Eww.
“We also have a curfew of ten o’clock sharp, lights off,” Mrs. Browning said sternly. “Being late for curfew without written permission from a teacher or another member of the staff will result in a demerit, and more than three demerits results in a one-month suspension.”
“Ouch.” The last thing I needed was to slow down my dragon training even further.
“Indeed. Most of our demerits are given out Sunday night, which is when most students can’t seem to remember to make it back after being away for the weekend. There is no curfew Friday or Saturday nights, since students have their weekends free to attend to personal business,” she explained before I could ask.
I nodded. Looked like the weekends would be when I’d return to the ground to help out Carina. Saturdays tended to be the busiest, so she would be grateful for the extra help then. I wondered if she’d put Brolian to work, as I’d suggested—we couldn’t afford to pay him much, but at least he’d stay out of trouble if he was in the shop. Slick’s gang wasn’t the only criminal organization in Zuar City, just the biggest. There were still plenty of big fish left for him to piss off.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Browning finally said, unclipping a massive keychain from the belt around her waist. She unlocked the door we’d stopped in front of, and I blinked as I stepped into my dormitory room. It was larger than I’d expected, with a carved oak four-poster bed taking up much of the space. Dark red curtains hung from the canopy, pulled back and tied to the post to reveal the matching bedspread and pillows. It was a full-size bed, big enough to sleep two. There was also a matching side table and writing desk, a thick, filigree-patterned rug that covered much of the glossy floorboards, and an armoire for me to store my clothing.
Speaking of clothing… “My uniform?” I asked, picking up clothing that was laid out on my bed. It was made of that same light material the other dragon riders wore at the soiree, but they had been wearing dress uniforms, and this was a simpler design. The fancy double-breasted coat had been replaced with a shorter military coat that only just went past my hips. There was also a kind of undershirt to wear beneath it, paired with slacks and the same shiny shoes that the woman who’d sneered at me earlier wore.
“Yes. You’re required to wear it at all times, except leisure days.” Mrs. Browning fished a single brass key from one of her skirt pockets and handed it to me. “This is your room key,” she said. “It will cost you two coppers to replace, so I suggest you keep it on your person at all times.”
“Thanks.” I pocketed it. “I won’t lose it.” I was pretty good at keeping track of my belongings, not that I really needed to worry about this key. If I did misplace it, my magical lock pick could still get me in.
She nodded. “I’ll be back with your tin polish in a moment.” She headed to the door, then paused. “I suggest you get some rest if you can. A sergeant will be coming by soon to begin your testing, and you’ll need all your wits about you if you wish to pass any of them.”
And with that lovely piece of advice, she closed the door and left me to wonder just how hard these tests would be.
9
“Well?” Lessie asked as I dragged myself into her stall. It was nearly nine o’clock, and I was exhausted, but I was determined to spend a bit of time with her before I went to sleep. “How did the tests go?”
I didn’t bother to ask her how she knew about the tests—even though she wasn’t right next to me for most of the day, I knew she could skim my surface thoughts to get a sense of what was going on. I’d done the same twice today to make sure she was okay, but seeing as how she spent most of the afternoon eating and sleeping, I didn’t glean anything of interest.
I had no doubt that would change when she got bigger and started spending more time with the other dragons.
“I passed the basic fitness test with flying colors,” I said. “But I have a bit of catch up to do with some of the classes.”
I gave Lessie a rundown of the different tests I’d taken and how I did. As expected, I’d done wonderfully at world history, but my languages were pretty rusty as I’d spent more time learning the ancient versions rather than their modern counterparts. My military history and knowledge of tactics and warfare were woefully lacking, my herbology was barely adequate, but my navigation and geography skills were exceptional. Cartography was another weak point—I was good at reading maps, and could sketch them passably well if I had to, but I was certainly no expert.
And then there was all the dragon-related stuff, which I knew almost nothing about. There was no beating around the bush—I was probably going to do at least three years, maybe two if I hit the books hard and burned the midnight oil.
