It started as low rumble.
Like the kind I felt in my stomach when I had skipped too many meals. Only this rumble spilled through the air so deceptively that at first, I thought I was imagining it. It echoed in my head, a whisper of foreboding behind each thought.
Do you hear that? I tossed my thoughts to Ignimitra. We were cutting through the air so fast that I wondered if I was mistaking the whistling in my ears for something else. But there was an urgency in the pit of my stomach that I just couldn’t shake.
The air is growling, she affirmed.
The sky above us was lightening by the second, the first strands of the sun’s golden rays just beginning to paint the atmosphere. We had set out just before dawn. Our flight had taken us farther from the Isle of Un than I had anticipated, partly because Ignimitra was so excited to be out over the water.
These days, she was happier away from the Academy. I caught glimpses of her true nature when we were alone with the clouds. So, I was not about to reprimand her for enjoying herself. She needed it.
A thick mist hung above the waves, just beginning to clear.
Squinting, I tried to make out the island beyond the fog. The closer we got, the louder the sound became, as if it emanated from the Academy.
Goosebumps prickled the back of my neck.
Something doesn’t feel right, I said. My grip on her saddle tightened, distracting me from the increasing tightness in my throat. The fog wasn’t even this thick when we left.
The fog had never been this thick.
I feel it too, almost like—
A loud bang ruptured the air, shaking me so violently I felt like I had been hit. Clutching my chest and covering my ears, I curled into Ignimitra’s saddle. Alarm rose from Ignimitra’s skin like a suffocating vapor.
What was—
Another bang rattled my teeth.
This one was louder than the first, ripping through the air with such ferocity that Ignimitra lost some altitude. She had stopped our course, hovering in the air as we tried to figure out what was going on.
Can you see what’s happening?
Ignimitra’s words didn’t come, but I felt the terror pooling in her mind. It was white hot, burning me as it her. She didn’t speak to me, but there were two words filling her mind so completely I felt overwhelmed.
Enemy attack.
The next moment, Ignimitra had turned sharply and was flying towards where we had come. Away from the Academy.
Ignimitra! What’s happening?
They’re attacking the Academy, she said.
Did I hear her correctly? My blood grew cold despite the heat of fear that was building in my limbs. Attacking the Academy? It seemed impossible.
Yet my dragon was so sure.
Her wing-beats were a white blur, almost indistinguishable from the fog around us. Their sound blended with the noise in the air. Strangely, it was getting louder still, even though we were supposed to be moving away from it.
Who’s attacking the Academy?
She answered my question by lending me her eyesight. My eyes burned as Ignimitra’s enhanced vision melded with my own. In an instant, the world’s pigments brightened and the fog looked more like a light haze. She pulled up sharply, pivoting so that my saddle was facing the Academy.
That’s when I saw what terrified her so much.
Dozens of fog-coated dragons had converged in the skies above the highest peak on the Isle of Un. They formed a circle of terror in the skies above the Academy. My heart leapt to my throat. How was this possible?
As soon as she realized that I had seen, she turned away from the island and resumed her frenzied flight.
Stop! I called to Ignimitra, but she kept on. Where are you going?
I gripped her reins, yanking firmly while impressing my will on her. I said, stop. My thoughts echoed in her mind. Despite how she felt, our Fusion Bond demanded her to listen to me.
She halted immediately, then spun to face the Academy again.
Even at this distance, the dragons were huge and imposing, hovering above the Academy in pairs. They each bore four riders; one seated at the dragon’s shoulders while the other three brandished arrows and spears on its back.
I could see them clearly because of my fusion bond. My throat grew dry when I considered that the fog obscured them from the human eyes in the city. The people would have just been waking up at this hour. In all our training, we had never considered that this was a possibility. Were the civilians even prepared to evacuate?
In an instant, a bitter chill replaced the balmy morning air.
I knew before I even saw them what had caused it. The feeling of this harsh air on my skin had been a feature of my nightmares for months on end.
Astraphotians.
My limbs felt like lead. Though the dragons that hovered above the Academy didn’t look like Lightning Dragons, I knew they were here. This could only mean one thing.
The Rebels were attacking the Academy, and we had a front row seat.
They haven’t noticed us yet, she barged in on my thoughts. We can still get away.
I felt guilty that I wasn’t repulsed by her suggestion. There was nowhere for us to go, though. My guilt intensified when I realized that I had actually considered deserting the Dragon Guard.
Our entire lives were on that mountain. Our friends. We had sworn to protect Pyralis at all costs. That meant paying the ultimate price if it was necessary.
We can’t just run away, I scolded Ignimitra. We have to go back.
