Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening Book 1) (8 page)

By going back to the land map, I shouted out when I saw that yes, right there on that seemingly high altitude spot, there was a stand of beech. “There!” I shouted, looking up to the Dragon Rider.

“Well done,” he said, raising a gloved hand to indicate a trainee had completed the task.

I heard scattered gasps and glanced at the sand clock. Only a small sliver of sand had passed through to the bottom—yet I had solved the puzzle.

Striding back to my bench, I waited in silence, trying to ignore Merik pulling happy faces. He finished next, with a time as good as my own. Wil and then Thea and Shakasta pretty much tied, barely finishing. Beris took a few minutes longer, eventually slamming his fist on the spot where the herb must be, and just before time ran out.

Thea looked crestfallen as she walked back to her bench. She hadn’t done so well this afternoon at all, but I didn’t know how to make her feel better.

Commander Hegarty stood before us again. “Trainees! Thank you for your efforts. I and my fellow adjudicators will retire to discuss everything we have seen today and return with our verdicts.” Relief washed through me. It was done, no matter what else, it was over. All the students split into groups, talking over the day. The tests were being cleared and banqueting tables were being brought out.

I waited at the edge of the group, trying to catch Thea’s eye. When I finally caught up to her, I grinned. “Thea! Well done!”

She was dragging her feet at the back of the group, looking glum. “Well done for what?” she barked. “I did terribly! My father will be so disappointed. I…I won’t make it.”

“Terrible? What are you talking about? You did great beating Jensen in the duels. Or how about how you did in the race?”

Her face stayed set, her mouth pulled down and her eyes dull. She shook her head. “Thanks Seb, it’s just…I need to be better than good. I’m a Flamma, and the House of Flamma has always produced the best Dragon Riders. I can’t fail that—I can’t have others seeing me a failure. I…I’ve got to make through training.”

“Well, I
see you as a Dragon Rider,” I told her. She looked at sideways, her frown turning puzzled.

Before I could say anything else, Merik crashed into me. “Well done, Sebastian! You were great! I’ve never seen anyone complete the map challenge so fast.” He clapped me on the shoulder, offering me a pork sandwich he had grabbed off the tables from where food was being brought out.

I broke it in half, turning to offer half to Thea, but she was already gone.

I don’t think anything will make her happy
. I turned away from where she had been, and I was still left wondering if we would ever make a team.

I knew Seb was only trying to make me feel better, but I couldn’t bear to be around anyone so cheery right now. The golden Dragon Horn blew for what was probably the last time that day and it made me feel sick. I stood up from where I had been sitting on a low bench just around the corner from the others and on the edge of the archery yard. I walked heavily back to the training area. It had been a couple of hours since the commander, the other instructors, and the Dragon Riders and had gone into their meeting to decide our fates, leaving us trainees to fight over the food and wait and wait…and…wait.

I wanted to kick myself for failing—and kick Seb for making me feel like he was just being stupid. He didn’t get how the world worked at all.

I’m a girl. A Lady, in fact!
I kicked a stone, heard it thock against one of the walls. I had grown up listening to my brothers talk about flying lessons and fighting bandits and sharing tales about derring-do with Prince Justin. I didn’t want to lose my chance at all of that. I had thought Seb would be the obstacle in my way. Instead, I’d been my own enemy.

I let out an exasperated growl and joined the others. The banqueting tables had been cleared away. The kitchen cooks were washing pewter plates and mugs in large, steaming barrels of water heated from deep within Mount Hammal. A wooden platform and stage had just been hastily erected across one side of the training area.

Large golden, red, green and blue banners hung down on the sides of the stage with the emblems of the Dragon Academy stitched on in vibrant colors. Along the stone palisade wall I could see all the Dragon Riders in their official uniforms, their helmets of swept-back horns standing to attention, their armor gleaming as they awaited the appointing ceremony. This would be the moment when we found out what our roles would eventually be.

And I would find out I had failed.

The chance for a woman to be a Dragon Rider was rare enough, but I had wanted to make my father proud. I had wanted others to see me as someone who deserved to be here because of my skills.

