Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (12 page)

“I guess you’re right.” I looked back
down at the floor and the dancing couples far below. Maybe I’d never be one of
them, but Beckah was right. Compared to the other places I could have ended up,
this was a pretty great one to be in.

fourteen

“Let’s
dance,” Beckah demanded as she stood, dusting off the front of her blue dress.

           
I
stared up at her, and started trying to think of a good excuse not to. “I
already told you I don’t know how.”

           
“And
I said I would teach you, so come on!” She was relentless, and grabbed my arm
to pull me back up. She took my hands and showed me how to stand so I was
holding her. I did my best not to touch her any more than was absolutely
necessary, but my face started to get hot right away. I wanted to pull away. I
could just imagine
Sile
walking in just in time to
see me dancing with his daughter.

“Daddy showed me how. Look, like
this.” She coached me through a few wobbly dance steps with a big grin on her
face.

After a few minutes of stepping on her
feet, shuffling around, and feeling like an idiot, I was beginning to realize
that I was a terrible dancer. But she didn’t seem to mind, and so neither did
I. She laughed, twirled, and refused to let me give up, even when I stepped on
her toes. As long as she was having fun, that was all that mattered to me.

“You have to practice, Jae,” she told
me. I could tell she was teasing me a little. “You can’t step on anyone’s shoes
next year. What if you squash some princess’s toes?”

I smirked, and just rolled my eyes at
her. “Right, because all the noble ladies will be lining up to dance with a
halfbreed.”

She flashed me a punishing look, and
got a thoughtful twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll dance with you. I’ll be fifteen
next year, so I can come to the party, too. Daddy won’t be able to just dump me
on some nanny—no offense.”

“None taken. But for what it’s worth,
this is a lot more fun than serving drinks.” I twirled her again. I could tell
that was her favorite, and I liked it because it meant I didn’t have to move
around much.

Beckah’s cheeks got a little red, and
she stuck her tongue out at me. When she stopped twirling, she let go of my
hand and stood there for a moment. It got really awkward. She was just looking
at me with this weird expression, nibbling on her bottom lip. It made me
nervous.

“We should go back, huh?” she mumbled.

I was starting to think that was good
idea. “Yeah, probably.”

She led the way back out of the
storage room, down the stairs, and into the hallways of Duke Brinton’s estate.
I still couldn’t figure out where we were, or which way we were supposed to be
going, but I trusted her. She held my hand tightly, her small fingers laced
through mine. It made me feel strange, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.
I wasn’t sure if I liked it, or if it just made me really nervous.

We were as fast as shadows as we crept
through the house. We slipped from room to room, taking the shortcuts through
empty servant tunnels. We hid from passing maids and butlers by ducking into
dark corners whenever we heard footsteps or voices coming too close.

It felt like we were getting close
when we came to a dimly lit hallway that was very close to the ballroom where
the party was still going strong. I could hear the music clearly, even feel it
vibrating the floor under my feet. I could smell the food, the perfume of the
flowers, and see the bright golden light gleaming far away down the hall.
Voices echoed toward us, but it wasn’t the sounds of laughter and excited
conversation I’d expected to hear.

Beckah stopped so suddenly I crashed
into her back. Her eyes got wide.

Then I heard it, too. It was
Sile’s
voice. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, and
it sounded like he was arguing with someone.

Beckah just stood there frozen with
her eyes as big as saucers. I reacted in an instant, and grabbed her by the
back of her dress to pull her into the shadows to hide. We stood stock still as
the voices came closer. I held my breath, keeping a firm grip on Beckah with an
arm around her waist to keep her from slipping into view.

Five people passed us. Four men all
dressed in black, their faces covered with masks painted white with two red
lines over the eyes.
Sile
was in the middle of them,
and they were shoving him along with his hands tied behind his back. One of
them was holding the point of a long black dagger against his side.

“You cowards,”
Sile
was growling at them. “You really think killing me is going to make any
difference? What that madman has done won’t be absolved with my death! It will
tear this kingdom apart!”

The masked men didn’t answer. They
just kept shoving him onward, jabbing at him threateningly with that dagger.

“You can take me all the way to
Halfax
and it will make no difference!” He continued to
fight against them, struggling to get free. “Don’t you get it
?!
This is what happens to those who tamper with gods!”

Beckah flinched against me. I could
feel her shaking with panic. I slapped a hand over her mouth to hold her back
before she could move or make any noise. If they found us, then they might kill
us, too. She let out a faint, muffled whimper against my palm.

The five men disappeared into the
dark, never stopping once. They didn’t see us. Once I was sure they were out of
earshot, I let Beckah go. She jerked away from me violently, and started to
sprint after them. I ran after her.

“What are you doing
?!
”
I whispered as I snatched her by the wrist, forcing her to stop.

