip and nodded.
“Ferris, can you be the official?” Cadin asked.
“Yes; however, I only have twenty minutes or so before uncle James returns for another load of oar, so make it fast.”
They all rushed to the open field on the other side of the docks. Being close to the edge, there were far more cloud features than land features. Cadin scanned the open field for any natural formation that his team could take advantage of and found none.
“I guess we have to guard it in the open,” Sun said, as she too assessed the field.
“Yeah. Bart, set your jacket down here I guess so we can build some quick walls.” It was puny but would have to do. He connected with the cloud just as Ferris shouted out the one minute warning. His hands tingled as he linked with the wispy cirrus. He was frustrated as he attempted to use his energy to form the cloud into a solid barrier around Bart’s coat.
“Eh, it is too light to form a wall!”
“Can you do something else?” Lep asked as his hands twitched. They were used to training with their weapons; however, capture the flag was one of the best weaponless strategy games, and could be played most anywhere.
“First to bring me their opponent’s flag wins. And, begin!” Ferris shouted from mid-field.
“Don’t have any time now.” Cadin was disgusted with himself for not being able to shift the cloud into anything useful. He stayed to guard their ‘flag’ while the others advanced to capture their opponent’s patch-work leather vest.
He itched to be going after their flag, rather than defending, as players from both teams advanced. Cadin had an idea, and worked on cloud-shifting a different defense. The fringelanders chose to leave behind two defenders and advance Devin and Cinna to the front lines. Two white Auras skirted the edge of the playing field to advance on Cadin. He nodded as Bart, Lep and Sun moved to take the three on two advantage. Feet firmly planted, Cadin crouched to defend Bart’s ugly coat.
Too late he
realized their attack on his flag was a feint, as blond-haired Devin and black-haired Cinna ran back towards their end of the field behind Sun, Lep and Bart who were already engaging the two defenders.
“Behind you!” Cadin opened his wings, ready to fly to his team’s aid, only to catch the smiling glance of Devin—waiting to grab an undefended flag. Blood pounded in Cadin’s ears as he replanted and watched the fringelanders methodically overpower his team with superior numbers since Cadin stayed behind to guard. Sun, Lep and Bart eventually tapped out of the grappling match—giving up their play in the game.
Cadin steadied his breath as he watched the remaining three set their sights on him. His only option to win was to take them all out by himself and retrieve their flag.
Lana had also tapped out and sat on the sidelines next to Ferris, cheering. Sun and Lep shouted something as well, but Cadin couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of blood pumping past his ears. Two of the fringelanders took flight, while Devin approached him on the ground.
Cadin caught the flight of the siblings with his peripheral vision, and hoped his defensive improvising would pay off. As Devin jumped for him, he chose to engage and fell back into his guard, trying desperately to tap Devin out with a choke before the flying two could grab his flag.
“Eh!” Cadin heard from above and smiled. He had been upset about the cirrus cloud not cloud-shifting into what he originally wanted. Then he considered that not all clouds had the same properties. When the realization hit, he quickly tried something new, and shifted the wispy cirrus into a web above the flag. He couldn’t see Cinna and Crow as he was grappling Devin, but he heard their struggles and hopped that his trap would hold long enough.
The only problem was Devin was proving to be a better grappler than he had anticipated and continued to defend against every submission that Cadin attempted. Cadin felt his back molding with the wet ground as he squeezed his arm around his opponent’s neck. Devin firmly pulled his head free of Cadin’s choke and looked towards the sound of his struggling companions. With his back sinking into the ground, Cadin could not look back to see the tangled two, but read the frustration on Devin’s face.
Cadin’s heart fell as Devin’s expression turned from frustration turn to triumph.
“Almost free!” Cinna’s voice traveled from above.
Cadin took advantage of Devin’s lack of concentration and quickly threw his leg across Devin’s head, pulling his arm tight into an arm-bar. Devin tapped out of the game. Just in time! Cadin thought as he heard Cinna rip free of the web. Cadin moved to stand up and race towards Cinna, but was stuck to the ground. He panicked and tried to roll off his back, but was sunk. He reached over and felt the ground. It was malleable, loose, and had risen and nearly wrapped around him—almost like a mushy cloud-trap.
“Victory!” Cinna cried as she flew past him, flag in hand. Once Cinna handed Bart’s jacket over to Ferris, Devin laid his hands on the ground next to Cadin. He felt the ground stiffen under him and return to normal. With a wry smile, Devin offered a hand to help Cadin up.
“What was that?”
Devin laughed. “That was the ‘land-trap’ that Ferris has been working with us on! Cool, huh?”
“It was amazing! I didn’t know it was possible.” They made their way over to the celebrating Cinna and Lana after Cadin released Crow from the cloud-web. Crow frowned as he approached. Cadin doubted he was one to smile much.
“Those were nice traps from both of you,” Crow said.
“Uh, thanks,” Cadin said. He realized that Crow was not mad, just contemplative.
“I didn’t even see your cloud-trap and flew right into the middle of it. Cinna got caught closer to the edge.” Crow looked at Devin with what Cadin assumed was a smile, but the edges of his mouth inched up so slowly that Cadin thought a cloud-sloth would win a smile race. “Dev, I can’t believe you completed a land-trap in battle.”
“You did me proud, little bro,” Ferris said. They had reached the others and Crow and Devin mobbed Cinna with high fives and celebratory tackles.
