Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening Book 1) (14 page)

I heard from Seb about how Ty would not return to the Academy, and that Feradima might pick Merik as rider. Seb seemed excited for Merik, but I couldn’t help but think about poor Ty. I hadn’t known him well, but it had to be hard for any cadet to have to quit—to have to live without ever flying again. I shivered at the idea. That would be more than awful, it would be like having to live without an arm or a leg.

We all headed to the platforms to watch Feradima land—to see if she would take Merik or not. He seemed nervous, shifting from foot to foot, and even Varla looked paler than ever, her freckles standing out on her cheeks like dots. But it turned out to not be that big a deal. Feradima landed—she had to be the biggest blue I’d ever seen and her platform creaked under her weight. She stretched her nose out, snuffled Varla, tipped her head to one side, and stared at Merik with gold-green eyes. The moment seemed to go on forever, and then she blew a puff of smoke at Merik through her nose. He coughed, and in the next moment Feradima nudged him with her nose, too. And that was that.

I had thought a dragon choosing a rider would take more time—or that there would be a ceremony or something. But it was just done and Feradima settled on her platform, wrapping her tail around her as if she was happy. Seb nudged me and leaned close as Merik and Varla stood with Feradima. “She likes him.”

I glanced at Seb. “How do you know? Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you like Merik?” Seb grinned. When I looked back at Merik, I could see he was scratching Feradima in just the same spot Seb scratched Kalax. I narrowed my eyes at Seb. “You told him about that spot—that’s Kalax’s favorite.”

Seb shrugged, like it was no big deal. But I wondered if Seb had given Merik just a small edge to help him win over Feradima.

The next week passed with more and more flight training. Varla and Merik were going to have to go through the trials again to sort out their positions, but until then they were swapping spots as navigator and protector. It was weird to see them do that, but it seemed to be working for Feradima. The only chance I had to talk to Seb was in the mornings when we had to sweep out the stables.

Seb told me about the mines on the maps, and how the maps hadn’t shown any villages in the mountains to the north. I didn’t think it was that weird, but maybe there was something to the idea that someone wanted those mines in the north for something. Seb wanted me to talk to the prince again, but Justin was off on a patrol of the western shores with his squadron. I didn’t know when he would get back and I was starting to think the only way we’d find out what was going on in the north was by flying there.

When I told Seb that on our last morning of cleaning stables, he just stared at me. I stopped cleaning a stall and leaned against one of the ponies, fuzzy now with a winter coat. “What?” I asked, staring at Seb. “You were the one who snuck out of the Academy that first night as if it was nothing. Now you think a flight is a bad thing? Don’t you he want to try and defend the people of Torvald?”

Seb frowned. “Of course I do—but one more mark against us and we’re both out.”

I shook my head. “I know that, but I’m talking about a cleared, extended flight. That’s all. We’re going to be in the advanced trials soon, and we could ask the commander’s permission to get in extra flying practice. And if we don’t look into this, who will?”

Seb’s mouth pulled even lower. “If we get expelled, your life will be ruined. I don’t want to be to blame for that.”

I rolled my eyes. The pony I was leaning on shifted, I patted him, sneezed at the dust off his coat and straightened. “Oh, and your life wouldn’t be ruined if we were sent down?”

Turning back to the stall he was working on, Seb hunched a shoulder. “I’d just go back to the smithy. I never thought I’d be a dragon rider anyway.”

I huffed out a breath. “So you wouldn’t miss Kalax, would you?”
Or me
, I thought. “Well, go ahead and stay here and clean stalls if that’s all you want to do!” Slamming out of the stables, I threw down my rake. I was starting to feel trapped. There was nothing I could do to convince Prince Justin of the trouble that might be coming right now, and I was getting tired of always being on my best behavior since I never knew when Instructor Mordecai might be watching. Now even Seb was getting all stuffy. He’d picked a fine time to start being the perfect cadet.

If there was any consolation, the advanced trials were about to start. That would mean actual combat on dragons. Riders would be pitched against each other, using padded arrows to simulate combat. I knew that I was one of the better archers and Seb was one of the better navigators, so we should be able to win some favor with the sour Mordecai by performing well.

I knew I shouldn’t leave the rest of the stables to Seb, but I just couldn’t go back in there when I was still mad at him. I headed up the top of the stone walls. Varla and Merik were out on Feradima, trying to get extra practice in.

