SCHOOL HAD FINALLY started. Isabel and Lucille drove us to the port. I had a private one that was going to take me to a secluded area in Elm’s port. We could easily sneak out the back and wouldn’t be bothered with too many questions.
Before we knew it we were inside our rooms back at the Academy.
“Elena, are you sure you don’t want the private room Master Longwei offered you?” Becky wanted to know.
“Are you insane? I get why Lucian loved Dragonia so much. You can be yourself behind those big gates. No, I’m staying right here.”
We unpacked our bags and left to attend the welcome ceremony that was held in the Amphitheatre around four.
I was a third year. Never thought I would ever make it to third year. This year would’ve been Lucian’s last. I really needed to try to get him out of my system, but I couldn’t. It was hard to let someone like him go.
Cheng had finished last year and I had to admit, the halls were a bit empty without him roaming inside of them.
I got plenty of stares as I walked through the hallway to the Amphitheatre.
Tabitha just glared at me as she walked past me and I kept staring at the back of her head as she went to the spot she and Blake used to share.
“Tabits!” Peter yelled and she stopped.
I looked at Becky. “Tabits?” She giggled.
“He claimed her over the summer.”
“Peter claimed Tabitha!” I remembered when he’d made jokes in Professor Pheizer’s class a couple of months ago before he ascended, about how she was going to become his if he did turn out to be an ice wielder.
“Wish I’d been there to see it.”
“I do not want to know what my brother is going to do.” Sammy chirped and she froze. “Sorry Elena.”
I giggled. “Don’t worry, it’s not like that,” I said and hoped that Tabits would hear it too.
Master Longwei welcomed each and every one of us back. To our surprise all the tutors from the last few semesters were all here. No new professor or a scaly Wyvern this time.
I could still remember that day, Lucian was still sitting next to me, while Paul just stared at me. I wished many times that I could go back in time and tell him what was going to happen. But that wasn’t how things worked. He was gone and nothing was ever going to bring him back.
At dinner time I ate in my room. I hated the stares and even felt like an alien in the cafeteria. My friends couldn’t yell this time, they would stop glancing for five minutes and then I would look up and find like ten of them staring again.
We finished with my mom’s first journal. It ended with my father’s death which didn’t make any sense.
Becky and Sammy just stared at me.
“I swear, it’s right here. Albert died,” I said. “Nothing else.”
“But he didn’t die?” Becky said and she got up and took my mother’s journal out of my hand.
“There are three more journals, I’m sure they will clear it up.”
“Oh crap, it’s like almost twelve! I’m going to be a zombie tomorrow.”
“Then let’s go to bed,” I said.
“But I want to know…”
“Bed, Becky!” Sammy and I sang in unison.
We all just giggled and switched off the light and climbed into our own beds.
I couldn’t help but think of Blake and where he was. Whether he knew I was thinking about him, I didn’t know, but he was on my mind right before I went to bed almost every night.
“ELENA, CAN YOU you tell me the substance?” Sir Edward asked with Professor Gregory standing next to him.
Yes, the dragon and rider classes were different. We had two lecturers, one always a Dragonian and the other a dragon.
In this case, Sir Edward was the dragon and Professor Gregory his rider.
“Sorry, I don’t know.”
“You need to pay attention, Elena. We are counting on you to know these things when The Rubicon comes back.”
There it was again, when the Rubicon comes back.
My eyes shifted to Tabitha who was two rows in front of me, right next to Peter.
Her entire posture changed whenever a professor said those words.
The class went on and on, it was about some sort of potion that could change your appearance. It was cool, but for some reason I couldn’t pay attention.
What that reason was, was unclear, but it was something that happened so often lately. I couldn’t believe that a month had passed already and in that month nothing dragon-wise had appeared. He was still out there, somewhere, doing whatever he wanted to. I think it was the reason why I was so distracted. The past couple of weeks I’d been trying so hard to connect with Blake the way he did with me.
Trying to lose myself inside my mind and just see if he was okay, where he was, how he felt.
For him it was so easy.
Everyone in this class had somebody, whether it was a dragon or Dragonian.
I was the odd one out. Still I needed to take the classes to learn. I was supposed to learn with Blake, but I didn’t have to say that anymore. He didn’t want to be here to learn.
Keep your chin up high, was the first thing Queen Margerite had taught me. It was followed by endless hours during the summer of learning that it wasn’t just my chin I needed to keep up. It was everything, and it was something I still struggled with.
It felt as if I was going to lose my mind and I just wanted to fly away.
That was when I missed her: Cara.
She wouldn’t have let them do this to me, but I had no choice, I’d had to kill her. She would’ve killed me when I ascended. It was her choice in the end, still, I kept feeling that so many people died because of a dragon that was too much of a coward to tell me the truth that night inside the woods when we tried to retrieve a sword that had my blood line all over it.
