4. Aurora
AURORA
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have misgivings yet again the next morning as I stepped out onto the ledge wearing Auren’s best suit with my hair all ragged and bandages binding my breasts under the too-big dress shirt I wore.
Not that they needed much binding. I had never been big-chested and the lack of food in the past few months had shrunk my meager assets until they were nearly non-existent.
Still, I wrapped them to be safe, securing the wide, thick linen bandages with a pin under my arm.
Along with Auren’s suit, I was wearing my own scuffed and worn dress boots.
I’d tried polishing them with a bit of melted candle wax and some soot from the stove, but the scuffs were still all too visible, especially around the toes.
I hoped they didn’t look too girlish. None of Auren’s footwear had fit me—my hands and feet were much daintier than my brother’s had been, even before he got his growth spurt.
I had wrapped myself in his old winter coat—which was ragged but clean—and far too big for me.
But I had no winter things of my own. My father deemed them unnecessary since a woman’s place is in the home.
What need could I have for a warm coat when my place was by the hearth, cooking and cleaning all during the cold season? And the hot season too, come to that.
So it was Auren’s coat or none at all. Honestly, I was glad to have it. It still smelled faintly of him and the ghostly scent comforted me.
To complete my Receiving Day outfit, I wore the most precious thing of all—the Dragon Glass pendant that had been passed down from father to son for generations in my family.
It was the most valuable thing we owned—the one asset my father had refused to sell off, even as we drowned in gentile poverty.
“You’ll wear it when you go to the Academy,” I remembered him telling Auren. “It’s magic you know—the Dragon Glass was forged by a Pure Gold dragon—one of the last ever seen before they all disappeared.”
“What does it do?” Auren had asked, his pale purple eyes wide with interest as my father fastened the pendant around his neck.
It had been fashioned into the shape of a dragon’s head, lifted as though to breathe flame, and the obsidian was liberally speckled with flecks of gold, as all Dragon Glass was.
“Ahh, it’s magic is subtle but real,” was the reply.
“It makes you into what you believe yourself to be—into what you want others to see when they look at you. So if you believe yourself to be courageous and competent and strong, why, that’s what you’ll be and that’s what they’ll see.
” He had pounded Auren gently on the shoulder.
“Wear it always—never take it off,” he told my brother.
“Especially at the Academy. But remember—the amulet will work on humans, but not on dragons. The Noble ones are the only drakes with fire hot enough to forge the Dragon Glass, so they can see through its glamour. With them, you just have to be yourself and hope that they approve.”
It was that last part that made me nervous. I hoped that my family’s Dragon Glass pendant could help me pull off my deception among the professors and the other students, but with the dragons, I would be on my own.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to be near them that much, I reasoned with myself as I walked along the ledge to F’lorn’s old cave.
After all, the beasts were too huge to be quartered with their riders.
They had their own caverns, located around the top of the dormant volcano the Academy was built on.
From what my father had said, the riders were quartered lower down.
Only the most esteemed riders and professors had their own caverns, big enough for a man to live in close proximity to his dragon.
At any rate, I was going now. My formerly luscious locks had been shorn to a spiky cut that completely negated my beauty.
No Baron or Duke would want me now, no matter how impressive my bloodlines.
Also, the cupboards were bare—I’d had the very last of the weak tea for breakfast and there was no food at all left.
I would starve to death before my hair grew out, making me presentable again, so I had no choice.
I’m going, I told myself. I’m going for Auren but I’m also going for me. I won’t live my life as some man’s plaything and servant. I’m worth more than that.
I lifted my chin and headed into the F’lorn’s old cave with determination.
“Ah, there you are!” the courier—whose name I still didn’t know—exclaimed when I came in, just as though he’d been hunting for me instead of the other way around. “Your hair looks better that way,” he added, eying me critically and frowned. “Still too pretty for your own good, though.”
I ignored his words, hoping that the men at the Academy wouldn’t think the same. I’d cut my hair, bound my breasts and I was wearing my family’s pendant—that was the limit of my disguise. At least my short hair made me look more boyish.
The courier’s little brown dragon was dwarfed by the cavernous space, like a puppy put into a kennel meant for a full-grown dog.
Contentment radiated off him in waves—I sensed he was happy just to be near his rider.
He was much nicer to be near than my father’s dragon had been, I thought.
F’lorn had always been in a rage, his anger as hot as his dragon fire. G’lornie wasn’t frightening at all.
