I tapped my spoon on the table absently, worrying my lip as I imagined all the horrors that might have been visited upon his person. Believe me, I could come up with plenty. We all had experience in that one.
“Do you think he’s alive, Niel? I mean, he was a shifter, right? That’s got to improve his chances.”
Niel’s smile disappeared and the haunted look he tried to hide appeared in his eyes. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time. I don’t get it. He was one of the strongest guys I know and he was no fool. Conceited, full of himself, and he could be a pain in the ass when it came to his sister, but he was not stupid.”
Fern spoke up and we all looked at her in surprise. As was the norm, we’d forgotten she was even there. “So you knew him then?”
Niel shrugged. “Not well. I knew his sister, Melanie, a fair piece though. We dated for a short while last summer and he was always on our case, following us around and giving me crap. I don’t think he thought I was good enough for his sister. Imagine that?” he laughed shortly at his own joke.
“I guess I just worry too much. I mean, if it involved foul play, is he just the first?” Fern finished.
We all stared at her. I shook my head, my mouth a flat line.
“Well, hell no. We left that behind us in Drae Hallow, remember? It was the best part of coming here for the summer. As I recall, it was you that told us that.” We all nodded. I wasn’t sure any of us really believed it, though. Trouble had a way of following us around.
“So, when and where should we be if we want to see Dragon’s fly?” Thomas asked.
Niel brightened at the change of subject. “Ten o’clock. This is a long valley; on the north end it deepens into a second valley in the middle of the woods, about a mile long and wide. It dips way below the tree line, so unless you are directly above or right in the middle of it, everything is invisible in that valley. The guards Franz Hobert is posting will further protect the shifters.
So, yeah, be there after ten and it’s all good. I won’t be able to walk you there, I have something I have to do. Just follow every other teenager in camp, you’ll get there,” he finished with a wide grin. His eyes moved over the top of my head and saw something that snagged his attention. “Hey, I gotta scram. I’ll catch you guys later, okay?” without waiting for an answer. He was off and gone.
“So, are you guys going to see that tonight,” I asked, wondering if I wanted to go see what I would probably never be a part of.
“Are you kidding? We all are, and so are you. Don’t think you’re going to ditch us Sadie Cross.” Sirris told me. She glanced at Nick’s tray and his uneaten brownie. With an eye roll, he shoved the tray her way and she snatched it up with a cheeky grin in his direction.
#
Niel was right, it was easy to find the small concealed end of the valley, we just had to follow forty teenagers because the entire camp had to be headed there. The path itself wandered through the densest part of the woods and straight up the mountain, growing more remote as we went. The moon, though not visible beneath the forest canopy, still cast enough light to see by for a group of preternaturals like us. It ended up being a stiff half-hour walk before we emerged onto the lip of the valley, looking down where the forest opened up.
We’d passed several guards along the way, and we assumed they were spread out around the outside of the valley with a birds eye view of anything that might not belong there. Surrounding the valley on most sides were heavy boulders and rocks, almost as if an unseen hand had reached down with a gigantic ice-cream scooper and carved out an enormous bowl in the middle of the forest. When we got there nothing was happening. Not at first. We stood with several other campers and waited, just enjoying the balmy warmth of the summer night and the stars that were just beginning to pop, brighter away from the reflective lights of larger towns and cities. Everything seemed huge from where we stood.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Regardless of whether I was actually a shifter myself, I’d never seen one before. I’d never seen any shifter before unless you counted Nick’s mother, a cute little red fox, or Sirris tail. A veritable dragon seemed way beyond the scope of my experience.
An excited shout further down around the outside rim of the Valley was my only warning. Our eyes swung right just in time to see a black shape the size of a greyhound bus lift off and dip low over the rim before rising in a steady thrum of leathery wings towards the night sky. From a distance it was difficult to make out any distinct features, but I had a sense of the size and magnificence. I realized that the pictures I’d seen in books weren’t so far off. I had the impression of a gigantic body and streamlined head, along with a long tail that tapered down to a spiky protrusion at the end. The legs and arms were smaller compared with the large body.
The wings, to support the massive weight that shouldn’t have worked and yet somehow did, were at least twenty feet wide from tip to tip. Rather than feathers or skin, the body seemed to be made of armored scales that reflected the moonlight when it glanced off them and shimmered as the dragon angled and dipped and dived in wild abandon. The wings themselves were leathery and jointed, similar I thought to a bat’s. As I watched, two more joined the first. Both were much smaller, and I had the sense that they weren’t quite the same color. These were lighter and a glint of the moonlight gave the impression of bronze rather than black scales.
Before long, the sky was awash with dragons. Some of them grew close enough to make out the glow of their reptilian eyes as they took us in at a glance. We learned that the color possibilities as well as the body forms were vast. Some of them were on the slight side, no larger than a deer. Others were as large as the first one we’d seen. And the colors, Burnt Orange and deep russet, dusky gray and deepest black, and even a shimmery cobalt blue swam through the air before our vision.