I sighed. I was okay with dueling and fighting since that was all fairly natural to me. But I was really
annoyed about the map challenges and not doing well with dragon identification. I should have been better, because I was supposed to be the navigator. That was where the other female riders that I knew of had been assigned. If I couldn’t even do that well…

“Hey, Thea!” Sebastian was heading over to stand at my side.

I smiled thinly at him. “I didn’t know you were so good at maps.” I didn’t realize until the words were out of my mouth just how harsh they must sound.

Seb looked hurt, but he just shrugged. “It’s just a natural thing for me.” He sounded uneasy as if he expected me to hit him with a staff or something. “I wasn’t holding out on you or anything.”

I nodded, feeling foolish. He had echoed my thoughts exactly, and I could see he wasn’t trying to show me up at all. He was too good-hearted for that. “Never mind. I know. I meant to say…well done. You were really good.” Seb smiled, all trace of hurt completely forgotten.

How can he do that? Just forget all the bad stuff?
He was going to be a protector! He had to be tough. Before I could tell him that, Commander Hegarty ascended the steps of the stage. My brain stopped arguing with itself and just froze.

The top-ranking Dragon Riders, my brothers Reynalt and Ryan amongst them, also stepped onto the stage. And Prince Justin. Heat washed through me. He must have seen how badly I had embarrassed myself.
My mouth suddenly went dry and my heart beat a little faster. But Prince Justin just gave me a grin and a small wave. Strangely, I felt immediately better. He didn’t seem to think I was stupid and a total failure. I thought he might actually like me, but why did I care about that?

“Trainees of the Academy,” Commander Hegarty roared. “Welcome to your appointing ceremony. We will call out your names and your positions and you will also meet with your dragon, who will approve of the match.”

I braced myself. Now everyone would find out I had failed my family—and my dragon. And Seb, too.

“First! Beris,—protector. His navigator is Syl.” A roar rose up as their stocky blue dragon landed on the platform overhead. The two boys marched up onto the stage, accepting their badges to show that they had moved from scrubs to cadets. They turned to their dragon, climbed the stairs. The blue nosed at each of them in turn. After a few seconds, the dragon roared and was directed back to the enclosure by the other Dragon Riders. Beris and Syl joined those Dragon Riders standing atop the palisades. They were now on their way to becoming riders.

“Jensen as protector with Wil as navigator,” Commander Hegarty called out. He waited. A hissing and a flap of wings preceded a green that landed on the platform to bless the partnership. Will and Jensen got their badges, went to greet their dragon, and joined the Dragon Riders, cadets now too.

I gulped and waited for our turn.

“Agathea as protector, and Sebastian navigator,” the commander said.

I could only stare at him, stunned, unable to move.
I’m a protector?
But girls were never
protectors. Even Varla, the other female cadet, was in training to be a navigator. Seb grabbed my arm. I stumbled forward with him. I could hear a ripple of amazement from the others.

We walked up the steps and onto the stage, bowed to the commander, who pinned a badge with a sword and a pair of wings on my leather jerkin and then a badge with an arrow and a pair of wings and on Seb.

We turned, and Seb pulled at my sleeve. “Look, there she is.” I looked up to see our red uncoiling above us, landing as light as a beam of light on the platform and chirruping at both of us.

Seb ran up the stairs. I followed. He walked up to her without hesitation, holding out his hand for her to bump her nose against it. I approached a little slower, still unable to believe what had just happened. The dragon enthusiastically snuffed my clothes, as if wondering if I had treats for it or wanting to know about my badge.

I was a protector.

Standing by the side of our red, wondering at her size and power, I felt something pass over me, like a wave of dizziness. Turning, I could see that whatever had just happened to me was connected to Seb and the dragon. Seb opened his eyes and his mouth, grinning as if amazed at a funny joke, but then our dragon was roaring and leaping high into air, heading back to the enclosure.

“This way,” one of the other Dragon Riders said. He led us over to stand beside Jensen and Wil. He handed us each a helmet made of leather to signify we had become cadets at the Academy. Below us, Commander Hegarty read out the next names.