My hand traveled to the hilt of my sword, and I squeezed so I could feel its reassurance. This sword was a vestige of my oath—with it, I was supposed to vanquish Pyralis’ enemies. It was my strength.
So why did I feel so weak?
The thought had barely appeared in my mind when an almighty bolt of lightning crashed into the mountain peak. I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through me. The earth wailed from the onslaught, a loud crack slicing the air as pieces of the mountain plummeted into the water below.
Another bolt of lightning struck. Then another. It came in quick succession, dark clouds of danger swirling in the sky. Sparks of flame brightened the atmosphere with each strike, a display of the Lightning Dragons’ power.
The last time Ignimitra and I had gone up against them, their clouds had picked us off like flies. We had barely survived, and the memory still haunted me. But this wasn’t even like reliving that. This was a thousand times worse.
Dragons began to rise from the Academy, ridden by soldiers who were sure of their duty to Pyralis. Soldiers that we should have been fighting alongside. Our numbers were thinner than they should have been—each day more and more of the Guard had been dispatched to other posts. Did we even have enough soldiers to defend the Academy against this kind of attack?
The hum in the air died down all at once, revealing a more grotesque sound.
Screams.
Screams of the people that we should have been protecting.
They were so loud that I could hear them distinctly. I could only Imagine what Ignimitra could hear. Did she recognize the voices of people she knew?
Heat pricked my eyes as I thought of my friends.
Beneath me, Ignimitra was as cold and motionless as a marble sculpture. Her attention was focused on what was unfolding in front of us. Had I been wrong to stop her? Was watching this and not having the guts to help any better than flying away?
Plumes of fire met bolts of lightning in the sky.
They met in a clash of fire and lightning, of swords and spears, and of teeth and claws. The battle quickly devolved into a close-quarters fight, since the Astraphotians had to wait for their dragons to regain their power. Our dragons were using this lull to their advantage, for Lightning Dragons couldn’t withstand Fire Dragon flames at such close proximity. My mind travelled back to how Ignimitra had turned one into ash.
Just then, a familiar dragon joined the melee.
Slavidi.
Slavidi was flanked by three dragons that belonged to the Headmaster’s personal detail. The moment they appeared; the tempo of the battle changed. My jaw slackened—this was the first time I had seen them in action.
They moved in unison; their formation unbroken even in the midst of such a brutal battle. Their flames incinerated whatever stood in their way. The four of them made quick work of one, two, three, five dragons in the time it took the other soldiers to handle one. They were more fearsome than I could’ve ever imagined.
Slavidi’s speed was blinding. Ignimitra’s enhanced eyesight was the only way I could keep up. He was a blur of red and orange in the early morning sky, nearly blending in as he bobbed and weaved through the perimeter the enemy dragons had formed around the Academy.
A plume of fire from Slavidi dropped two dragons.
The appearance of the Headmaster seemed to hearten our soldiers in the skies. They capitalized on the disorder in the enemy ranks, outgunning them as they struggled to recover their coordination. They were clearly afraid of the Headmaster and Slavidi.
In a matter of minutes, most of the dragons were picked off—some retreating with their lives, while others plummeted to the rocky depths of the Pyr Mountains. One of the enemy dragons—a chocolate colored dragon guarded in gold chain-mail—let out a shriek that shook me to my core.
They know they’re defeated, Ignimitra told me.
But instead of retreating, the chocolate dragon was on a collision course.
The remaining dragons—all varying shades of brown and green I realized, were following the chocolate dragon’s lead as it charged towards our dragons who had converged in the skies. At the apex of the formation was Slavidi.
Moments before they collided, the dragons let out a shriek in unison.
The earth responded to their call, hurling rocks and boulders at the Dragon Guard soldiers. It was almost unbelievable to see. The pieces of earth moved like they had a mind of their own. At first, our dragons were able to smash them before they collided.
But the crushed rocks only regenerated and continued on their course.
We had the advantage in numbers, but these dragons had a gift that outweighed those of our dragons. A gift that was the natural suppressant of ours.
These are Earth Dragons, I said more to myself than Ignimitra. I had only heard tales of these dragons, but to see their power with my own eyes was harrowing.
Our dragons let out their own cry, and launched towards the group of Earth Dragons.
Fire blasts met shields of rock. Plumes of fire singed rock arrows. It was a cycle of attack and defense, and I couldn’t tell which side had the upper hand. They danced in the air above the burning ruins of the Academy.
I thought of the Dragon Guard soldiers in the thick of the battle. Even if they had felt scared, they had acted. They were fighting for their country…and here I was, powerless and filled with nothing but cowardice. I willed myself not to look for anyone I knew in the fray; that would have torn me apart.
The mist is almost gone, Ignimitra’s voice cut into my thoughts. We can’t stay here; else we’ll be seen.
