11 #3
Felix was racing like the spoiled ass he was, Asta thought with pleasure.
During a regular race, Essie’s leg guards and foot pads would be fitted with high-traction fabric.
He had forgotten about precision. Gravity.
Momentum. The fundamentals. Poor Essie was left clawing her way up with her back legs, costing precious seconds.
Carmine, meanwhile, was snaking across the tabletop like greased lightning, grabbing at posts as he went by to correct and redirect. His talons screeched on the steel. The moment he reached the far side of the plateau, he dug his claws into the wood structure below, and they hurtled forward.
Knowing that Felix and Essie would close the distance between them as soon as Essie hit the ground, Asta gave Carmine his head and raised herself in the stirrups.
Carmine galloped down the track, wings beating in great rushing flaps.
His head bobbed as a counterweight to his pounding wings.
Asta could hear when the sound of his footfalls changed and the crunch of the gravel grew lighter.
They were lifting into the air. Carmine let out a roar that shook Asta’s chest.
Asta looked behind her. Felix and Essie were no more than two lengths behind them and gaining.
It might just be a stupid dare, but Asta could not let him win it.
What right did he have to judge her about her ambition or her friends?
The Bruces were ruthless, but at least they’d never pretended to be anything else.
A Seraphin would smile to your face and then make their secret deals behind your back, leaving you none the wiser. Making a fool out of you.
Asta made herself small and tight in the saddle and shouted to Carmine.
The dragons raced for the buoys – large red-painted balls lifted high on poles that flanked the western end of the exercise grounds near the bleachers.
Asta’s eyes were locked on the first buoy.
As they banked for the turn, a dark shape, moving too fast for her to react, flew out from her blind spot underneath Carmine’s bulk.
Felix and Essie tore up and into their path to snag the inside position around the buoy.
Startled, Carmine pulled up, his wings flailing.
The ground rushed up at them like a pouncing lion, and Asta let out an involuntary shriek.
She held on to the harness grips and tried desperately to decipher the ground from the spinning sky so that she could do something to pull out of the fall before they hit.
But it was Carmine who saved them. With fearsome strokes of his wings and a sickening twist of his body, he righted out of the tumble.
Asta’s anger rose in place of her fear. ‘Hey!’ she yelled, but Felix did not turn. ‘Asshole!’
She knew he had done it to send her a message.
Cutting from below was illegal in competition – while overlapped, the groundward team must yield right of way to the skyward team.
It was the exact move that she had been accused of pulling on him the day of his accident.
He was going for payback. His speech had made it clear that he hadn’t forgotten what she did. Clearly, he hadn’t forgiven it either.
Asta felt an icy shiver run through Carmine’s body and smelled smoke in the wind.
The near-fall had made him fractious. He would never, she knew, flame his sister.
But he was not above thinking about it. His anger emboldened her.
This wasn’t the time to sort out whose guilt was whose. Guilt was for the ground.
They chased Felix and Essie through the figure eight, trying to cut in, but Felix blocked every opportunity. All that was left was the canyon and the finish line. Asta knew what she had to do. An electric pulse sang through her nerves, and all her senses heightened.
Ahead of them, Essie and Felix entered the canyon.
The walls of the canyon formed a V, wide at the entrance, with a narrow opening on the far side, no more than nine feet across – too narrow for a dragon to pass through it in flight, thus forcing a controlled descent.
Ahead of them, Essie arched her wings and extended her legs for the landing.
This was their chance.
If Carmine turned sideways, like a bird of prey banking on the wind, he could shoot through the opening at the end of the canyon vertically without slowing down for a landing.
Asta had learned the trick in the streets of Port Veracruz, admittedly with wider passages than this.
Here, there was no room for error. If Carmine misjudged the angle of his flight, Asta could find herself face to immovable face with the canyon wall.
Her helmet would shatter, her bones would be pulverized, and there would be nothing left of her but a gory smear.
But Carmine would not misjudge. He never did. Besides, it was too late to change her mind now. They were already passing into the canyon at full speed, rushing into the shadow of the tower walls.
‘Eagle!’ she called to Carmine over the rush of wind.
Asta grabbed the handles on the harness and locked her feet in the stirrups. She pressed herself against Carmine’s back and held on for dear life, but she kept her face tilted just far enough forward to see what was happening.
If this was going to be the end of her, she wanted a good view.
Carmine banked, and the bright strip at the far side of the canyon rotated accordingly in front of Asta. The dark V of the canyon walls seemed to slam closed as they raced through the passage sideways.
Carmine shot out of the canyon and righted.
Asta screamed with exhilaration, and Carmine roared back, letting loose the burst of fire that he had prepared earlier.
They soared over the finish line and landed a few paces from the gate.
Carmine jogged to a stop, turning back just in time to see Essie and Felix pass the finish.
Carmine, apparently quite pleased with himself, pranced over to greet his sister, carrying Asta along.
Felix had his helmet off almost before his feet were on the ground. ‘What the fuck was that?’ He was furious, but Asta was surprised to see fear in his face, too. She didn’t know that she could still scare him with her daredevil ways. ‘You could have died! What were you thinking?’
Asta lifted her visor. ‘I won, didn’t I?’
‘That was unbelievably stupid, Asta!’
Asta scoffed. ‘Yeah? Well, so is cutting off a skyward team. We nearly spun out.’ She scrutinized him, standing there on the ground, glaring up at her.
His mouth was clamped tight, and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.
There was a vividness about him that filled the air, like he was radiating energy.
She almost expected magic illusions to come spilling out of him – a dragon with its teeth bared for a bite, an inferno of sparks and flame.
But he just stood there, trembling with fear and fury.
‘I meant what I said, Felix. I’m here to win.’
‘You’re going to get yourself killed,’ Felix replied, the fire of his anger ebbing away and leaving, in its wake, something that looked a great deal more like sadness. ‘Or someone else. You’re not as good as you think you are, Asta.’
‘Maybe not,’ she steered Carmine to the gate, ‘but I’ve always been better than you think I am.’