“What was all that about?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth at Sebastian. He looked open-mouthed and stupid.

“Her name. She told me her name,” Sebastian hissed back at me.

“What?” I said, almost not believing it. But I couldn’t forget that strange shiver of feeling that had passed over me. Something had happened…but the dragon had talked to him? I’d heard tales of that…I just hadn’t believed them. I’d thought they were like the stories of the Darkening—just tales. I shivered.

“Kalax,” Seb said. Another second shiver went over me, for somehow I knew that he was right.

Kalax. Our dragon’s name is Kalax. And I was going to be a Dragon Rider.

Over the next few weeks, I tried to keep my head down and work hard at my new role as a protector. I got a bit of teasing from Beris and Shakasta, which I would usually have brushed off. But I couldn’t.

I was irritable and annoyed. I felt awkward and clumsy, like everyone was looking at me just because I was a girl. I was a weirdo. A worse misfit than Seb. A girl protector? Who had ever heard of such a thing?

I could just imagine the others, laughing at me behind my back. What if Prince Justin was laughing at me, too? Maybe I was already the talk of the royal court. What would my father think? And I could just see my mother’s face crumple when she heard her daughter was to be a protector—and now must fight just like a man.

A fact that made it slightly worse was that the navigators were taken off to work with the dragons to ‘develop a connection’ or so the commander called it. From what I had seen so far, Seb already had a pretty good connection going already. I was jealous of him—he got time with our dragon.

That left me with Jensen, Beris, Shakasta and the other protector cadets—there were three more of them, boys I didn’t know very well. We alternated our days between dueling and riding ‘dragons’. Not real dragons, but large, wicker baskets hung suspended from the ceiling on ropes and placed on the end of giant seesaws. We jostled around, leaning this way and that, trying to stay in the saddle as riders managed the pulley systems, tossing us around as we reach for our bows and arrows to fire at targets.

And then there was the flag system.

Oh, by my dragon’s fire! There were so many. We drilled relentlessly, the instructors yelling out an order that we had to transmit to another dragon or a tower. We were judged on how fast we could yank out the red or the green or the blue flag and wave it high enough for someone else to see. Despite what Seb had been trying to teach me, it was a nightmare.

“At least you’re not a navigator,” Beris said under his breath. I had taken off my sweaty helmet, finished from our most recent fake-dragon ride. I smiled at him. I knew he was only trying to be funny, but he came off as mean. I would have hit him, but I knew my temper wasn’t doing much better. He was becoming one of those who thought he could force others to look up to him. My brothers had gone through a phase like this, and I hoped this would pass quickly for Beris.

“Least you’re not trying to wrestle dragons, huh? Bet Seb’s been eaten up by now.” Beris laughed, and I shook my head and moved away.

Cadet training was a pain, but I couldn’t deny that it was also fun. Every time we came to the end of another day of dueling and waving flags and clinging onto saddles there also came the moment I cherished the most. I was tired, the sun was fading over the battlements and my body was still warm from all of the day’s exertions. I sat down on one of the wooden benches, my mind gloriously blank. I watched Beris, Jensen and the others wearily walking across the arena. I felt at peace.

I liked this moment because it was one of the few times that I could relax and remember where I was and what I was doing. The high walls of the Academy rose around me, cocooning me into its own little world. The sky was purpling above as the sun headed for its bed. I looked up to see a flight of dragons pass by overhead. Was one of my brothers up there, looking down?

It was at this time of the day when I could think that I would be up there soon. I, Agathea Flamma, would train hard, and when I graduated I would be a proper Dragon Rider. Despite all of the bruises and the aches and sprains, it still didn’t seem real, even now, to think that I would join the list of Dragon Riders that stretched back for generations in my family.

“Feeling good?” A voice startled me out of my reverie. I look up to see Commander Hegarty, pausing as he walked up to the battlements.

I jumped up. “Sorry, Commander, sir. Just getting my breath back.”