“I wish I was big enough that we could train together,” Lessie said as she curled up in my lap. Her warm body soothed my aching thigh muscles a bit—Sergeant Castan had really put me through my paces during the fitness test. I’d spent a good bit of time soaking in the communal bathing pool, which was fueled by a natural hot spring, before coming to the stables. “Kadryn says that I can watch you train, but that I won’t be able to participate in any of the dragon rider exercises until I am large enough.”
“I’m sure you’ll grow big in no time.” Already she seemed larger—when she was first born, she had fit comfortably in my lap, but now she had to curl herself into a ball to keep all her limbs in. A pang of sadness hit me—at the rate she was growing, it wouldn’t be very long before she was too large for me to carry.
Lessie huffed. “Humans aren’t meant to carry dragons,” she reminded me. “It’s the other way around.”
I laughed and scratched her behind her head. There were already tiny little golden knobs poking their way out of her skull that I suspected would become spiky horns.
“I love you,” I told Lessie as I snuggled her, the words coming easily to my lips. I’d never said them to anyone before—not even Carina—but the affection I felt in my heart for Lessie was pure and true, even though we’d only been together a few days. She was like a piece of my soul that I hadn’t known was missing.
Lessie nuzzled her snout against my belly. “I knew you were missing,” she told me. “I’ve spent centuries waiting for you.”
The thought brought unexpected tears to my eyes, and I blinked them back. “I hope I’m worth it,” I said quietly into the night.
We snuggled like that for as long as I dared, and then I raced back to the dormitories before I was caught outside past curfew. The last thing I needed was to start my first real day of training with a demerit already under my belt.
The high, annoyingly cheerful sound of a bell ringing woke me the next morning.
“Rise and shine, cadets!” Mrs. Browning called, her voice echoing faintly through the halls. I groaned and rolled over to look at the clock on my nightstand—5:45 a.m.
I threw off the sheets and pulled on the exercise clothes the sergeant had given me when I’d showed up for my fitness test—a pair of cotton trousers, a thin, long-sleeved top that was remarkably good at absorbing moisture, and a pair of running shoes. I threw them all on and joined the crowd of cadets streaming out of their dorm rooms.
“Morning.” Jallis was beside me, a grin on his handsome face that had no business existing at this hour of the morning. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” I lied. In reality, I’d done quite a bit of tossing and turning. Sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, in unfamiliar surroundings, could do that to a girl. My senses had been on high alert most of the night, sensitive to every creak and groan and whisper.
“Good,” a familiar voice purred. I turned to see Miss Galashiel on my left, her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. Her exercise clothes were nearly skintight, making the most of her perky bust and waspish waist. “You’ll need all your energy if you hope to outrace me this morning.”
“Aria.” Jallis narrowed his eyes at her, and I filed away the name. They certainly didn’t seem like the besotted couple from Tavarian’s party. “The two of you know each ot
her?”
Aria gave me a too-sweet smile. “We met yesterday when she was touring the academy. I seem to remember her having some misgivings about being a dragon rider.”
If Aria expected Jallis to show me the same amount of disdain, she was sadly mistaken. “I’m sure this new life is a shock to you,” Jallis said warmly. “I can’t imagine what I’d be thinking in your shoes. But I saw the way you and your dragon were together yesterday—it’s clear that the two of you belong together. You’ll do fine.”
His encouraging tone made some of my nerves dissipate, and when he clapped me on the shoulder, a smile tugged at my lips. As I watched him jog away, unapologetically admiring the way his pants molded to what looked like a firm ass and powerful thighs, I could feel Aria’s glare on me, potent enough that my left cheek would have caught fire if glares were tangible things.
“Problem?” I asked cheerfully, turning to face her.
She raked me with a sneer. “Stay away from my lover,” she said before she jogged ahead, ponytail swishing behind her.