He’d always known who I was, and yet, everyone blamed the darkness in him.
Lucian could’ve still been alive, even Brian as we wouldn’t have had to go on that stupid quest in the first place to find the missing sword.
Goran must’ve seen it that day, who I was, which was why he was so desperate to kill me.
Blake saved my life, huge surprise there, but I know now why he’d done it.
Still, not saying anything to Lucian and letting him go on that quest was cruel.
I don’t know if I would ever forgive him for that.
I’d never wanted to claim Blake. I was dark that time as I’d carried some of his burden, the way my lecturers had told me during summer, but it’d freed me in some sense. The dark made me tell the truth, even though I didn’t care about who I hurt and who I was becoming.
That Elena scared me so much. Still, she was inside of me and a part of me missed her too.
Then why do I want him to come home so badly? It was something that was drilled into me this summer. For the sake of Etan, even though it would be another thing that would never happen.
I need Blake to get past the Creepers.
I’d promised my father that I wouldn’t.
I didn’t think about that last part anymore, if Blake was really able to read my thoughts, of course he knew.
The bell rang and I jumped in my chair.
“Seriously, nothing?” Becky looked at me. “You could at least try, Elena. That was actually one of the most frawsome lectures I’ve ever had.”
She picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.
“It feels as if I’m wasting my time, here.”
“You’re not. Just listen.”
“Boring,” I said and she giggled, bumped me softly and pulled me from my chair and hooked her arm into mine.
“Sir Edward is right, Elena. He will come back and then you’re going to be extremely sorry that you didn’t take notes.”
I got bumped from behind and Tabitha walked past me with huge strides.
“You need to get over it Tabitha, really,” Becky left her two cent comment.
“Don’t, just let it go,” I said.
“She just walked you out of the way, Elena. What happened to that fierce ‘nobody will do shit to me’ girl you were a couple of months ago?”
“She had to kill the one person that made her so fierce.”
“Cara, right?”
I nodded.
“She’s still a part of you Elena. Just not the wings and big ass, but she’s still there.”
“Yeah, whatever, I’ll see you guys later.”
“We still have class, princess.”
“Don’t call me that!” I yelled back. “And it doesn’t matter. I’ll learn when I have somebody to learn with.”
“It’s getting old,” she said and I just giggled.
I knew what she was referring to as I walked up the steps to go to our room. Becky hated every minute of me sulking. But I didn’t care. I was sort of wasting my time.
Enchantments turned into one of my favorites now that I could speak Latin, well not entirely as everything to me was still kind of in English, but everyone heard Latin when I spoke it.
It was weird.
I started to experiment on my own, inside my room and I’d mastered all the incantations there were.
My invisible shields were so strong that nobody could penetrate them or hear a word I said when I conjured one.
I experimented with the communication one, the same one Lucian had mastered and I had to say, Emanuel got the fright of his life when he saw me right in front of him the first time.
It was so funny.
“Don’t do that, you don’t know the danger behind these spells, princess.”
“I told you before, don’t call me that.”
He grinned. “You sound just like him when you say it, you know.”
“He rubbed off on me a lot.”
“We all miss him, Elena.”
I could feel his eyes on me but I didn’t look at him. “So, you heard anything about Blake? Does he drive you insane inside of there?” H tapped me softly on my head. He knew the truth, we’d become really good friends these past couple of weeks with my constant appearing games.
“No, he’s quiet lately. Guess he doesn’t need to be drunk so much anymore.”
“That’s a good sign.”
I smiled at that memory playing inside my mind.
I’d spoken to Emanuel many times using that communication spell, but he didn’t like it much and ignored me the last time, I appeared in front of him.
When I was finished, I found my mother’s journal and started reading from it.
She was such an amazing woman and I guessed her free spirit, speak your mind type of attitude drove my father so insane, that he couldn’t get enough of her.
Still she’d ended the last one with my father’s death, which didn’t make much sense as I knew he wasn’t dead. But to her, it felt as if someone had ripped the moon from the night and the sun would never shine again. She really loved him, even though they’d only shared a couple of amazing hours together.
This journal was about war. Becky and Sammy didn’t like it much and only asked me for updates. She used the potion we were learning about to change her appearance into a man.
Her father was sick and she only had one brother, aged three, so when her father had to fight, she went in his place. It reminded me so much of Mulan, the Chinese warrior who took her father’s place in war, because he was sick too.
She struggled in the beginning but she was extremely good with a bow and arrow and of course her two axes.
They were fighting with my royal grandfather, King Louis, against the dragon militia. He wanted to get revenge, lost a lot of men in the war, as he believed it was a dragon that had killed my father. Which still didn’t make much sense.