Varla was starting to ride more often as the protector, but I could see by the way she sat that she wasn’t really comfortable in the role. I watched Feradima dive and turn. I heard Varla give a yell, and Merik a laugh. They were both so eager to learn and were training so hard, but Merik’s skills in the air were terrible and while Varla knew all the technical points about flying, she didn’t look like she really trusted her dragon or her partner.

I cringed when I saw them flopping through another turn. I also thought about my own lack of trust in Seb. But, honestly, how could I trust him when he kept changing on me?

Feradima came in for a landing on her platform, graceful even though she was huge. She let out a small puff of smoke—she seemed to like doing that. Varla dismounted, and Merik waved at her, telling her to go on to breakfast and that he would handle unsaddling Feradima.

“Hey, Varla!” I said, waving at her as she started for the stairs. “I was just headed to the kitchens to grab something. Nice flying.”

She fell into step with me, rubbing her shoulder with one hand. “By heavens, I don’t think I am ever going to get the hang of these new saddles.”

“New? You haven’t been here that long.”

She flipped her red braid back over her shoulder. “Well, the saddles on the barrels are a lot easier than the ones on a living, breathing dragon.”

I had to smile at that. Varla probably had spent more time riding the fake dragons than anyone. I punched her shoulder. “Hey, you had extra time to learn strategies most of us haven’t tried, yet. You’ll do great at the trials.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Merik and I have to do trials—and then advanced trials right after that. The instructors still don’t know how we’ll fit best on Feradima. At least she doesn’t mind us swapping spots.” She let out a sigh. “But sometimes, I almost wish I could go back to hiding in my books and just reading my way through the library.”

Reading…reading her way through the library.
I thought about that and an idea lodged in my brain. Varla probably knew more history than anyone, even Merik.

Walking across the training area, I asked, “Say, Varla, in all of your years of reading, did you ever come across anything about tin mines being…oh, I don’t know, special somehow?”

“Mines? Tin mines?” Varla stopped looked at me. “Like under-the-ground mines? You do realize we are at a flying school, right?”

I tugged on her sleeve and we headed into the kitchens. It was late for breakfast. The great hall would be empty. But I snagged two rolls for us, and Varla grabbed apples. We found a quiet corner past where the staff were cleaning dishes and drying mugs. Giving one roll to Varla, I told her, “It’s just that, well, Seb found something odd on the maps, the ones of the northern mountains.”

“Odd? What kind of odd?”

Between bites of roll, I told her about the stories of villages disappearing, and how the maps didn’t show any villages near the northern mines. “Seb thinks there’s something odd about the mines—they’re all tin mines, he said.”

Varla bit into an apple. When she finished chewing, she shrugged. “Well, I’ve read everything there is about dragon riding, flying and the history of the Academy, as well as most of the myths. But I don’t remember reading anything about rocks and tunnels.” She wrinkled her nose. “There was one old book, all about how to find the alloy for Dragon Rider’s armor, and it had the Legend of the Eggs.”

I knew the legend she spoke of. Every child learned it, and I thought even Seb must know it.

Hundreds of years ago, in the early days of the dragons and the humans becoming friends, one wizard found magical stones shaped like dragon eggs that had been buried deep in natural caverns.

“Mines,” I said, thinking of the old stories that I had not heard in years. The Legend of the Eggs was one story my mother hadn’t minded me hearing—it had never given me bad dreams.

Varla reached for another apple. “You going to eat this?” I shook my head. She nodded, bit in, and said around a mouthful, “Although—that’s not where you get real dragon eggs. Dragons lay only one egg at a time and they prefer soft nests—they like deer-hide lining or sheepskin, and they prefer to build the nest in a high spot, far above the ground. I read that in another book,
The Complete Care of Dragons
by A. E. Tivlet.” She smiled and bit into her apple again.

“If I remember the old stories, these dragon stones, the ones that seemed like eggs, were each of a different color, and each one had a different power.”

Varla nodded. “The light green one could control the mind, a black could make a person have skin thick as a dragon’s scale. The red one…I can’t remember what it could do.”

“Wasn’t it healing?” I said.

“I think that’s right. Then there was a stone the color of the deepest moss—that was named the Dragon Stone, and it had the powers to bind all the other stones so that one person could use them all—I think it also gave immortality, invincibility, and it was a stone that could kill.” Varla finished her apple. “I never could see why you need all the other stones, if one had the powers of them all, but it’s typical of myths. Stories get woven together with just a little fact. After all, a stone only kills if you hit someone with it.”