“No, you carry on, Thea.” Hegarty crooked a smile at me. “I’ve noticed you take some time to pause at the end of the day, which is good. I do the same. I have to walk the palisade walls to look out at Torvald and the enclosure, realize what all of this is all about.”

“What it’s all about,” I repeated the words. I nodded as I agreed. But all the while I was feeling as always when I spoke to the commander—I didn’t one hundred percent understand what he was trying to tell me.

Hegarty barked a laugh. I blushed, certain he could see right through me to my deepest thoughts. “It’s about trust, wonder and protection, cadet. I thought you’d understood that by now. Trusting your partner, trusting your dragon…and trusting yourself. It’s the trust that allows you to be here in the first place, and allows you to have wonder.”

“Wonder?” I asked.

“Yes. We are in the business of riding dragons. What is more wondrous than that? We have a history that stretches back almost five hundred years—back to the time of the Darkening and more. Just think on that. Hundreds of years of humans and dragons working together, bringing peace and justice to the world.” The commander’s face went from his usual dry humor to one of rapt wonder. “What we’re doing is a thing of myth, cadet. And the people of Torvald and King Durance’s line trust us to protect them.”

“From everything.” I shivered as I thought of the story I had once heard of the Darkening. It didn’t matter to me if it was true—just that it meant a Dragon Rider would go up against anything. Including something as vague and terrifying as utter darkness.

The commander nodded and glanced up at the sky. “We’re here to do something that people haven’t ever thought to do in the whole history of the world—we bring harmony. We protect those who are less fortunate, less powerful than us, because that is what you do when you have strength and power on your side.”

I almost asked him about the Darkening—if it was a true tale. But I didn’t want to seem like a child who needed bedtime stories. I felt the rightness of his words in my gut, and this time when I nodded, I did so more than believing it, but
feeling
it.

Hegarty nodded at me. “Don’t worry, Agathea. I think you’ll do just fine.”

But I wondered—what would I do if…when I had to go up against a real enemy?

*

A month into cadet training and finally I was going to get my first chance to ride Kalax. Sebastian was more than excited about this day. As soon as I was awake and dressed, he came and found me, his hands waving all over the place. “She’s so gentle. She’s great. You won’t feel anything like it, it’s like being
alive!
”

“You already
are
alive,” I said, a little sternly. He laughed, but I hadn’t meant it as a joke.

“Wait until you’re up there. You’ll see. She’s so funny as well. Naughty, you know,” he was saying enthusiastically.

“Are you always going to be this cheery so early in the morning?” I said to him, growling a bit.

His smile faded and he quieted. “I just wanted to encourage you,” he muttered.

Since there were two girls training, I shared a room with Varla, but I never saw much of her. She’d been here longer than five years, and she was training to be a navigator, so she trained with navigators. Her protector, Ty, right now was recovering from a broken leg—he’d fallen from his dragon on one of their flights. Also, Varla didn’t seem to like me much—maybe because she’d been a cadet for so long and had yet to graduate. I didn’t know if that was her fault, or her protector’s or her dragon’s. I didn’t care. I was here to become a rider.

I followed Seb out of the keep and up the stairs to the platforms where all the cadet dragons were at their assigned ports, blowing little puffs of smoke or flames into the morning air. Jensen’s sinuous green hissed and appeared skittish around the others, and Beris’ blue flapped its wings loudly, like the crack of a whip.

“That’s a dominance display,” Sebastian said, pointing out the blue’s behavior.

“Then why isn’t Kalax…displaying back?” I pointed to our red who sat on its haunches, cleaning its front feet and claws.

“She’s ignoring the others. Showing them all that she doesn’t care.” Seb beamed like a new father. I shook my head—him and his fancies over our red.

We headed up to see giant tandem saddles atop each dragon’s back. Sebastian would be up front, with me at the back. He scampered on more easily than I would have expected. He soon had attached the clips and buckles to strap himself into his harness, his helmet sat slightly wonky on his head.

