I balance on the enormous red dragon, rocking back and forth as if I were riding a huge circus elephant. I concentrate intently so that I don’t fall off…or make a fool of myself again. I am in last place, following the others, hoping they don’t notice me. It is an odd position for me…I am accustomed to being in the front of the pack.
My knee throbs with each movement, and I long for some herbs and medicine to take the pain away. Why didn’t I think to bring some? The rancid smell of the city begins to dissipate as buildings and debris become sparse. The ground beneath the dragon’s feet begins to smooth out. Still, we must maneuver around scrap metal, a dilapidated abandoned bus, and broken chunks of concrete…a wrecked trolley car, turned on its side. I have never been this far from home.
After a while we reach the edge of the city, and Koree stops his dragon, turning to face the rest of us. The sun shines directly down on him, and his coppery curls glisten like bronze. Sun…full rays of sunshine. I can’t help but marvel at the feel of it on my own face, warm and clean and soothing.
“I’m taking the lead with Reese,” Koree starts, dramatically turning his head toward Reese, as if to give him a warning. “Gunter, you can come with me.”
“Righto,” a small boy on another Crimson answers, trotting with ease next to Koree.
Reese falls silently into place beside him, scowling. His entire face is scrunched up as if he just tasted something bitter. He is perched awkwardly on a shimmering Crimson, and it swishes its tail back and forth, almost violently, obviously unhappy and distressed. More than once I notice that Reese almost falls off its side. I wish more than anything at this moment that he would fall off the gigantic dragon. I don’t know if I would laugh, but I certainly would enjoy it.
Thann’s voice pulls my thoughts away from Reese. “Okay, that leaves me with the three girls…just how I like it.” He grins directly at me. Is he flirting with me? I can’t help but smile back, even though a streak of discomfort runs through every vein in my body.
My eyes travel to the other girls. One is petite and dark. The other is a Light Skin like me, only she is smaller and her hair is shorter. I don’t see a Mark of Power anywhere on her – maybe it is hidden. She has grayish blue eyes, and a dainty nose.
I am mesmerized by the sight of her. And of course Thann. My head spins at the thought of two other Light Skinned people with me… on our way to Dragon Academy. The only Light Skins I remember seeing since the Purification Law passed are Entho, Bello, Thann, the woman who was brought into the clinic, and a few others in passing.
I keep glancing at her, and then at Thann, hoping they don’t notice. Thann seems perfectly content with his skin, but she seems more like me – nervous and on edge. I wonder what her name is. Could we possibly become friends? I shake my head… friends? Highly unlikely. That has been drilled into me since I was six years old.
I feel rather than see the city fade away, like a candle burning to its end. Thann is quiet, except for some whistling and occasional humming. I keep silent, unsure of what to say, if anything. My knee continues to throb, but I don’t dare complain. The other girl, the dark one, finally turns to me, “My name is Echo, what’s yours?”
“Teak,” I reply. Silence lingers. She turns to the other girl.
“And what’s your name?
“Um, Soot.”
“That’s funny,” Echo laughs.
“Yeah, kind of a play on words.” Soot isn’t smiling though.
I feel like I should say something to Echo, to keep the conversation going. But I remain quiet. She has short dark hair that tapers toward her face and big oval eyes that are deep blue, the color of storm clouds. She is wearing a blue cloak, and the contrast to her dark skin and hair is astonishing. I feel pale and ugly in comparison. She turns to me. “I love your hair.”
“Mine?” I ask, almost choking as my jaw drops in surprise.
“Yeah, yours.” Echo lets out a giggle. She loves MY hair? I think of all the times I have tried to tame my wild, long hair, wishing it was dark, that it would form around my face in a shapely fashion…like Echo’s. Wishing I could look just like Echo…like everyone else.
“I always wanted long hair, but it just seems to matt up, and I never have time to take care of it. I have so many chores…”
“Um…what kind of chores?” I am finding it hard to believe I am in an actual conversation with a girl my age, that I am not being humiliated, deliberately left out, taunted, pinched, hit…or worse. That the first word out of her mouth isn’t “Ghost”. Or Teak the Freak. She seems oblivious to Soot, Thann, or my skin color.