I let out a breath. “How can you get Dragon Rider armor from a tin mines?

Varla shrugged. “The book didn’t go into that, but I don’t think you can. It was implied that Dragon Rider armor is made of several metals—the writer didn’t give any kind of recipes—so I think maybe you have to have special ore, and it’s found in the same places you’ll find tin.”

I wondered if Seb knew how to make Dragon Rider armor. His father was a smithy, but then not all smiths worked armor. Some, I knew, only worked in iron, and some only in the hardened steel for weapons. I also remembered back the stories that Arkady had told us—how the Dragon Riders had defeated the Darkening with magic stones.

Varla rose and I did as well, and before she could leave I asked her, “this book—did it say anything about the Dragon Riders using magic stones?”

“For what? As weapons?” she shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything about Dragon Riders using magic stones—just the Legends of the Eggs. Frankly, it seemed like a child’s tale to me. But then, it was really hard to read because it was written down a long, long time ago.”

The Dragon Horn sounded to call us to training. Varla gave me a nod and hurried out. I followed more slowly. Were these stories connected—and were they true? I thought about the villages that were not on the maps the way they should be. Did someone want those mines—those places—left forgotten for a reason? I knew I had to find Seb—not just for training, but to tell him what I’d learned from Varla. He’d have to see that now we had to fly north. We’d find out what was really going on, find some evidence we could show to others and then we could come back and make sure something was done about it.

Thea pounced on me to tell me of a conversation she’d had with Varla. Unfortunately, she wanted to talk while we were flying Kalax. With Thea yelling at me, I kept getting confused about what to do and we almost ran into Jenson and Wil’s big green dragon. A fast move from Kalax saved us, but nearly threw us from the saddles. When training was over, Instructor Mordecai stomped over and gave us two extra hours back on riding the fake-dragon barrels. I gave a groan, bit off a complaint and said, “Yes, sir.” I had learned from Thea that it was always better to swallow your words.

The extra training meant neither Thea nor I had time to do anything. Every time we tried to see Commander Hegarty to get him to clear a long flight north for us, Instructor Mordecai seemed to pop up with something more for us to learn. If it wasn’t more map reading, it was flag reading, or it was archery down in the training area, or it was sparring, or it was scrubbing out the main hall. Every night I fell into bed, aching and exhausted.

The day of the advanced trials found me nervous, mulling over more than just the test ahead of us. I was thinking about what Thea had told me about the legend of the magical stones. I’d never heard those stories before—Thea couldn’t believe I hadn’t. But I told her how my dad hated any kind of stories.

She’d stared at me, then said, her voice small and soft, “Mother hated me hearing the stories of the Darkening. They gave me nightmares. They still do.”

I nodded. I was having bad dreams, too, about Mongers Lane vanishing, and I’d go there, calling out for my da, but no one would answer.

The feeling was growing in me that something was very wrong. All the stories kept mixing in my mind into a terrible picture—what if the mines of the north were where these stones of power were buried? Or what if the ore in these mines let you make more than Dragon Armor—what if it could be used to make weapons?

I shook my head over the ideas, sure they must be just tied to my bad dreams. Even if something was wrong up north, it was up to the prince and his Dragon Riders—not a cadet—to sort it out.

Besides, I needed to focus on the advance trials.

Instructor Mordecai was looking for any reason to boot me—and Thea—out, and I wasn’t going to disappoint Commander Hegarty again. I’d vowed not to be the reason for Thea getting expelled from the Academy, and that meant I needed to stay away from harebrained, silly ideas like stealing a horse and riding off to the mountains in search of mythical, magical eggs. I needed to keep Thea from that, too. The fear that she might just go off on her own haunted me. I had to keep an eye on her—she was my partner and I had to try and protect her as much as I could.

We are a team.

I heard an annoyed grumble rattle underneath me from Kalax. She could sense how I was distressed. I sent calming thoughts down and into her, reassuring her that everything would be well.

It won’t be if you think in two places at once.

Her reply came back clear and sharp, and I was surprised. It wasn’t often that a dragon managed to concentrate enough to use our language. But Kalax was special like that I knew, and she was getting better at reading me. She learned fast.

You are right,
I thought at the dragon.
Head in the game. Head in the game!