“They’re going to kill my daddy!
Didn’t you hear? We have to do something!” She looked back at me with a
furious, pleading expression. There were tears running down her cheeks. “Help
me, Jae. Please!”

“We can’t just go after them, not by
ourselves! Look at us,
Beckah,
we can’t fight men like
that! We have to find some of the other officers. Come on!” I started to pull
her in the opposite direction, back toward the party. She didn’t fight me, but
I could hear her sobbing. If we could find another officer—someone
trained to handle this kind of thing—then maybe we could stop those men
before they did something terrible to
Sile
.

 
“W-who
were
they, Jae? Who were
those men?” Beckah cried as I pulled her along after me, sprinting for the
ballroom.

I didn’t know. I’d never seen anyone
wear masks like that before. My head was swirling with confusion and terror as
we ran toward burning light that poured into the hallway. It felt like we were
running toward the gates of heaven in some kind of nightmare. No matter how
hard I pumped my legs, it still felt like I was moving in slow motion.

When we finally got to the doorway of
the ballroom, the roar of the crowd and the surge of the music stopped me dead.
I was dazed, panicked, and searching for someone I knew. But I didn’t see a
single familiar face in the crowd. There were hundreds of people all around,
and none of them even looked my way.

“Jae, we have to hurry!” Beckah
pleaded.

I clenched my teeth and nodded. There
wasn’t time to stand here and wait for someone to notice us. I went up to the
first officer I could find, and started tugging on his sleeve. “Sir, excuse me!
I have an emergency!”

The officer glared down at me,
brushing me away angrily. “My wine cup is fine, boy. Move along.” He didn’t
look back down at me again.

I tried other officers, and one after
another, but they all ignored me in pretty much the same way. Not one would
even give me a second look. They couldn’t be bothered to step away from their
conversations with the ladies, or their cups filled with Brinton’s precious
wine. Beckah was sobbing hysterically, and I was beginning to get frustrated.

In a moment of desperation and pure
stupidity, I spotted Academy Commander
Rayken
standing with his wife and a few other noblemen, and marched right up to him. I
pulled on his sleeve like I had the others, but this time I shouted at the top
of my lungs. “Commander
Rayken
! Someone has kidnapped
Lieutenant Derrick!”

The people around us went silent for a
moment, turning stare down at me. It must have scared Beckah, because she
pressed herself up against my back, and squeezed my hand even harder. I could
feel her trembling.

Academy Commander
Rayken
looked at me like he’d just found a stain on his shirt. He scowled, and didn’t
say a word. He didn’t have to; I could tell he was waiting for me to explain
myself.

“I saw it myself, sir. Four men in
white masks took him just a moment ago. He was yelling, but no one else could
hear.” I started to get nervous. Maybe going up to Commander
Rayken
like that had been a huge mistake. He could still
kick me out of the academy if he wanted to, and he was probably the last person
in the world who would believe a word I said.

He just scowled at me even harder,
like I was wasting his time, and rolled his eyes. “What you’re describing is
the king’s private guard, and as you can see, there are none of them present
because they
only
accompany the king
himself when he travels. You’re mistaken. Lieutenant Derrick is here, somewhere
in the ballroom. I saw him not an hour ago.” He growled down at me, making me
back up a few feet. “Go back to your duties, fledgling, before I lose my
patience.”

My heart sank to the soles of my
boots. I wasn’t going to get any help from these people. They didn’t believe
me, just like before when
Sile’s
saddle had been
tampered with. Once again, it was up to me to do something to save Lieutenant
Derrick.

So I made another desperate, stupid
decision that was probably going to end up costing me more than I wanted to
lose.

fifteen

“Beckah,
you have to take me up to the roof. You know how to get there, don’t you?” I
turned to face her as soon as we got out of the ballroom.

           
She
hesitated, looking at me with wide eyes filled with tears. I could see the fear
on her face. Her chin was trembling when she finally nodded. “I-I
think
so. But why?”

           
I
wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with
Sile
, but
it just had to be something bad for these guys to come after him twice. After
what happened with the saddle, I couldn’t afford to take this lightly. Lives
were at stake. And just like last time, no one else believed me. So if
I
didn’t do something,
Sile
might die.

I was just one fledgling with no real
training, so it was going to take something pretty radical to make any
difference at all. Fortunately, radical was my middle name. Or at least, it was
about to be.

           
“I’m
going to save your dad, Beckah. Don’t worry.” I tried to reassure her. “So
let’s go, and hurry!”

           
Beckah
led the way through the duke’s mansion at a sprint, and I actually had a hard
time keeping up with her this time. She was faster than she looked, and I was
out of breath as we went up staircase after staircase, climbing the levels of
the estate toward the roof. We dashed past maids and servants, who stopped to
stare or yelled at us to slow down.