I stared. Lover? What did that mean, in a world like theirs? I had assumed that upper city girls like Aria guarded their virginity jealously, but maybe nobles today didn’t prize virtue as much as the nobility of the past. I was the first to admit I didn’t understand how high society worked—as a treasure hunter, I was more interested in the past than the present.
Maybe Jallis wasn’t really flirting with you, I thought as we jogged out onto the field. Maybe he’s just a friendly guy.
Either way, I’d keep him at a distance. I wasn’t the kind of girl who slept with a man who was rolling in the sheets with another woman. Especially if that woman already looked like she was just waiting for an excuse to rip my eyeballs from their sockets.
“To the track!” Sergeant Castan barked, pointing to the large dirt circle carved into a section of the field. He was a stocky man with close-cropped steel hair and a jaw like a brick. “Sixteen laps in eight minutes. Go!”
I bit back a groan as I followed the other cadets onto the track. If you asked me to run on rooftops, swing from vines, climb the side of a building, or almost anything else in that vein, I’d do it with a smile. But I’d always found running for the sake of running a bore. It was far easier to vault onto a rooftop to escape an enemy than it was to try to outrace them in a crowded street, and I certainly wasn’t the type who chased after someone if they had what I wanted. Setting traps at the end of the line, where one could wait comfortably, was so much more efficient.
My skin prickled with the weight of many eyes on me, and I knew that the other cadets were sizing me up. Some were like Jallis—curious, like I was some exotic, fascinating creature that had appeared in their midst. Others were more like Aria—disdainful, maybe even resentful, like I was an outsider who hadn’t proved my worth.
I smiled at them all, then promptly turned my back and ignored them.
As my feet hit the track, I fell into a steady pace—fast enough to make that eight-minute mile, but slow enough I wouldn’t particularly stand out. Many of the other cadets sped ahead of me, racing each other to that finish line, but I didn’t see any point in burning myself out so early in the day when we were only just getting started.
Naturally, Aria raced past me. She threw a challenging smirk at me over her shoulder, as if daring me to try to outpace her. I could have taken her up on it—I could beat her if I really wanted to—but I knew it would chafe at her even more if I didn’t bother. Instead, I simply gave her an oblivious smile, then proceeded to ignore her just like I had everyone else.
She disappeared up the track, but not before giving me an ugly look.
“So.” Another girl fell into pace beside me. “First day at the academy and you’ve already made an enemy out of one of the richest girls. Nice job.”
I glanced sideways at her. “And who are you?” I asked, slowing down a bit so I had enough breath to talk. She was petite, with a head of thick, chestnut brown hair and a heart-shaped face. Maybe nineteen years old. Seriously curvy frame, but fit.
“Rhiannon Thomas,” she said. “But I go by Rhia.”
“Rhia.” I rolled the name over in my mind. “You’re not from one of the twelve houses.”
“Nope,” Rhia said cheerfully. “The Thomas family is a new addition, maybe six hundred years old. My however many greats great-grandfather married into House Spearmont, and rather than being absorbed into the Spearmont Family, they chose to branch off. We’re not as pedigreed as the old houses, of course, so it really scorches the asses of people like Aria when one of us comes to the academy with a dragon in tow.”
I grinned at that. “All right,” I said. “You and I can be friends.”
Rhia laughed as we finished the first lap, not sounding the least bit winded. “Why thank you for giving me permission to befriend you,” she teased. “But you’ll forgive me if I haven’t decided to be your friend yet.”
“Oh, you will,” I said airily as we ran past a group of younger cadets. About half of the students seemed to be in the fifteen to seventeen-year range, with awkward, gangly bodies that still hadn’t quite finished developing yet. “I might not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I tend to grow on people.”
“At least you don’t have that silver spoon jammed up your ass,” Rhia said, and I laughed.
We fell into a mutually agreed-upon silence as we sped up again, not wanting to be caught on the track after the eight minutes were already up. Even so, we’d lost a fair bit of time talking, and finished the mile with only fifteen seconds to spare.