We were perched on the edge of our wooden platforms, waiting to begin our advanced trial. This would be an actual combat trial, one of the tests where we would take to the skies to attack and defend in a controlled battle. Thea’s arrows were tipped with bulbous wads of leather and canvas, all held in a quiver that had ink at the bottom. Our color was red, to match Kalax, just as Merik and Varla’s ink would be a dark blue to match Feradima, and Jensen and Wil’s would be green to match their dragon, and so on. At the end of the day, when we were recalled to the Academy, they would count which dragon had received the most hits, where they were and the instructors would review the battle, our successes and our failures.

My harness held me snug to Kalax’s back. I had on a leather helmet, goggles and a thicker leather jerkin that acted almost like armor. I had my hands on the pulleys and handles that would help guide Kalax’s wings. Thea, behind me, had a much harder task of using the rope link as well as her seat harness so she could stand up, reach over and defend more of Kalax and myself should she need to.

I breathed, closing my eyes to the beating of Kalax’s large heart.

The Dragon Horn blew and the dragons leaped from their platforms, peeling off in different direction across the sky. The rules of the advanced trials were simple: the goal of each of two teams was to capture the other team’s flag while defending their own flag. Thea and I had Varla and Merik on our team—Varla and Merik had finished their trials, and Varla had been assigned as a protector and Merik as navigator. Merik had told me Varla had immediately stepped away from the instructors and had thrown up. I was just hoping they’d be okay in the advanced trials.

Each team had a short amount of time to fly away from each other, safe from attack. When the second horn sounded, the trials proper would begin.

Kalax seemed to know what was happening. I nudged her in the direction of the mountain top to defend our target. She had rarely been in the air with this many other dragons, and I could tell that she was excited and worried at the same time. Her tendency was to beat her powerful leathery wings to gain as much height as possible over the others to be able to hold a position of superiority, looking down on the pack since she was smaller. I encouraged her in those instincts.

I turned to cast a quick look back to Thea. She had one hand on the handle of her harness and held her bow in the other. She was scanning the horizon for the nearest dragons, ready to notch one of our red-tinted arrows at short notice. She looked determined, calm even…and serious.

Remind me never to get on the wrong side of her.
But that was exactly what I was about to do if she kept insisting we had to fly north to investigate those mines.

The second Dragon Horn sounded. The trials had begun.

*

Kalax roared as another arrow swept past her left shoulder, shot by Tenzer on his small, yellow dragon. I could feel Kalax’s heartbeat thrumming fast and hard. She felt like she was on the edge of spitting fire. I put a hand on her neck to calm her. Fire wasn’t supposed to be part of the advanced trials. Besides, Tenzer had missed. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to try again.

“
Right,”
Thea shouted. I turned to see the blue body of Beris’ dragon soar up vertically past me. He was a stouter dragon then Kalax, and his powerful wings buffeted the side of our red, rocking her in the sky.

Taking advantage of our floundering, Beris shot an arrow down at us. I couldn’t turn Kalax in time. It was going to hit us dead center!

I sensed rather than saw Thea throw herself out of her saddle, a shield strapped to her arm extended. The arrow clanged into her shield and fell away. Thea was still attached to her harness by a line of rope, but she looked pale.

Kalax regained her balance. I turned her, giving Thea a shot at the bigger blue. A red arrow arced through the air, but in the rush of wings I couldn’t see if it hit or not.

“
Below,
” Thea shouted. I could hear from her voice that she was both terrified and elated by the action. I swung around see that Tenzer’s yellow was climbing up and almost directly below us. Under his helmet I could see a savage look of glee on his face.

“Hold on!” I sent a command to Kalax to dive as if she was fishing the lake for food. She half-somersaulted in mid-air, tucking her wings in close to her body and fell like a shooting star.

I heard a yell behind me and turned to see Thea hanging on to her harness, her legs tumbling in the air behind her. Kalax purred with savage satisfaction and kept dropping. Wind tore at my face and goggles, pushing me into my saddle.

Wait for it…wait for it,
I thought to Kalax. I knew she trusted me completely. The ground rose to meet us. We flashed past Tenzer’s dragon and Beris, heading in a seeming death dive toward the fields and woodland below.

“Now,” I shouted and thought at the same time, and felt the incredible resistance as Kalax pushed out her wings, using the sudden lift to soar forward like a speeding hawk on the wind. It was a classic escape or attack move, but one that was dangerous to pull off because it relied on the navigator and dragon holding their nerve for the maximum amount of time to ensure the most momentum when they finally caught the air current.

