45. CHAPTER 45
Morning came too fast. The bell tolled six times, each clang like a hammer to my skull.
First-year Riders and leadership were the only ones in the dining hall.
We were informed that all first-year Riders would report to the flight field.
The cadet leadership, minus the Flight Guides, would be discussing plans.
All of us first-years shuffled onto the flight field, but Featherwing looked like we’d been dragged through the stables backward. Micah wore his headache plain, squinting at the pale winter sun like it was trying to kill him.
Sadie kept muttering under her breath, “never again, never again.” Though she still walked straighter than most of us.
Lorenzo looked ready to vomit on his boots, and Akira had the hollow-eyed stare of a woman bargaining with the gods.
Thora, infuriatingly, looked composed. Only the faint tightness around her mouth betrayed her. Micah shot her a look and let out a large laugh.
Professor Hildegard was waiting, arms folded, expression tight. His voice cracked across the field, far too loud for anyone with a pounding head. “You are Riders. You will learn to fly, whether you drank yourself sick or not. And yes, it’s that obvious.”
Lorenzo groaned audibly.
Hildegard’s gaze snapped at him. “Be inconvenienced again, Cadet Carnethon, and I’ll have you running laps until you can’t stand.”
Lorenzo snapped upright, trying not to sway. “Yes, sir.”
Hildegard’s eyes swept over all of us, merciless. “From today until you leave, your only duties are flight training and saddle completion. You will not waste time in classrooms when you need to learn this before you can leave. Flight field. Saddle making. Nothing else.”
That actually perked Sadie up. She straightened, her eyes sparking. “So, no lectures?” she whispered to me.
“No lectures,” I muttered back, rubbing my temple. “Just falling to our deaths.”
Our fliers all landed in the field, so many more than when it was just Featherwing. The ground shuddered like an earthquake each time they landed. We all walked to our fliers and mounted.
“You’re sluggish,” she teased as I scrambled onto her back, head throbbing. “Last night did not serve you well.”
“Neither did your sarcasm,” I shot back, gripping the pommel.
“I want everyone to go up and do four laps around the entire campus ground,” he shouted across the field.
She launched, wings beating hard, dragging me up into the icy morning air as my stomach lurched. Below, Micah was screaming something incoherent as Sera rolled him into a spiral, and Lorenzo was already half dangling out of Syth’s saddle.
Sadie’s laughter carried even over the wind, sharp and merciless. “Gods, we’re pathetic!”
“Speak for yourself,” I shot back at her.
One by one, fliers landed back in the field. I felt like my teeth rattled from the drastic landing Esme did. I was pretty sure she wanted me to puke.
“Today’s lesson,” Professor Hildegard barked, pacing the flight line with his arms behind his back, “is survival. Every Rider falls. Whether you live through it depends on your flier—and on you trusting them to catch you.”
My stomach dropped. Where was he going with this?
“Since all of you are out here, each wing will be doing different maneuvers. I have asked for some aid, just in case you and your flier have ill timing. Given our current status of losing cadets left and right, we have been ordered to reduce training deaths. There are twelve Drusearon cadets and twelve Riders still on campus who are joining us. Some of them are perched in the towers, some are flying around, and some will be down here. There are also some of the professors who are Riders or Drusearons that will be assisting us.”
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Thora spouted out.
I looked around, trying to find Zane. “Where are you?” I finally said down the bond.
“I am in tower one, sitting on the ledge, your favorite thing to do. Watching you look like you’re facing death. Trust your dragon first and then know I’ll be there before you can blink.”
“You will be fine. They are here to catch you if your flier doesn’t.
Dragon Wing will be doing spiral maneuvers.
Eagle Wing will be doing sharp banks and practicing dropping and raising in the sky.
Which leaves the little drunken rebels, doing my favorite part.
Your fliers will be turning upside down, you will drop, and then they will fly below you to catch you.
You will probably not land on the saddle the first couple times, and your flier may end up grabbing you with their talons and throwing you back up there.
We will rotate when you have mostly mastered your task. ”
A groan rippled through Featherwing, half misery, half terror.
Micah sputtered, gripping Sera’s pommel tighter. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think I should be making life-or-death choices while still drunk.”
“Excellent,” Hildegard said without missing a beat. “Then maybe you’ll learn faster.”
Sadie snorted. Akira muttered something in Orix’s ear that sounded a lot like a prayer. Lorenzo actually went pale, which was impressive considering how flushed he still was from last night.