CHAPTER FOUR
Welcome
“Eh!” Cadin gently tugged on the scratchy collar of his dress-shirt. “These things should not be required,” he moaned more to himself than anyone else.
Bart walked up beside him, standing tall and looking good in his dark dress pants, white button-down shirt and slightly too small jacket. “It’s not so bad to get dressed up occasionally.”
“I guess not,” Cadin murmured back as the door to the girls’ room swung open. Cora and Sun walked out and headed towards them.
“Ladies, you look breathtaking!” Bart said.
Cadin didn’t know when Bart had become so good with words around girls, but he certainly agreed with his assessment. Cora had her short, red hair pinned up, and was wearing a deep green dress with a small jacket. Sun also had her hair up, the setting sunlight reflecting off the soft blonde—creating the image of a halo. “Oh, yes…beautiful,” he added, admiring the simple light blue dress that Sun wore, complementing her eyes. Sun shivered, and Cadin wished he had a jacket to offer her. All he wore was the choking dark blue dress-shirt and black pants.
As if in answer to his unspoken wish, Cadin’s mom walked out of the room, holding a jacket and tie. “I got these for you at Peye’s Style just before we left,” Sara said, handing him the black jacket as she lopped the silver tie over his dark hair.
“Uh, thanks, mom, I got it.” He pulled the tie out of her nimble fingers, not wanted to be dressed by his mother in front of the other competitors.
“And this is for you, dear,” Sara said to Sun as she slung a long silky scarf around her shoulders.
“Really?” Sun asked, smiling as she felt the rich fabric. “Oh, thank you! I’ll get it back to you at the end of the night.”
“No, no—it is a gift. It is not always easy to keep warm in these dresses. Cora has the right idea at least.”
Cadin wished he had offered Sun his jacket as soon as his mom had pulled it out.
“You look lovely, Sara,” Tal said as he walked up to their group. He hugged her from behind and then glanced at Cadin who was still struggling with the tie. “Do you want any help there, kid?”
“No, thanks. I almost got it.” Cadin slipped the end through the knot and attempted to straighten it.
“Is everyone ready?” Instructor Kade asked. He wore a simple black suit with a metal pin clipped to the lapel that was shaped in the Guard Quad insignia. Cadin wasn’t sure why he was expecting Instructor Kade to be dressed in a Core uniform.
“Yes, I think we are all here except for the Fast, Furious Fighters,” Tal answered.
Instructor Kade shook his head. “Oh, those girls are going to make this a very long summer,” he said under his breath, as he marched over to their room. He knocked loudly three times. “Ladies, you don’t want to be late to the ball!”
Giggles ensued before Araina and her team strutted out, all waring various degrees of sparkles.
“Ready.” Araina announced.
Instructor Kade nodded. “Then everyone can follow me to the Condor Grand Hall.”
It was a short walk for them, though others were arriving at the stunning Great Hall in airships, or wing-flying in.
“Passes please,” A stiff-backed angel asked when they approached. He was dressed in a red suit with white gloves.
Instructor Cadin handed over a stack of passes, and the man looked them over before nodding. “Welcome, Glade competitors. You are seated at tables nine and ten. Please enjoy your evening.”
“This is so formal,” Cadin whispered to Lep who sat next to him at the round table with a starched white cloth, and red accented pieces strategically placed throughout the settings. The small center piece held a spirited array of flowers, the most prominent being the bright red tuliums that he and Sara had spotted when flying over the botanical gardens. Even the silverware had two bright red bands near the handles.
“Yeah,” Lep whispered b
ack. “It feels more intimidating than welcoming.”
“I think you boys are just being paranoid,” Sun chimed in from the other side of Lep.
Cadin leaned forward. “Tell me you don’t feel a little uncomfortable without your bow.” Sun made a slight motion to where her bow would have been if weapons were allowed at the diner. She exhaled and then made a face at Cadin, squinting up her eyes and sticking out her tongue.
“Manners, Miss Sun,” Instructor Kade said from across the table.
Cadin giggled before sending Gur across Lep’s back to comfort Sun. At least they hadn’t forbidden his dragon to come.
The high ceilings added to the atmosphere of a special occasion where lights speckled like stars. The main stage was deep and held a podium off to one side and a large, contiguous head table with at least twenty-fives seats.
Murmurs stirred, and Cadin turned as the teams from the Contra Quad entered the Grand Hall.
“They certainly know how to make an entrance, eh?” Lep said.
Cadin nodded, as the three top-seeded teams took their seats at the head table, while the other teams sat in unison at their appointed spots. His gaze drifted back to the top three teams—all individuals with bright red Auras. The falcon planted stiffly on Ryker’s shoulder swiveled its head to stare at Gur. Ryker’s eye’s followed and locked with Cadin’s. He nodded with half smile before turning his attention to the large man to his right. When seated, the man was nearly as wide as he was tall, with several double chins disappearing behind the stiff collar of the exquisitely decorated shirt and overcoat he wore. The large man’s mellow, yellow Aura seemed tame among the red surrounding him.
A waiter whisked by and took their orders after filling up their water glasses. Cadin had ordered the entrée with prairie hen, because it was the only thing on the menu that he was even remotely familiar with.
“Live a little,” Sun said after she ordered something involving snails and aquapisium greens.
“Yeah, we’ll talk tomorrow morning after your stomach has had a chance to reject that!”
