Everyone was in the middle of preparing for the trip—the injured were being readied for the arduous flight, whatever supplies that remained were being stowed away for transport, and civilians were being assigned to their dragons. The Academy was abuzz with activity. If it weren’t for the obvious destruction, it would have felt like a normal day.
Ignimitra and I were assigned twelve civilians. She was big enough to carry all of us, as well as food and supplies strapped to her underbelly. The thought of being responsible for so many lives on such a long journey made me nervous. But we didn’t have it as bad as Irikai did. Titan’s payload totaled almost forty people.
While they worked the Commanders worked out the kinks in their plans, Ignimitra and I snuck away long enough to find our house. Or, what was left of it. It was hard to believe that where we stood had been the heart of the Administrative District.
Our entire street had been rolled into itself, the houses and yards were all crumbled together like trampled fall leaves. The only way I had been able to tell that our house had been in this exact spot was our distinctive door. The glittering gold now lay amongst the rubble in shimmering pieces.
My breath caught in my throat, a thin layer of sweat beading on my forehead.
Last night, I had been asleep here. Ignimitra had been asleep under the tree that was now reduced to a splinter of bark and leaves. The roof that had sheltered me from hurricanes was crushed like a paper cup. This house had withstood nearly a century at the Academy, but in the course of a few minutes it was reduced to a pile of rock.
Heat snaked up the back of my neck, tears pricking my eyes.
I didn’t even know why I was being this emotional—when I first moved here, I hated this place. The house was comfortable, but it had represented a change that had separated me from my friends and relegated me to a society that despised my existence for the most part. Yet, now that it had all been ripped away from me, I wanted to scream.
It wasn’t about the house. It was what it represented.
We don’t have a home anymore, I turned to Ignimitra who was looking at the rubble with glassy eyes. She took a step forward, nudging a chunk of the roof with her head.
What would have happened if we didn’t go for that flight?
I chewed my lip, afraid to think of what she was alluding to. Clearly, this had all happened so suddenly—I wasn’t sure if we would have been able to escape with our lives if we had been here. Ignimitra was a notoriously heavy sleeper.
Maybe the noise would have woken us, I called the low rumble that we had heard back to mind.
Ignimitra fell silent, but the wheels of her mind were turning. Giving her space to sort through her thoughts, I walked into the rubble. None of it seemed familiar—the destruction had covered everything in a layer of dust. What wasn’t dusty was charred from their almighty lightning. Everything I owned…
Realization struck me like a bolt of lightning.
I had lost all of Betheka in the attack too.
The golden vase that once held her ashes had been on my nightstand. Her journals had been in a box in a corner of my bedroom. Even her favorite dress was hanging in my closet. Those things were all I had left of her.
A jolt of energy sent me running into the ruin. Searching for something, anything that could give me hope that I hadn’t lost it all. I could recognize parts of the house—I found a piece of the beam that ran the length of the living room, and a piece of the kitchen window that overlooked the back yard.
But that was all I could decipher.
Beneath all of this lay my most precious possessions. Even if I could find them, they would be ruined. That delicate gold vase couldn’t have survived this. Her aging journals were already fraying when I got them. And that dress? It was made from fine silk but it was no match for lightning and stone.
They were lost to me forever.
I bit down on my lip till I tasted copper, fighting back the mix of anger and sadness that flooded me. There was nothing I could have done, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Powerlessness was the worst feeling.
Kaos?
Ignimitra’s voice pulled me into the present. I was on my knees, holding onto a huge outcropping of rock where I figured my bedroom should have been.
Yes, angel?
The rocks shook as she approached me, nudging me with her snout. Her touch was gentle for a beast of her size, but it still nearly toppled me over.
Is this the price of war?
Her question numbed my throat.
From the moment we set foot at the Academy, war became a part of our vocabulary. At the heart of it all, we were soldiers meant to protect our country. Our duty was instilled in us at every opportunity—at every assembly, in the Dragon Guard pledge we recited, even in the insignia emblazoned on the hilt of our swords.
This was what we were supposed to do. So why did I feel so uneasy about it?
Yes, my throat worked. It is.
I felt Ignimitra’s thoughts shift to her memories of imprisonment at the hands of the Headmaster and his alchemist. Then, she was cycling through a highlight reel of moments similar to that—like when the Headmaster had Janshaik’s dragon killed in-front of us. Her memories were tinged with red, anger I came to realize.
Are you willing to pay this price? Then she added sharply: For them?
You know how I feel, I sucked in a breath. You know exactly what I feel. My fingers were trembling by this. But we have no choice.
But heavens knew I wanted to have one.