“Thomas, Kenrook,” the sergeant said gruffly, checking our names off the list. He met my gaze with a steely look. “Good of you to make it. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll spend less time gossiping on the track so you can join the rest of us.”
To my surprise, my ears burned with embarrassment, especially when some of the other cadets started snickering. But Rhia didn’t miss a beat. “Apologies, Sergeant,” she said cheerfully as she sailed past him. “Won’t happen again.”
Blinking, I followed after Rhia and joined her at the end of the two parallel rows of cadets. I faced her as I took the opposite row, and the wink she gave me made me feel marginally better. I wasn’t used to feeling the need to impress someone—I’d given that up when I’d moved out of Salcombe’s residence—but Sergeant Castan had given me gruff but genuine praise when I’d passed the physical yesterday, and I’d let him down somehow.
For the rest of the hour, I threw myself fully into the training class, which included the standard push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. My already sore muscles protested, but I gritted my teeth and pushed past the pain. Just because I didn’t want to be here, just because I was an outsider, didn’t mean I wouldn’t do my best. If I wanted to survive the training, it wasn’t enough to do the minimum. I had to earn the respect of the other cadets, the people who I’d be working, and possibly even fighting, with.
Not that I’ll achieve that in one day, I thought as we finished the grueling regimen and headed back to the dormitories to shower and dress for the day. The disdainful looks hadn’t gone away, and Aria gave me another one of her smug smirks as she passed me.
“Exhausted, are we?” she said, noting my trembling limbs. “I suppose that’s only to be expected. It will take some time to unlearn those lazy habits of yours, ground-dweller.”
I curled my hands into fists, but before I could say anything, Rhia was at my side. “Lazy?” she drawled, looping an arm through mine. “That’s rich, coming from a girl who pays someone else to clean her armor and polish her sword every day.”
“I should have known you’d come to her defense,” Aria huffed, her blonde ponytail whipping through the air as she tossed her head. “Like calls to like, after all, and no matter how many generations pass, your family will never be able to get rid of its ground-dweller blood.”
Anger flared in the depths of Rhia’s amber eyes, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. “You know you’ve won
the argument when your opponent’s only rebuttal is to resort to personal insults,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Did you read that in a book somewhere?”
“No.” She smiled sadly. “It’s something my dad used to say.”
We showered and changed, and over breakfast in the mess hall, Rhia told me a bit more about her life. It turned out that her father had died when she was five years old in a border skirmish between Elantia and the Tressian Union, and that she’d been mostly raised by her mother. While her mother had never been a dragon rider herself or gone through military training, Rhia had longed to take up her father’s mantle, and had fervently attended the dragon claiming ritual every year. She had only just claimed her own dragon, Ykos, a little over six months ago.
“Does that mean you’re able to ride him now?” I asked, both eager and envious at the idea.
“I can.” Rhia beamed. “And it irritates Aria to no end, since she doesn’t have a dragon of her own. Since Jallis is a rider, she comes to watch him fly, but if not for him I think she’d stay inside with the others.”
I frowned as I glanced over at Jallis, who was sitting at a separate table with his friends, shoveling eggs and bacon into his mouth while he talked animatedly. “What’s up with Jallis and Aria, anyway?” I asked after swallowing a bite of my own food. “I saw them together at Lord Tavarian’s soiree, and she practically ripped my head off this morning after she saw Jallis talking to me, yet they’re not sitting together.”
Rhia shrugged. “Who knows with those two. Aria likes to pretend as if Jallis belongs to her, but in reality they’re pretty hot and cold. Their houses have always been close so they’re sort of expected to marry, but there’s no official engagement. Personally,” she added, smirking a bit, “I think that even though Jallis has the hots for Aria, the only reason he entertains her at all is because of the pressure from his mother. If he had better prospects, he’d ditch her in a heartbeat.”
Call of the Dragon Page 9