A few things started to look familiar
as we came close to the suite we were supposed to be staying in for the night.
I recognized a big oil painting and a small orange tree growing out of a big
porcelain pot right outside the door of our room as we ran past. It gave me a
sick feeling to think of what was going to happen when the other officers,
especially Commander
Rayken
, figured out
Sile
and I were missing. I could probably kiss the academy
goodbye.
So much for my bright new future.

“Jae?” Someone shouted my name and I
screeched to a halt to see who it was. My heart was hammering in my chest, and
I half hoped it would be
Sile
. Even if he was furious
with me for leaving the room with his daughter, I’d just be so relieved that he
was okay.

But it wasn’t
Sile
.

Felix was leaning out of a doorway
back down the hall, and his face was smeared with something red. I couldn’t
tell what it was until he started walking toward me. It looked like lipstick.
His hair was all messed up, too.

“What’re you doing?” He frowned at me
suspiciously. “I thought
Sile
said you weren’t
supposed to be out here? He’s gonna chew your head off if he catches you.” He
was one to be talking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a noble girl in a
party dress run out of the room he’d been in.

“Jae!” Beckah whimpered impatiently.
We really didn’t have time for this.

“I can’t explain it to you now.
Sile
is in trouble again, and I have to go,” I told him.

“Wait, what?” Felix looked stunned.
“Go where? What’s going on, Jae?”

“I can’t, Felix. I’m sorry. There’s no
time.” I shook my head, and turned to start running again.

I got about three feet away before I
suddenly came to a jerking, choking stop. Felix had me by the back of my cape
so that the chain drew up tight around my neck. He started dragging me back
toward him, and when I saw his face again, he looked furious.

“Let me go!” I shouted at the top of
my lungs. “
Sile
is going to die if you don’t let me
go!”

That definitely got his attention.
Felix let me go right away, and just stood there, staring at me like I was out
of my mind. “What are you talking about?”

I stumbled when he released my cape,
and started taking steps back away from him. “I saw it, Felix. Four men in
white masks kidnapped him from the ball. She saw it, too. This isn’t a joke.” I
glared at him, and tried to look as confident as I could despite the fact that
I was terrified about what I was about to do. “I tried telling Commander
Rayken
and the others, but they don’t believe me—just
like
you
didn’t believe me last time.
So it’s up to me again. I’m going to save him, even if I have to do it alone.”

I regretted bringing up the saddle
incident, especially since Felix was my friend. I knew it’d probably make him
angry, but I wanted him to take me seriously. I didn’t stick around after that,
just in case he tried to stop me. I ran back toward Beckah, who stood there
waiting for me before she started sprinting down the hall again.

We took off into the duke’s estate,
and it wasn’t until we were climbing another steep, spiraling staircase that I
realized we weren’t alone. Felix was right behind me. He wouldn’t look right at
me, even when I almost tripped over my own feet in surprise.

“What are you doing?” I gasped, trying
to talk as I panted for breath.

Then Felix shot me a punishing glare,
like I should have known better than to think he wouldn’t believe me this time.
“You really think I’m going to let you do something this stupid by yourself?”

I was about to say yes. Actually I’d
expected him to laugh at me as I ran off to ruin my career and probably get
myself killed in the process. But I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to say
anything else. Good thing
Sile
had been making us run
all those laps, or I would have passed out.

Beckah led the way through the
mansion, up to the top of one of the towering spires that had a cone-shaped
roof. It was a watchtower with a huge lantern in the top to light the grounds
below, like some kind of a really tall, skinny lighthouse. But there weren’t
any guards watching it tonight because of the party. In fact, when we finally
made it to the landing at the top of the stairs, the door was locked with a big
iron padlock. Beckah pulled on it, clawed at it, and finally let out a little
scream of panic when it wouldn’t budge.

“Oh would you just move?” Felix
grumbled, shoving her out of the way so hard she bounced off my chest and
almost fell down the stairs. Lucky for her, I was quick to catch her by the
shoulders.

Felix pulled what looked like a small
metal hairpin out of his pocket, and started poking it into the keyhole. It
only took him a few minutes to pick the lock. When it sprang free, he pushed
the wooden door open for us to go up into the chamber above.

The room at the top of the tower was
round with open stone windows all the way around. We had an excellent view of
how high up we were—which was really, really high. So high that it made
my head swim at first, even though I had gotten pretty used to flying with
Mavrik. The night air blew through the open arched windows, and since the
lantern in the center wasn’t lit, you could see thousands of stars glittering
overhead.

“What now?” Felix came to stand beside
me with his arms folded.

I started walking toward one of the
windows. “Just a crazy idea,” I told him as I leaned out, looking at the
ten-storey drop below.