“First up!” Hildegard bellowed, pointing at Micah. “Since you volunteered.”
Micah’s face went slack. “That was not volunteering!” But Sera was already launching into the sky with the kind of speed that made my stomach lurch just watching. Micah’s voice echoed across the field. “This is a bad ideaaaaaaaaa!”
From above, she spun upside down, and he let go. For a split second, he flailed wildly, arms and legs pinwheeling as the wind yanked him downward. Then Sera tucked her wings and dove, flames streaming from her tail, and snatched him midair with terrifying precision, throwing him onto his saddle.
Micah’s scream of terror turned into something closer to hysterical laughter. “I’m alive!”
The rest of us groaned.
Sadie was next, and she slid off Korra with infuriating grace, arms tucked to her sides as she plummeted like she’d done this a hundred times. Korra swooped and caught her so smoothly that she was laughing by the time she landed in the saddle perfectly.
“You’re insane,” Akira muttered.
“Thank you,” Sadie called back sweetly.
One by one we went. Lorenzo clung until Hildegard shouted at him to let go, then dropped, screaming curses the entire way until Syth snapped him up, leaving him green in the face and retching.
Akira fell gracefully, Orix caught her with her landing right behind the saddle, and she moved into the saddle with ease.
Then it was my turn.
“This is insane,” I told her.
“So is flying,” she said, and then tipped her body hard.
The world dropped out from under me. For one terrifying heartbeat I was free-falling, air tearing at my braid, ground rushing up far too fast. My scream ripped free before I could stop it.
Then Esme’s shadow engulfed me. Her claws closed with terrifying gentleness around my waist, and she flung me back into the saddle like I weighed nothing. I collapsed forward against her neck, panting, my heart hammering loud enough to drown out everything else.
“See?” she purred. “Perfect trust.”
“Perfect heart attack,” I muttered, gripping the pommel with white knuckles.
Professor Hildegard didn’t look impressed. If anything, he looked bored, like watching us scream our lungs out was the most predictable thing in the world .
“Pathetic,” he declared once Lorenzo finished dry-heaving over Syth’s wing. “You’ll never survive if you can’t fall without looking like hatchlings shoved from a nest.” His gaze swept the line of us, sharp as a blade. “Now, you all will fall together instead of one by one.”
A collective groan rippled across the field.
“Remember there are cadets who fly themselves, as well as professors who can or have a flier. They will catch you if needed. You can catch each other if it’s needed, but for the love of fucking gods, do not put yourself in danger to catch another cadet when we have capable fliers that can do it better. ”
I felt Esme’s dark amusement curl through the bond. “At least it will be entertaining.”
Micah went sheet white. Sadie elbowed him. “Relax. If Korra doesn’t catch you, maybe Esme will. Just don’t flail like last time. You looked like a cat dropped in a barrel.”
Micah groaned. “I am going to die.”
Lorenzo, still pale and wiping his mouth, raised a hand weakly. “Sir, permission to sit out on account of imminent organ failure?”
Hildegard’s expression didn’t shift. “Denied.”
He whistled loudly, sounding us off. Esme vaulted skyward under me, her wings snapping open with a rush of air. Around us, twenty-one other fliers launched, the sky filling with beating wings, screeches, and shouts of Riders trying not to panic.
“All at once!” Hildegard bellowed from the ground.
The signal came, and twenty-two bodies dropped like stones.
The screaming was immediate. Micah’s voice cracked into something between a shriek and a laugh. Sadie actually whooped on her way down, Korra diving neatly after her. Lorenzo shouted, “gods help me,” before Syth snatched him up mid-fall, only for him to promptly vomit over the side.
“Ugh, disgusting!” Akira yelled as Orix banked to avoid the spray.
Halfway down, one cadet from the Fire Platoon second squad started tumbling sideways instead of straight, arms flailing.
Their dragon missed the first grab, and for a horrifying heartbeat it looked like they were done for—until Professor Quillet’s dragon darted in, claws hooking them out of the air with terrifying precision.
“See?” Hildegard’s voice roared from the ground. “You are only as strong as your trust. Fail, and someone else must clean up your mess!”
By the time Esme scooped me back into place, my stomach was somewhere near my boots. Micah was laughing hysterically, Akira was still swearing at Lorenzo, Sadie was grinning like a lunatic, and three cadets were retching over the sides of their fliers.