Trees and hills zipped past us. Sheep and horses fled from our approach. Kalax’s shadow flashed across the river and rocks below.

“There—northwest,” Thea yelled, pointing to where two dragons were curling and coiling across the sky. It looked like Jensen and Merik were each in a race to get to the mountain top and the flag, seemingly not firing in an attempt to outpace each other.

One of the blues—the smaller, more sinuous one—broke ahead of the larger red. That was Jensen’s dragon gaining the lead. I didn’t want anyone to win apart from us, but I still mentally wished Merik and Varla good luck as we soared upward. And then I saw Feradima turned and snap at her harness—her fight suddenly veered into erratic circles.

Something was wrong.

Feradima started to lose altitude, falling downward in a spiral with stops and starts that had to be jarring Merik and Varla. The blue dove toward the deeply wooded ravines below our target mountain.

“What’s wrong?” Thea called out.

I shook my head. I didn’t know. But maybe I could find out. I told Kalax to follow as close as she dared. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the wind, the feel of the dragon beneath me…and then reaching out to the dragons nearby.

I opened my eyes and stretched a hand toward Feradima. It was a natural instinct. I had never seen another navigator do this, but somehow I could
feel
Feradima in the same way that I could
feel
Kalax’s. But Feradima’s mind seemed much less distinct. If Kalax was like a burning bonfire right beneath me, Feradima would be a bright candle in the room next door. But feelings stirred within me.

Pain. Fear. Distrust.

I could sense Feradima was not thinking and acting like a trained dragon, but more like a wild dragon. She was distrustful of the humans around her and uncomfortable in her harness.

Dragon sickness,
Kalax’s voice whispered in my mind.
Harder to remember what humans want us to be.

I’d heard about Dragon Sickness. It was the main reason why the Academy kept the dragons in the enclosure rather than building stables for them at the Academy. Older dragons could come down with a sickness, like swamp fever, that affected their minds. Younger dragons could get it, too, and I wondered if Feradima had caught it from being on her own for so long, without any riders who could look after her. I’d heard this wild spirit could be passed on to young dragons.

“She’s sick!” I shouted at Thea. “We have to help!”

Before I could say more, Feradima roared and plummeted out of the sky in a wild roll. I knew she was seeking to dislodge her riders—like a wild dragon. That meant she hadn’t really bonded with them.

This was bad news. She could easily kill Varla and Merik by bucking them out of their saddles. If they somehow survived to the ground, she might view them as prey.

The warming presence of Kalax’s mind against my own stirred.
Feradima brood-friend, s
he thought, and I agreed. We swooped down after them.

The hole in the forest canopy looked ugly to me, all broken branches and crushed twigs. A path of destruction from Feradima tearing through the forest. There was no sign of the dragon or her riders.

“There!” Thea pointed. I turned and saw a harness and saddle hanging entangled in the trees. It looked like they’d been brushed into the branches—but where were the riders?

“Oh no.” We swooped lower, and faint voices rose up from the ground. I looked down and saw a flash of white from between the trees. A river snaked through the bottom of a ravine. Next to it, on the rocky shore, Varla and Merik jumped up and down, Varla waving a white scarf to attract our attention.

“Thank heavens they’re alive,” Thea said. With a nod, I asked Kalax to swoop down and land. She did so, stretching out her wings and legs like a swan and landing on the waters of the mountain river. She sent up a huge wave before her.

Kalax paddled to the shore. I unclipped my harness and jumped down. Merik headed over to his, his goggles pushed up. He looked tired. His leather jerkin was torn, and his breeches stained with green, but otherwise he seemed okay. “I thought that we were gonna die for sure.”

“She went mad. Dragon sickness!” Varla kicked at the sand, frowning and unhappy. She clutched her arms to her sides and I figured she was going to be more than bruised by that landing.

“I know,” I said. The sand and rocks of the mountain river crunched against my boots. I hugged first Merik, then Varla. “You’re a new partnership, she must be stressed—she didn’t fully bond with you. Maybe this is why they hate for dragons to try and choose a second time.” I was as worried for the dragon as much as I was for our friends.

“Well, thank goodness you’re alive,” Thea said. She’d unfastened her harness and had climbed down from her saddle. “We can get you on our dragon and take you back to the Academy.”