“Oh, my family owns and operates a small dragon farm. We all have to pitch in – I have five brothers...I’m the youngest. Dirty snocks make me do most of the work. I have to get up early every morning to feed, scoop dung, you know….”
I don’t know. But I have dreamed of knowing. “A dragon farm?” I ask, enviously. Soot remains quiet. I somehow want to involve her in our conversation, but I am doing my best just to talk with Echo.
“Yeah. We have twenty-seven dragons right now. We breed them, hatch them, train them, and then sell them. It doesn’t pay so well, that’s why I’m a Blue Cloaker and not a Red Cloaker like you!” She turns to Soot then. “And you’re a Brown Cloaker? How the holy dragon balls did you get into Dragon Academy?”
At that, Thann chuckles.
“I’ve been a stable hand,” Soot tells us, hanging her head. “I got a scholarship.” She has shaggy reddish brown hair, but it shapes around her pale face and I can’t help notice how pretty she is. Something about her seems familiar, and then I realize what it is. Memories of Canto’s long red hair flash into my mind…her pale face. It might have been Canto beside me if not for Siv Gareth and his cruel laws. I fight to keep anger from bubbling up inside of me.
“You both must know a lot about dragons,” I nervously tell them, hoping my voice doesn’t tremble. My hands are sweaty, clammy.
“Well, you’d be surprised how little I do know,” Echo openly admits. “I barely made it here. I took the Assessment and failed it….three times.” She laughs heartily. “My brothers called me a dumb bagger over and over again.”
“Well, how did you get here?” Soot asks, her voice scratchy and hoarse. “I thought the Assessment was the only way to get to Dragon Academy.”
“My father petitioned the Administrators for a Practical Assessment. They came to our farm and found out that I handle dragons well and can take care of hatchlings and dragonlings.” She stops, smiles, and continues, “So here I am!”
“Wow,” I manage to get out.
The conversations dwindles as the huge Crimson jostles me back and forth in the saddle – a slow rhythm that makes me sleepy. My mom’s dragon bracelet jangles on my wrist, a lullaby adding to my stupor. I remember Koree’s warning to be alert at all times, but I find it is becoming more and more difficult. I shake my head, warding off the thickness that is filling my brain.
To keep my mind occupied, I scan the war ravaged countryside. The ground is flat, bare, and brown. We are traveling on a dirt road and there is a sprinkling of trees on each side, survivors of the Final War. The sky is almost blue and it reminds me of dreams and pajamas and sleeping late. My knee still hurts and my legs are beginning to cramp – I had no idea riding a dragon could be so painful.
Before long, Echo turns to Thann, who is juggling three golden balls, only he is not using his hands; they just float and turn in front of him as if they have a mind of their own. I feel a pang of envy. He looks so content, so natural at this. And obviously, he has Power. His Mark of Power must actually mean something.
“Hey, G.B., how long before we get there?” Echo asks him, her voice husky.
G.B.? I wonder what she is talking about.
“G.B.?” Thann questions, mirroring my own thoughts.
“Yeah, Golden Boy… I’ve got to tinkle…what do you suggest I do?”
“Well, B.G., I usually stand up to do it, but I suggest you squat…it’ll keep your
cloak cleaner.” A huge smile engulfs Thann’s face, his teeth glistening in the sunlight.
“B.G.?”
“Yeah, Bronze Girl….It will be a few hours till we get there. We’re going to stop for a break in a while. Can it wait?”
“I knew it…typical male. Can’t stop the dragon till we get there even if my teeth are literally sloshing around in my mouth!”
“We can pull over,” Thann laughs.
“Well, cockandballs, I hope so. If not, you’re going to have a wet saddle.”
I turn to her, shocked. “Cockandballs?”
“You know. She says it slowly for me. Cock. And. Balls.” My eyes pop open wide. We would have been disciplined harshly for saying such words in Weapons, and I have never heard a girl speak like this before.
“Oh…” I am blushing, feeling the familiar red heat engulf my face. Soot breaks into laughter and Thann joins her, which only makes me blush more.