EVEN THOUGH I KNEW it was going to be difficult, relocating the entire Dragon Academy was still harder than I thought. Our group’s destination was Tartaris, an abandoned island in the middle of the Lesser Pyralian Sea. It was just a days’ flight from Terragi’s capital city and would give us a strategic advantage.
If we made it there.
The civilians who lived at the Academy interacted with dragons daily—they made saddles and reins, they kept them clean, they made their food and cared for us, the soldiers who had tamed them.
Yet many of them had never been on a dragon before.
That distinction was important, it seemed.
In hindsight, getting them on the dragon was the easiest part.
Within the first hour of flight, four of our passengers came down sick from the altitude. That number increased by the next hour. There was little that I could do to help them—we couldn’t stop, and we had to make it there one way or another. In the end, I ended up passing around an empty sack for them to relieve themselves.
Our convoy consisted of about sixty dragons, most laden to capacity with people and supplies. We still flew in formation, though it was modified to suit the situation. Four commanders led and our strongest dragons flew above and below us, protecting us from possible attacks.
But I knew better to delude myself into thinking that they could actually protect us. The reassurance must have been for the civilians who had never been caught in a midair fight. Given that they were so spooked from just flying knowing how much danger they were in would drive them crazy.
Laden dragons flew slower and had less maneuverability in the air. Even Ignimitra who was usually quick, moved along sluggishly. If the enemy wanted to attack, they could have picked us off easily, and there was little we could have done to stop them. Sometimes in battle, seconds were the difference between life and death.
The only consolation was that we were still in Pyralian airspace. The attack on the Academy this morning proved that even that wasn’t enough to protect us completely. Hopefully, the three days it would take to get to Tartaris would pass without incident.
We flew through the night and the next morning.
It was when one of the dragons at the front of the convoy—a Giantwing the color of the sunset—started losing altitude from exhaustion that our commanders agreed that it was time stop for a rest.
The decision came just in time for Ignimitra, who was struggling to stay airborne as well. As we landed, I realized that nearly all our dragons wore the signs of exhaustion. Many of them landed heavily, others crumpled to their knees and fell into sleep almost instantly.
You did so well, I said to Ignimitra as our passengers alighted.
Two of them were dragonhands, and the three of us began removing the net that held the cargo she had been carrying. In the end, it took seven of us to detach it.
Thank you, Ignimitra’s voice was weak, already her eyes were closing. I’m going to close…my eyes…for just a…
She didn’t finish.
It would take a while for us to set-up camp, so I set out to help do that even though my bones screamed from exhaustion too.
BY NIGHTFALL, THE CAMP had sunk into a sleepy haze.
Tents had been erected in a circle eight rows deep, and at the center of it was a fire where dinner had been roasted. My tent was close to Ignimitra, in the last row. Even after all the commotion, she was still asleep. The bag of charcoal I had brought for her lay untouched by her head.
Our camp was situated in a valley—tall hills encircled us, stretching up to the starry sky. It was as safe a place as we could have hoped for, as the wooded hills created a hedge around us, hiding us from the weather and our enemies.
But that did little to console me.
Even though it had been nearly a day since my last meal, I could barely keep down my dinner. Life felt like too much to handle, and I hated that danger loomed around every corner. Sooner or later, I would have to accept it. I disliked that too.
After forcing down as much food as I could, I made my way to the huge fire. I had volunteered for first watch, but the perimeter had already been secured by the other soldiers. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that the flames illuminated a familiar face nearby.
Avek.
My cheeks hurt from smiling as wide as I did. Both of us were assigned to Tartaris!
He crossed the space between us quickly, sinking down beside me on the log. I fought back the urge to lean into him for all of two seconds. Most people had retired to bed already, so I felt safe enough to do it.
“I was worried we wouldn’t end up in the same place,” He said, looking down at me. The fire cast an orange shadow in his charcoal eyes, illuminating the angles of his face.
He looked so perfect.
“Me too,” I said simply. “But we did, so that counts as something.”
He nodded, his eyes leaving mine to stare into the fire. My fingers found his. They were warm, warmer than the fire. I felt the heat leeching my anxiety from me. Closing my eyes, I relished the feeling.
“What’s bothering you?” I asked when he had been quiet for a while, cracking an eye to look at him. Silence wasn’t new to us, but this one was different. It felt icy, like he was receding into a shell. I leaned forward so I could see all of his face.
He pulled a small smile, revealing a sliver of white teeth.
“You’re so perceptive,” he chuckled. The light danced over his dark skin.
I poked him in the ribs with a finger. “Yes, now tell me what’s wrong.”
Avek heaved a breath so deep his shoulders shook.