I stared at the saddle. At last I found the rounded stirrup strap and used it to climb up onto the back of the dragon. The saddle was all polished leather with straps that fixed our legs into place. The saddles had a pulley and gear system that we could use to signal our dragons and steer. My saddle had fewer controls than Sebastian’s. Instead, it had weapon belts and saddle bags stacked behind and to the sides of my seat. I was the protector, after all.

Once in the saddle, I could feel the gentle rise and fall of Kalax’s body beneath us as she breathed. A slight warm feeling from her body radiating upward. She smelled of soot dust and fresh pine somehow. I reminded myself I would have to ask Sebastian why she always smelled of fragrant wood.

Her scales were of different sizes, depending on where they were on her body. Some were the size of dinner plates, others just the size of my little fingernail. The largest scales overlapped with each other. Along her back the scales even started to fold and rise in the middle to a bony edge. It was miraculous how they all fitted together, moving as smooth and as softly as a piece of weaving.

“Ready?” one of the Dragon Riders shouted.

No!
I didn’t feel ready at all. I wanted to shout to wait, but already those Dragon Riders not going up were stepping down from the platforms. Seb was giving me a thumbs-up.

The Dragon Horn blew, and one by one, the dragons launched themselves off the wooden platforms atop Mount Hammal. They looked like diving sea birds to me. I watched as Jensen’s green and then Beris’ blue appeared to fall off the edge. My heart flipped. Our turn was coming.

There was a lurch from underneath me. I realized we were going. Kalax sprang as powerfully as a mountain cat over the edge. She wasn’t unfolding her wings, but fell like a dart behind the others!

Sebastian gave a whoop, but I could only grip the pommel of my saddle. I remembered to pull down the goggles over my eyes just in time, before gripping the handles in front of me with my gauntlets, squeezing them until I thought my fingers would break.

The other dragons pulled out their wings, catching the rising thermals, suddenly shooting up into the sky at dazzling speeds.

But we weren’t.

Below us, the ground and trees came roaring closer. Kalax held onto her dive. I could see the small crofts and buildings of the goatherders and woodsmen.

“Stop,” I shouted. I could make out the individual goats on the sides of the hill, getting larger, larger now!

With a sound like a crack of lightning, Kalax threw her wings open. My stomach lurched as we caught the ground thermals and soared into the air, barreling past the other dragons due to our momentum.

Had I shouted? I couldn’t remember. It was all I could do to keep a hold of the handles of my saddle. Kalax started to soar high, flapping her wings only rarely as she allowed the currents of the air to carry her.

“Thea? Okay back there?” Seb shouted to me. He half-turned and held up a hand to wave at me.

I tried to wave back, but found I couldn’t take my hands off the controls. I kept seeing myself being dragged out of my seat, my harness breaking, sending me spinning down to splat on the ground.

“Thea?” Seb asked. He turned again and his expression showed he was clearly worried.

I must look terrible. He can probably see how pale I am.
It felt as if all my blood had rushed to my feet. I nodded, forcing a grin that probably didn’t fool him. Seb frowned. Leaning forward, he put his hands onto the scales of the dragon’s side.

Don’t do that!
I thought. His balance seemed precarious, leaning like that, thousands of feet up in the air. But then there was that strange sensation of feeling passing through him and the dragon. With barely a twitch of the dragon’s wings, the ride got smoother.

Did he just tell her to do that?
I gaped, looking between Seb and Kalax in astonishment.

All it had taken for Kalax to fly smoother was a slight change in the way she held her wings and how she angled her tail. Her tail acted like a rudder on a ship, steering and slowing her, or driving us in a powerful turn. With a careful rise of one wing, we started to slowly turn in a majestic, elegant movement.

“Don’t be scared!” Seb grinned. “Trust her. Kalax knows what she’s doing.” He thought for a moment, before adding, “sort of.”

“
Great. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” I yelled at him.

“Here, try this. Feel the dragon underneath you,” Seb shouted over to me, his voice carrying. Up here, there was little sound other than the flap of dragon wing and our dragon’s breathing. We were one with the wind, riding its currents. The ground was a patchwork of fields and woods stitched together by roads and rivers.

“No, feel her in your gut. How big she is, how strong she is,” Seb was saying.