He leans out of his saddle, toward me. “Did you pack your crown, Princess?” Echo and Soot giggle some more, and it occurs to me that this is the first time I have been playfully teased since I was a child, and I don’t know how to respond.
“Uhhh….I think I left it at home.” It is a pathetic response, but all I can think of at the moment. They all laugh again, and a thrill of happiness, a new feeling that I am almost afraid of, rushes through me.
By now the excitement of riding a dragon has diminished, and I ache everywhere. My arms are accustomed to holding weapons, not reins. I wouldn’t have dreamed they would hurt so much from holding small strips of leather. To top it off, I am thirsty. Extremely thirsty. I cough as dirt from the road blows in my face.
Thann leads us to a grove of trees by the side of the road. “I’m going to catch fire from Koree over this,” he booms, I think mostly at Echo.
“He’ll get over himself,” she answers. Quickly, she dismounts her dragon, pulls up her cloak and takes off full speed, disappearing behind a tree. I dismount gingerly, and follow her trail, my legs rubbery and shaky, limping on my still sore knee. Soot walks next to me. Thann travels in the opposite direction, jogging away on long muscular legs.
We all finish our business at about the same time and return to the dragons. I am afraid to ask for a drink, and I chide myself for not packing a water bag. I don’t know if Thann is a mind reader, but he digs in his pack, pulls out a water bag, and tosses it to me. Of course, I catch it. “Thanks,” I tell him, so relieved I almost want to cry. He takes another water bag, drinks greedily from it, and I watch as Echo and Soot both dig water bags out of their bags, tip them back and guzzle the water down.
“No problem, Princess.” Thann tells me.
All I can muster is a smile, wishing I could come up with a witty retort.
We hop on the dragons again and continue plodding along. We can no longer see Koree and the boys. “Think you can go a little faster?” Thann asks me. I guess he knows that Echo and Soot can.
“I will try…” I answer to nobody…because Thann has already ridden off. He is chasing Echo, who has moved her dragon into a trot and is riding in huge circles…around me.
Thann follows her, whooping in the powdery dust. Soot joins in with a loud yell, as if she were going to battle. My lungs are protesting the enormous amounts of dust particles I am ingesting. I cough and clear my throat and wish more than anything that I could join them.
They ride around me in huge, large circles for quite some time and then start leaping the dragons over logs, running in and out of the surrounding trees, circling me again, and laughing hysterically. I feel left out…a familiar feeling. I decide to pick up my pace a little and am surprised that I can make the dragon go faster without losing control.
Finally, Thann, Soot, and Echo trot up beside me. I can see the faint outline of the others ahead of us – they have pulled over. We sidle up beside them. Koree, Reese, and the other boy have dismounted and are standing in a semi-circle. Koree is pointing to something on the Metallic.
I marvel at the giant Crimson I am straddled on as she stretches in the sun, her red scales glimmering like rubies. Hesitantly, I throw my leg over the saddle to dismount, not realizing how rubbery my legs feel, and when my boots make contact with the hard packed dirt, I struggle to hold myself up. My tender knee gives out, and I stumble, almost falling to the ground again. I take two or three awkward steps before I regain my balance.
“Look at the Ghost…can’t even walk.” Reese’s voice. Again.
I don’t have time to even look his way before a loud crackling noise resounds in the clearing, and suddenly a giant ball of red flies through the air. My eyes follow it, and my head turns to keep up with the moving blur. It stops with a crunch as Reese is pinned against the trunk of a huge elm tree, hanging from it like a rag doll. I can’t help but release a small grin at the sight of him dangling by his red cloak, held up by an invisible hook. Koree’s Power…of course.
Koree stands nearby, not even looking at him, cleaning his fingernails or fiddling with something...I can’t quite tell what. “You earn twenty more demerits, Rookie,” he calmly tells Reese. For a moment we all stare at him.
Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, the other boy, the only one I haven’t met yet, saunters over to me. I wait for the usual “Ghost” comments to start, but instead, he holds out his hand. “My name is Gunter. What’s yours?” He, too, is wearing a red cloak. He is short and thin with a small nose and squinty eyes. When he smiles, his face seems to disappear into it. And he is smiling at me. I am unnerved, as usual, but I take his hand and shake it, something I don’t recall ever doing. His hand is warm and dry and raspy.
“Teak…Teak Frain,” I murmur, my mouth thick like it is full of sand. I look up, waiting for something to happen, a comment, a kick from behind, a poke. The usual Light Skin treatment. But nothing happens.
“Pleased to meet you, Teak, and who is this?” He is looking at Echo, raising his eyebrows, and if it is possible, his smile seems to have grown.
Echo easily hops off of her small metallic dragon, landing softly on the dirt. “Echo, at your service, sir,” she smiles. They shake hands as well. “And this is Soot.” She points to Soot, who is still on her dragon, a sleek Ebony. Soot holds up her hand, sending Gunter a tiny wave and a tentative smile. Gunter waves back, and I notice his dark hands seem to be too large for his body, like a puppy that hasn’t grown into its paws.
Thann arrives as if on cue. “Who doesn’t have a water bag?” he casually asks. The sun glistens off of his blonde hair, and I find it hard to even breathe as I gape at him.
Gunter raises his hand. Thann smiles. “Figures,” he says, smiling. “Prince to go with a Princess.” The rest of us dig around and find our water bags, emptying them easily. Water trickles down my throat, cool and fresh and cleansing. Gunter greedily gulps from his new bag. He turns to me.
“Guess coming from the city doesn’t prepare us for all this, does it?”
“Um, no,” I answer uneasily. I wonder how he knows I am from the city, then glance back and forth from my red cloak to his. Not too hard to figure out.
Gunter’s smile is infectious, though, and it puts me at ease.
“I forgot one, too,” I tell him. “Thann had to give me this one.” Gunter lets out a high pitched laugh.
Our attention is drawn to Thann’s voice again. “Do you think he has a water bag?” Thann asks, pointing to Reese, who is still pinned up against the tree.
“I doubt it…he’s a Red Cloaker. We…ah…Red Cloakers seem a little unprepared for this overall,” Gunter answers. Thann sighs, as if he is babysitting naughty children and digs around in his bag. He brings out another water bag.
“Stop.” Koree’s voice is steely, dark. “I think a dry mouth might be good for his smart mouth.” He casts his eyes toward Thann, and soon they both are grinning at each other, nodding their heads as if in deep contemplation. With the sun beating down on Thann’s light skin and his golden hair, I stare at him, frozen
in place. He is like a statue, chiseled out of pale stone, and when the sun shines on him everyone else seems to disappear from my vision. For some reason I feel a strong pull toward Thann, as if an invisible cord was reaching out from him to me. Or the other way around.
Koree’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I shake my head. I quickly look around at the others, hoping they didn’t notice that I was gawking at Thann.
“Take your dragons to the stream and let them drink.” Koree orders. He adds, as if it is an afterthought, “And bring your water bags to fill up.” It is becoming obvious that he is the leader of our little crew, which I find odd. When the boys came to Entho’s clinic Thann seemed to be in charge.
“Stream water?” Gunter asks. “Is that safe?” Immediately, Koree and Thann bust up laughing.
“Safer than city water, I swear,” Thann answers. His lips are full as he smiles and his golden eyes sparkle. I am fascinated by his easy demeanor. Thann’s skin is more golden than me, as if he has been in the sun a lot. No wonder Echo calls him Golden Boy.
I slyly inspect him as he grabs Reese’s dragon as well as his own and heads toward the stream. He is tall like me, but much more muscular, and his shoulders are very broad. What is so distracting about this boy? Just his light skin? No, it is more than that, but I can’t seem to place what it is.
I take my beautiful scarlet dragon by the reins, and she obediently follows. Somehow Koree is walking beside me with his dragon, the majestic Metallic. He doesn’t even need to hold the reins – the dragon just follows him. It feels good to stretch my legs, to actually move.
“How is that knee?” Koree asks, his brow furrowed.