“My entire team is dead,” he said softly.
His words hit me like a ton of bricks.
“In the attack?” I couldn’t remember him ever mentioning this. It seemed like we had only been searching for Cuinn’s team…and Jules.
He shook his head. “They had been out on a mission. I couldn’t go with them because I only got cleared for A-Class missions a few days ago.” Even in this dim light, I could see the faded scars from his time as a prisoner of war in Astraphotis. “The news had just come back that they were ambushed, then the attack happened.” He sighed. “It’s just settling in that they’re actually…gone.”
Avek’s brow was furrowed, his jaw set. Yet, in his eyes I saw all the words he didn’t say, all the pain he wouldn’t let himself feel. I ran the back of my fingers along his cheek.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, squeezing his hand. “What hurts the most?”
His eyes snapped to mine then. “It feels like my fault.”
I understood how that felt more than he realized. I had stood by and watched as the Rebels destroyed the Academy. I hadn’t even tried to help fight them off.
“It’s not,” I reassured him. “There was no way for you to heal any quicker.”
He nodded slowly. “I know that. But if I had been there, I know I could’ve protected them.”
I rubbed my thumb along the back of his hand.
“Fight for them, then,” It felt like the right thing to say, but my words sounded empty to my own ears. I didn’t want to fight this war. “Win for them.”
But Avek seemed satisfied with them, for he smiled. “I will.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple.
“Who’s on your new team?”
He shrugged. “Jules and Cuinn.”
I wasn’t sure what surprised me more. Avek, seemingly reading the questions on my face continued. “Cuinn lost him team too. Because he was standing next to me in the line, it must’ve seemed like a good idea to the Commander.”
“Isn’t Jules missing?”
Avek shook his head. “Apparently, she’s already in Tartaris.”
“I thought it was an abandoned island?”
“From what they told me; the Headmaster has had plans to use it in an attack on Terragi for a while now. He sent Jules to scope out the location just couple days ago.”
“Oh,” my lips formed the letter.
So, Jules was alive, and she was already in Tartaris. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Was it bothering me that they were on the same team? Whatever the case, I couldn’t let Avek in on what I felt.
“Cuinn is a good soldier,” I said, pulling a smile. “Sounds like you’ve got another great team.”
Avek’s eyes flickered to mine, filled with a heat I recognized from that evening on his balcony when I had first mentioned Cuinn. Part of me relished that he still felt that way. It made my own feelings seem less silly.
He was about to say something, when the sound of footsteps drew our attention.
My sword was drawn before I even recognized who the people were.
Solra’s laugh peeled through the still camp. Irikai had to put a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t wake anyone. Heat flushed my cheeks, and I furrowed my brow.
“Do you think the Rebels are going to sneak up on you like this?” She gestured to where we were sitting.
I rolled my eyes, returning my sword to its scabbard.
“Shouldn’t you guys be asleep?” I asked, changing the topic.
Even Avek looked amused at how easily I startled.
“Hard to sleep at a time like this,” Irikai said, walking over to sit on the log beside Avek and I. Now that he was closer, I saw that there were bags under his eyes. His skin was paler than I was used
“Yeah,” Solra agreed. “Over a hundred of us in the middle of nowhere. I’ll sleep when we get to Tartaris.” She yawned deeply.
“That yawn is telling a different story,” I quipped with a smile. But their words brought back the buzz of anxiety that had been burned away by Avek’s presence.
Solra shrugged, leaning into Avek.
Avek had webbed his fingers under his chin and was staring into the fire again.
“How did the attack happen?” I found myself asking. “How could they have ambushed us so…well?”
The ambush contradicted everything we had been taught to believe about Pyralis, about the Academy. There should have been safeguards in place for something like this. And how they managed to appear so suddenly around the Academy without running into any Royal Militia who could have alerted us puzzled me.
“Maybe they believed that it couldn’t happen,” Irikai leaned over, his voice low. “The Headmaster must have underestimated them.”
Solra seemed to agree with him. “It was a shot in the dark,” she said. “They suffered greater losses than us to even attempt it.”
I turned their words over in my mind for a bit. I wanted to agree that it had taken us all off guard, but something just wouldn’t allow me to believe that.
Then I remembered what I had heard.
“But Jules had told me that—”
Avek cut me off before I could get my point out. “I don’t think this is the time or place to have this discussion.” He pinned Solra and Irikai with hard looks, and gave me a lingering stare. I couldn’t read his expression.
“The grass has ears,” Solra mumbled under her breath.
I chewed my lip, looking down at the grass beneath my boots. Avek’s hand found mine the next second.