As we watched, a medium-sized dragon flew our way. He grew nearer and I could make out the dark chestnut brown of his scales and the green of his eyes as they seemed to stare right at us. We waited for him to swerve and angle out over the valley. We scrambled back from the edge when he suddenly veered straight for us and came to a screeching halt, landing in front of us on the edge. Heavy wings beat the ground and sent the branches of the trees trembling almost to the ground as they slowed until he folded them in close to his side and stared at us.
I knew those eyes. “Niel.” I whispered, taking a hesitant step forward.
“Careful, you don’t know how much of him remembers you aren’t part of the main course.” Nick admonished.
But I knew those eyes, and more important, they knew me. I wanted—needed to know what that strange hide felt like beneath my fingers. I’d never seen a dragon before. Now I wanted to touch one and live to tell the tale.
Niel’s eyes followed me as I approached. Still, a bit of caution was a good thing and I moved slowly, just in case Nick was right.
Within a couple feet, my fingers itched and tingled as I reached out towards that tough hide. Before I could, he shook his head and sneezed, cocking his head sideways to eye the rest of my group, who had followed my lead and had wandered closer behind me. A long shudder rolled through that bronze body. I couldn’t wait any longer and lay my hand flat on his scaled side. It was the strangest feeling. I struggled in my mind to find something to compare it to. A little like well-worked beaded leather and maybe like soft velvet too. I looked closer. The scales were huge, each one the size of my hand and shaped like a shovel, but flatter. I looked up into those green eyes and saw my new friend. But the beast was there too, nervous of us crowding around him.
Unlike the rest of us, Fern had by passed the scales that covered his body, instead, she’d gone right for the head that held all those razored teeth and uncanny intelligent eyes.
He turned to her diminutive form and chose that moment to snort a breath of air and shake his head.
Fern never paused, reaching up and laying her hands on either side of his enormous jaw, the action stretching her arms wide to rea
ch both sides. She might have been standoffish with the boy, but the beast she understood.
“Now there, no need to worry beauty, and aren’t you a handsome one. I bet you send all the young dragon ladies a dither.”
I watched her work her magic as Niel, the beast, leaned into her soft hands, eyes closing to half-mast with a slumberous sigh. Fern Mason was quite the witch.
A screech behind us further up the valley made him shudder and spring alert. On instinct, we backed away. With a last glance in our direction, he whirled in a single motion and dipped over the side, wings spreading wide and gathering the air beneath him as he fell and then lifted into the night sky. Just like that he was gone towards the westernmost rim where all the dragons seemed to be assembling. I wondered if Franz Hobert was there, waiting for the rest of the shifters to come together for instructions. Within the space of a minute, the sky was empty and they’d all landed and were out of site. The show was over.
A curious emptiness settled deep inside of me. I looked at that inky expanse of space in front of me and imagined it were me, winging my way through time and space, the wind sliding past my wings and lifting me so high I could touch the clouds. A sense of longing slammed into me so hard I gasped. I wanted that. I needed to be one of the Dragons that shifted. I’d wanted nothing so much in my life before.
We were one of the first groups to arrive. We were almost the last to leave. I was quiet, so deep in thought that not even Nick, who tried to engage me in conversation at least twice, could get my attention. From the disgusted look on his face, I figure he imagined I was enamored of Niel and his magnificent dragon. He was close, but he would have been wrong. I was in love with the idea of being that dragon, strong, fearless, capable… and free.
Thomas led the way back in the dark. We took the same way back we’d come. The weather broke through my night-dreaming as the breeze kicked up and brought with it the threat of more rain out of the west. We were all of the opinion that there had been more than enough of that.
When Thomas stopped dead in his tracks, we almost bowled him over and sent him tumbling down the mountain.
“Whoa, man. What are you doing?” Todd growled at his shoulder. Then his eyes sharpened and his nose lifted in the thin beam of moonlight. He shuddered, his eyes growing bleak. He looked at his brother.
“What is it, Thomas, what do you smell.” Sirris asked. But we already knew as the breeze kicked up once more, giving the scent of death a ride off the mountain somewhere to our right.
“Maybe it’s just a wolf, I mean a real one?” Nick wondered, hoped, aloud.
Maybe, but we all knew the truth as Thomas and Todd left the trail and followed their noses with the rest of us close behind.
It didn’t take us long, and it was a wolf.
#
We stood with Niel in the driving rain, not bothering to pull our jackets close to block it out. We hung back from the crowd near the front, but we still had a decent view of the family and Jake Winter’s sister Melanie as she placed her rose on the casket.
If I expected there to be grief ravaging her face, I would be disappointed. There was plenty of rage and a promise of retribution, though. I shivered; suddenly sure I didn’t want to be around when she tore whoever was responsible apart.
I figured that close to every single person in Purdy had shown for the funeral. Franz Hobert had driven those of us from camp that wanted to come down. Though we hadn’t known Jake personally, Niel had. Jake Winters might have been a conceited ass in some ways, but he’d been well-loved.
The funeral had taken place several days after his discovery. A memory that was seared into my brain forever. No way would I ever be able to unsee that. Because they had suspected foul play, the coroner’s office had taken their time with the autopsy. They were trying to answer the same questions we were. What had killed him and where had he been killed?