I am curious how he knows about my knee; I haven’t said a thing about it to anyone. “Um…fine, nothing a little arnica and marshmallow root wouldn’t fix.” I am suddenly embarrassed that I broke into healing talk. I feel my cheeks grow hot and know they must be turning red.
“Well, do you have some?” he asks in earnest, stopping and turning to me. His green eyes are so serious that I am almost frightened.
“Uh, no, Entho, my dad just taught me this stuff.”
“Wow, that’s smash.” He pauses for a moment, as if he is deep in thought. “So that’s what you were training for?”
“No.” My eyebrows crinkle at the thought of it, and my lips curl down. “Weapons,” I answer.
“No way!” he exclaims. It is the first time I have seen him act excited.
“Yes.” Another one word comment…I am turning out to be quite the conversationalist.
“That is way smash!”
Koree begins to ask me numerous questions about Weapons. I rattle off the answers almost like I did in Assessment. He is especially interested in bows and arrows, which secretly pleases me for some reason.
“So, you didn’t qualify in Weapons, and that’s why you’re here?” he queries.
I pause, not sure if I should go on. I glance over at Thann, walking with Echo, Soot, and Gunter, and I long to be with him instead of this serious boy who asks so many questions.
“No.” I bite down on my lower lip, not sure if I should go on. “I qualified…first place.”
“No way,” he replies, his voice rising again. The others look over at us, but he shrugs them off and begins walking again. I want to discuss something else – like dragons – talking about myself makes me uncomfortable, and having a boy think something I have done is smash only adds to it.
Purposely, I change the subject. “Um…what is her name? The dragon I am riding?”
“Pebble,” he tells me. Then, “So, in Weapons, did you learn how to throw spears?”
“Well, yes, of course.” I am still curious about the dragon. “What kind of a name is Pebble for a dragon?” In my childhood fantasies dragons always had glamorous names like Midnight, Remington, or Sasparilla.
“The kind of name a little kid names a dragon that just hatched,” Koree quickly answers. His eyes are serious again, almost accusing, and his voice has turned to ice.
I don’t know if I should just be quiet or continue talking, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “Pebble…she’s your dragon?”
“Pebble’s her own dragon. But, yeah, I guess you could say she belongs to me.”
“Then, if you hatched her, you’re bonded, right? How is it that I sound so stupid asking all these questions about dragons?
His voice is quiet, steely. “Yeah, we’re bonded.”
“Wow.” Another one word reply that leaves the conversation in the dust. Koree seems content to leave it that way.
We reach the stream, fill our water bags and let the dragons drink. I gaze into the blue green water as the dragons reach their mouths into it and contentedly lap it up. I kneel down and fill my own water bag, remembering how parched I was before and not wanting a repeat performance.
When the dragons are finished, we stroll back toward the giant elm tree, conversation among the others flowing freely. I remain quiet, taking the rear with Pebble behind me. Koree is next to me again, and I feel a wave of irritation toward him, wishing it was Thann instead.
I am sneaking another peek at Thann, who is walking next to Echo and Soot, wishing I could just go up and talk to him…that things could be easier for me…when I hear a “whish” of movement as something short and hard zings through the air, almost hitting my head. My years of Weapons training propels me to action so fast I don’t have time to think about it – I instinctively duck down in response. I turn to see what it is in one fluid movement. A red handled dagger is whistling through the air in a straight line – directly toward Echo’s head.
“Get down,” I shout, but by the time the words come out of my mouth, she lets out a high pitched scream, and a sinking feeling settles in my stomach as I catch sight of the knife lodged directly in the middle of her forehead.
Guilt rushes through me, as blood pours down her face. The knife was sailing straight toward my head. If I hadn’t ducked down she wouldn’t have been hit. Echo wails louder as her hands fly up to her head, blood continuing to gush out, pouring at a rapid rate into her eyes and down her neck.
In one quick movement, I shove Pebble’s reins into Koree’s hands and take off running at full speed toward Echo, glancing at the elm tree on my way.
I stop for a split second and inspect the tree. Something doesn’t look right. Then I realize what it is.
Reese is gone.
Chapter 18