And the last thing I wanted anyone to know was that we were cowards.
Take us to the caves on the mountainside, I said. But fly close to the water.
Ignimitra’s white scales would come in handy now.
We just needed to blend in long enough to make it into the caves—if they still existed. The mountain looked misshapen from all the attacks, and it would be a miracle if it was even recognizable when we arrived. We took off towards the mountain just as the Dragon Guard soldiers began to overpower the Earth Dragons.
THE PLACE I HAD CALLED home for the last year was unrecognizable.
Soot was thick in the air, tickling my nose and throat. Some parts of the mountain were still on fire, and where there wasn’t fire the typography of the city that changed. The Academy had been leveled; its three-tier city crushed into one crumpled wreckage.
Trees had been uprooted, their green leaves black from the ash, others completely husked from the lightning. The gold-veined streets had been upended, and I couldn’t tell the rubble of houses apart from roads. It was as if a giant had picked up the entire Academy, rolled it into a ball and tossed it back to earth.
My head whirled, thick with confusion and a deep sense of loss.
Ignimitra was flying low over the Academy. We were approaching from the farthest end, but the destruction had spared no part of the mountain. Huge rocks jutted up from the earth towards the sky, other places had fallen away completely leaving gaping holes that lead to nowhere. I passed a piece of the Administrative District—the head of the Fire Drakken’s statue from the fountain—lying in one of the Academy District’s dorms.
I wanted to scream, but nothing came.
My voice was lost in my throat, tangled up with my heart and lungs. I could barely breathe, or think. The only thing I could do was look at the desolation beneath us.
Ignimitra’s feelings were an extension of my own.
I don’t wish to see this. Her voice was weak, choked by guilt I realized. The same guilt that was making me feel like I was worse than the dragons who had attacked us.
We must, I said.
There were two bodies lying in what should have been the street, burned beyond recognition. They were soldiers, I could tell. For the silver of their uniforms still shone despite the blaze that had consumed them. For all the money they had spent to develop fire-retardant uniforms for us, they never once considered making them resistant to lightning strikes. Those soldiers had paid for it with their lives.
The closer we got to where most of the fight had happened, the more bodies we saw.
Human and dragon.
Some belonged to the enemy—it was easy to miss the distinctive clothes those Astraphotian savages wore since there was so little of it. The Terragians were dressed statelier. Their armor blended in with the earth, with deep green sashes adorning their waists. They wore decorated golden headpieces with brown feathers.
Their dragons had been huge, but couldn’t stand against our poisonous swords. Their bodies were easier to look at—they were the enemy. Fire Dragons had lost their lives in the melee, but I couldn’t bear to look at them. Any one of the bodies we had passed, any one of the dragons could have belonged to someone I knew…someone I cared about.
And just the thought of that nearly broke me.
None of the bodies smell familiar, Ignimitra sounded like she wanted to comfort me.
It didn’t. Thanks, angel.
We flew over the rest of the mountain in a haze, consumed by our own thoughts. Ignimitra had receded to the deepest recesses of her mind, the part where I couldn’t hear her thoughts, only felt the feelings they produced. But I didn’t need to guess what she was thinking about.
We were cowards.
We were cowards, and our cowardice had cost us our home.
Our cowardice could have cost us our friends.
But our cowardice saved our lives, she shot back.
I would’ve argued that our lives were useless without our friends. But it didn’t feel entirely true anymore—not when Betheka had given up so much for us to stay together. Not when I knew that my father had been trying to avoid this very war from happening. Ignimitra and I had to make something of what we were given, it was the only way to make up for everything.
The commotion we were approaching shook me out of my thoughts.
We had reached the center of the mountain. In the couple hours since the attack it had been transformed into an infirmary. It was nestled in a huge crater. The injured dragons were strewn about around it—their impressive healing abilities meant that they didn’t need nearly as much care as their injured riders.
Tarpaulins were spread on the uneven ground with makeshift cots on them. Soldiers were being carried to the cots by other soldiers, and nurses scurried around tending to the wounded. Even Alchemist Huxin was there, administering his potions.
The sight of him made my stomach turn.
I searched the cots, even though I didn’t want to. I recognized soldiers from my advanced training class—one of them was missing an arm. But I didn’t see Solra or Irikai, or Jules, or Avek. My heart felt like it was made of brittle bone, just seconds away from shattering in my chest.
They had to be alive.
Beyond the crater, I saw soldiers and dragons working together to free people trapped in the rubble. A spark of hope stuttered to life in me then. We hadn’t been there to help in the attack. But we could help to look for survivors.
Let’s go over there, I said.
Ignimitra’s aura lightened at my words, and we took off in that direction.