I’d wondered how one went about doing an autopsy on an Other without giving away the countless differences in their genetics. Niel informed us that the office had a couple of coroners on staff who were also paranormal. They made sure they always pulled duty on those that, let’s just say, weren’t entirely human.
The results were in, but we didn’t have them. I had said nothing yet, but my sense of injustice was making me antsy. I wondered if Niel might be able to glean any information from the sister. After the funeral, of course. As Jake Winter’s mother was led away from the coffin sobbing on her husband’s arm, I reached out and grabbed Nick’s hand and squeezed it tight enough to bruise bones. He clutched mine right back.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Using your fire wisely is all about control. Welcome to Pyromancy. Here you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about conjuring and controlling fire. Though originally designed with Dragon shifters in mind, those of you who are fire elementals or command sorcery will also find useful information in its teachings.”
I sat with Nicholas, Fern, and Sirris in a huddle in the grass, picking the long clean blades between my fingers and twisting them as I listened to Llyr Ryan, the counselor in charge. I was especially interested in anything to do with learning to control what was in me.
Niel was there too, but he hadn’t been quick enough to pick a seat next to me before Nick plopped down, forcing me to scoot sideways with a flash of irritation he was so close. I wasn’t sure what had gotten into him lately. It seemed he was even more negative than usual.
Llyr Ryan continued. I gave a jolt when he talked about pairing us up.
“I know many of you are used to being assigned partners at random, but in Pyromancy, everything has a purpose. Here, you will have several sparring partners over the course of the summer. You will spend approximately a week with each one, practicing everything from weaponry to hand-to-hand combat and showing off your newly learned skills. Partners are assigned and nothing is random. I took great care to put you with those that will complement your strengths and bolster recovery in your areas of weakness. A schedule is posted for your weekly assignments at the water station on the way out and you can copy them or take a pic with your phone if you prefer as you leave today.”
He named off partners for the first week. My eyes flashed to Niel and then Nick as he read them. “Take the time right now to get with your partners. You will get to know each other better than you ever wanted. Take a moment, introduce yourselves, and if you wish, talk a bit about what you think are your strengths and weaknesses. But be prepared, I mean to exploit and disavow what you think you know in the coming two months.
With a long look at Nick, his mouth drawn in a thin line, I got up and moved to sit next to my new partner for the week. I watched as Nick sat across from a boy I couldn’t remember the name of. Sirris and Fern likewise moved halfway across the field to join their own partners.
Niel sat cross-legged across from me and grinned. “Okay, what did you have to do to arrange this one Niel Reece?” I asked, trying to appear angry and failing. As off key as his sense of humor was, there was something about Niel that appealed to my sense of the bizarre. Besides, he was a Dragon shifter, and he could shift.
He laughed. “Not a thing, though I probably would have had I thought about it. Not that I’m complaining.”
We both turned to look at what Llyr Ryan held in his hands. Through thumb and forefinger he twirled several starred disks a little larger than a silver dollar. They had sharp edges and points, and I wondered he didn’t cut himself as they spun between his fingers.
“Call them what you want, shurikens, Ninja Stars, whatever, they have a special use for Magicals and I plan to show you how to exploit them to deadly ends.” My eyes followed those spinning orbs, the movement almost hypnotic. Suddenly he sent one whipping to the side in a blur of motion so fast I gasped. I was not alone as the star flew through the air and embedded itself in a target mounted on the side of a big leaf maple tree that had to have been over thirty feet away. It stuck with exact precision dead center and hung. It was a neat trick and he wa
s deadly accurate, but I wasn’t sure where he was going with his show until it burst into flames at the snap of his fingers.
“Oh, wowsers.” I murmured, mesmerized. “I want to do that!”
Niel nodded. “Yeah, cool isn’t it. It’s one thing to create fire with your hands and maybe use that magic as an extension of what you’re holding. But to make it erupt on something without touching it? Way cool.” He sighed. “I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.”
Llyr gave a satisfied smile and another flick of his fingers. The fire winked out. No sense burning down the trees.
“First, learn how to use the weapon before you can decorate it with all the pretties. So, partner up, pace it off, one of you come get a box of practice stars and let’s put our money down on hitting those targets and not each other,” he joked.
Niel got ours while I set our target up on another tree and paced off distances. Over the next hour we went over stances and wrist action, practicing just getting the little disks to fly true in the right direction. I was comfortable with my bow, and I was decent with the knife. Both seemed an extension of whatever was inside me. I liked the stars, the feel and the weight of them in my palm. I wasn’t particularly good at first, but I wasn’t bad either. By the end of class, I was nearing the target and the stars were flying straight.
Niel spent most of his time swearing when they spun invariably towards the dirt. Still, he improved until we were evenly matched. We had a splendid time of it, and I realized I was enjoying the light banter we exchanged.
But as the class wound down, our conversation turned to a darker subject.
“I talked with Melanie—Jake’s sister?” he admitted.
He frowned in concentration as his throw nicked the bark off the tree and spun wide. He waited for my last throw before we went to collect them.
Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2) Page 6