It was pretty crazy to think that
Mavrik would ever hear me, even way up here. I didn’t even know where he was.
And yet it had always seemed like he could understand it when I spoke to him,
so it was worth a try. I had a strange feeling in my chest, like a hard knot of
heat that tingled and made me shiver. I guessed it was just fear, or just a
wild sense of desperation.

I took a deep breath, and climbed out
onto the ledge. The wind whipped in my hair, and tugged at my cape. Every time
my boots slipped a little, my heart jumped into my throat.

“Jaevid
?!
”
Felix was yelling at me. “Are you nuts? Get down from there!”

Beckah was yelling at me too, but I
tuned them both out. I closed my eyes, and let my mind go quiet for a moment. I
felt a strange sensation in my chest, like pressure, and a tingling of heat in
the back of my mind. Then it was my turn to yell, and I screamed as loudly as I
could. “
Mavrik! I need you!
”

At first, nothing happened. I started
to feel like a real idiot, standing out there on that ledge, yelling for a
dragon that couldn’t hear me. Minutes went by, and I started to give up.

Then I heard him roar.

I opened my eyes, and saw two black
shapes flapping toward us like shadows on the wind. Mavrik and Nova wheeled in
circles around the tower, their wing beats like thunder in the air, as they
tried to figure out how to get to us. The tower’s cone-shaped roof was too
small for them to land. It was time to earn that radical middle name.

I reached toward Beckah, offering her
my hand. “Come on. You have to trust me!”

She looked absolutely terrified. Her
eyes were as big as saucers, and she trembled as she took a few small steps
toward me. Even Felix looked like he thought I’d totally lost
it
as he stood there with his mouth hanging open.

I caught Beckah by the hand and
started to bring her in closer, helping her climb out onto the ledge with me.
That’s when Felix finally woke up from his trance of shock and awe. Suddenly, he
grabbed Beckah by the back of the dress before she could climb out the window.

“She’s not coming with us,” he
declared. “It’s too dangerous.”

“What if those masked men come back
for her? We can’t just leave her—!” I started to argue, but Beckah cut me
off.

“You’re not leaving me behind!” She
struggled against his hold on her dress, finally managing to squirm out of his
grip. “He’s my daddy. I’m going!”

Beckah didn’t seem afraid anymore. She
swung her legs over the side of the windowsill, and was hanging onto the ledge
while the wind snatched at her skirts. She gave me a look of determination,
like she was trying to convince me that she really wasn’t scared.

I looped an arm around her waist, and
pulled her toward me. I figured I had about two seconds before she got scared
again and did something to mess up my aim. So before she could figure out what
I was about to do, and right when Mavrik was circling back toward us . . . I
jumped. I jumped off the ledge ten
storeys
in the
air, and I took her with me.

Beckah screamed, but I could barely
hear her as the wind rushed past my ears. I just held onto her as tightly as I
could as we fell, and braced myself for what was coming; either death from the
fall or what I hoped would be a dragon catching us.

Mavrik did catch us. He came darting
through the air, wings spread wide, and hovered just long enough for us to
crash into him. We hit hard, and it knocked the breath out of me at first. I
was dazed, relieved, and trying to get my bearings.

We landed on
Mavrik’s
back just a few feet away from the saddle, and I started dragging Beckah toward
it with all my might. She didn’t fight me at all. In fact, she was clinging to
my chest like some kind of frightened baby animal. I had to pry her off me when
I finally got into the seat and crammed my feet down into the leg sheaths on
either side of the saddle. With Beckah sitting in my lap, I kept one arm
wrapped tightly around her waist, and finally got a chance to look back at
Felix.

He was standing on the ledge now,
looking at Nova as she circled around the tower. I saw him make some kind of
prayer sign with his hand before he jumped. I heard him yell, saw him drop, and
Nova dove after him with a trumpeting roar.

She was bigger and slower, so she
missed him at first. As she zoomed past, she stretched out one of her strong
hind legs to snatch him out of the air by the boot. He hung upside down,
screaming and flailing until Nova tossed him back up into the air like a cat
playing with a dead mouse.

He flipped end over end, and came back
down to land right in the saddle with a hard thud. He had his arms and legs
wrapped around her scaly body, and sat there clinging to her until he finally
realized he wasn’t about to plummet to his death. Then he got himself situated
in the saddle, and we veered away toward the horizon.

Where
are we going?
Felix
asked me with the sign language we’d learned to use in the air.

I only had one free hand since I was
hanging onto Beckah, but I still managed sign back to him,
Halfax
.

I’ve
got the lead,
he signed.
We’ll fly low and watch the roads. Maybe
we can catch them before they get too far away.

I nodded, and was glad to let him lead
since I really had no idea how to get to
Halfax
from
here. I was starting to let myself hope. If we could find
Sile
,
then surely we could find some way to save him. Maybe, just maybe, this would
work.