The group she was with were still new and they were called up to assist.
But they were ambushed along the way and in order to save lives, she distracted the enemy and they took her hostage.
I hadn’t read further as it was now three in the morning and I was dead tired.
The next evening, I opened the book and got lost in my mother’s words once again.
She was so scared as she knew she wasn’t going to be able to drink the potion that would keep her a man. They’d taken everything.
The men were cruel, she’d written that a couple of times, and the thought of the things they would do to her when they discovered that she was female, scared her.
It was horrible, they didn’t give her water or food.
A big guy kicked her in the stomach.
Reading her words somehow made me understand why the dragons weren’t accepted.
If they were riders, then they were a bad example of showing this world that they could live in harmony.
I understood why history didn’t like them, why they feared them and it was a huge eye opener.
Still something happened that changed my mother’s mind to fight with them.
Whether it was Tanya, I didn’t know but I was dying to find out how her story ended.
These journals helped a lot. I got to see a different side of my mother, the Catherine Squire side, and I wished so many nights that she was still alive. That she was waiting for me to be reunited with her.
I would give anything to just dream about her again, but I never did anymore. Ever since I learned who I was, she was gone.
It was so unfair.
The door opened and Becky and Sammy walked in. “Let me guess, you got lost in your mom’s diary again?”
“It’s seriously good Becky.”
“So, is it the war she fought with King Louie or the dragons?”
I smiled. “King Louie’s. You guys are seriously distracting me.”
Becky rolled her eyes. “Ever since you found her journals we don’t see you much.”
“Becky, it’s all I have of her.”
“Still, we miss you.”
I scrunched up my nose and pulled my face. “Fine.” I put the journal down.
“Your father thinks I should get an apartment.” I looked at Sammy.
“What? But you’ll have a room when the manor is finished.”
“She does?” Becky asked.
“Of course she does. And I know about George almost spending every night with you during the summer, Becky. The nights I slept over at your house I heard him sneaking in and out.”
Becky blushed. “My mom would seriously kill me if she discovered him there. I wonder why Rosa didn’t hear it?”
“She sleeps with ear plugs,” Sammy said.
Becky and I just stared at her. “How on earth do you know that?”
Sammy giggled. “I heard her plopping them in at night.”
“Seriously, that far?”
I missed Cara again. Before, I could’ve easily heard that too, but my hearing had gone back to normal when she’d died and only enhanced a bit when I claimed Blake.
“Still,” Becky said. “It’s a bit creepy that your dad of all people would build a room for Elena, Sammy. She’s human, he’s a dragon.”
I got what she was saying. Blake wasn’t a saint and we’d heard him and Tabitha once during my first summer break, not that that would ever happen to me.
“My father thinks when he comes back that they should be close, maybe it will help.”
“Forcing him to dent. It’s not what I want Samantha.”
“He needs to, otherwise the beatings are never going to stop.”
“So how far along is the manor?” Becky asked.
“Mom said it’s almost finished. I still remember the old one, it was stunning.”
“You were like two,” Becky said.
“Oh believe me dragons remember how their eggs felt when their mom’s lay on them,” I said in a sarcastic tone.
“How do you know that?” Sammy asked with a smile.
“Urgh, it doesn’t matter.”
“My brother told you that?”
“Yes, the time he trained me to kill him.”
“You weren’t really going to do that?”
“Sammy, I’ve wanted to kill your brother for a long time. He has that demeanor every time I’m near him.”
The girls laughed as they got what I was saying, it was just a joke.
“Still, I doubt that you would’ve done that.”
THAT NIGHT I read a bit more about my mother. They kept on beating her, and she still looked like a man but the potion was slowly wearing off. She cried, but had started to form plans in her head of how she was going to kill them. She started sharpening a rock that was in her cell and was going to use it on the first one that thought of attacking her.
All sorts of plans formed and she was doing everything in her power to just get to her bow.
I dreamed of being kicked but it turned into something much worse. The kicks turned into a dragon getting beaten. At first it looked like Emanuel and with every beating King Helmut bestowed on him, it felt as if I took the blow. My back ached and I cried out. More lashes came and the more they slashed my back open, the more I screamed.
It carried on and on. I felt every single ounce of pain and then I finally woke up.
That one felt real. My back still stung when my eyes opened and I found myself in my room.
The pain didn’t go away and I screamed again as another blow burned my back.
The light went on. “Elena, it’s just….” Becky’s voice sounded sleepy, “What the hell is happening to you?” She jumped out of her bed and rushed to mine.
I screamed again as another jolt of pain connected hard with my back. I looked down and saw my shirt soaked with blood.
What the hell is happening to me?