Despite the order that we were to leave at six sharp, the courier was sitting on an old stool beside a fire. There was a collapsible metal frame over the licking flames with an iron pan on it. Bacon fat was melting in the blackened bottom of the pan, and he was toasting thick slices of bread in it.
“Yes, here I am,” I said, trying hard not to eye his breakfast. It wasn’t the sight so much as the smells that taunted me.
Everything I’d been eating for the past month had almost no odor—bones and tea that had been boiled over and over again.
They had lost their aroma long ago. But the rich scent of bacon fat bubbling in the pan tormented me, coming so strongly to my nose that my mouth started to water.
The courier must have seen me eyeing his food, because he made a gesture for me to sit beside him and nodded at the pan.
“Come and help yourself to a slice, if you like, lad,” he said kindly. “It’s not good to fly on an empty stomach.”
My appetite roared to life, but my pride rebelled. I was a daughter—now a son—of a Great House. We had no need to beg.
“Thank you but I’m not hungry,” I said loftily.
Of course, my stomach chose that very moment to growl loudly in angry contradiction.
“Oh, come now, lad.” The courier shook his head. “There’s no shame in being in need.”
“There’s not?” I asked doubtfully. To hear my father rant and rave about our dwindling finances, there was nothing more shameful than poverty.
But the courier shook his head again.
“Course not. I wasn’t raised with much myself, you know,” he said. “Barely had enough Noble Blood to get myself into the Academy—my father owned a farm. Not exactly a going enterprise, you understand.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked blankly.
“Well, because…” He frowned, as if trying to think how to continue.
“I’ve heard about what happened to your father—we all have,” he added sympathetically.
“It makes sense that you wouldn’t have much to eat with the main breadwinner of your family gone.
Your cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass, and I can practically count your ribs right through that coat. ”
I felt a rush of shame that heated my cheeks in an uncomfortable blush.
Death by suicide was a black mark on a family’s name—especially when both rider and dragon went together.
It usually meant madness and there was nothing worse than that.
I wished he didn’t know about it and hoped he was wrong about the rest of the Academy knowing as well.
“I…um…” I didn’t know what to say.
The courier didn’t wait for me to finish. Using a long-handled fork, he fished one of the toasted slices of bread from the pan and handed it to me.
“Here—eat up, lad. As I said, it’s not good to fly on an empty stomach. Can’t have you fainting mid-air.”
This time I took the offered food without complaint. It was hot enough to singe my fingertips but I held onto it anyway and brought it to my lips.
The first bite was pure bliss—crispy and crunchy and salty and slightly greasy from the bacon fat. The toasted bread crunched between my teeth and melted on my tongue, making my stomach growl again with hunger.
I finished the bread in no time. Though I tried to be mannerly about it, I’m afraid I wolfed it down. Grief for Auren had allowed me to ignore my hunger up until now but having real food in my mouth dispelled all other emotions.
“Good, that’s good.” The courier nodded approvingly as he watched me eat the bread.
“Would you like another slice?” he added, forking up the second piece and holding it out to me.
“I’m full myself,” he added. “I was just going to give it to G’lornie, but the little glutton’s already had a whole goat I bought him down at the village last night, so he doesn’t need it to fly. ”
“Oh, I shouldn’t,” I said, even though my stomach was still growling. I took the toasted bread instinctively anyway, but made myself hold it out to the little Brown. “G’lornie should have it—he’s going to take us all the way to the Academy,” I said, trying to make myself believe it.
But the little brown dragon nosed away my hand. Instead of inhaling the piece of bread, he pushed my palm back towards me and there was an anxious look in his golden eyes as he did so, as though he could sense how hungry I was. I could feel his worry for me and it melted my heart.
“There, you see? G’lornie wants you to have it,” the courier said. “You go on and finish it now, lad. I’ll pack up while you eat.”
“Well, thank you, er…” I hesitated awkwardly, not sure what to call him.
“Oh, I’m Jorn,” the courier said to me, smiling.
“I guess I never really introduced myself. Not much use, seeing as how once we get back to the Academy, we’ll be moving in different circles.
You’ll be with the new cadets and I’m always off flying, dispatching messages and gathering candidates.
Still, maybe you’ll remember old Jorn once you’ve Impressed yourself a Silver or Gold-wing. ”
“I’ll never forget your kindness,” I said and meant it.
“Oh, go on with you.” Jorn made a shooing gesture and his weather-roughened cheeks grew a bit red. “I’ve a lad myself, just your age and entering the Academy this year. I wouldn’t want him going hungry—just treating you the way I’d hope someone would treat him if your circumstances were reversed.”
I wondered if Jorn’s son looked anything like him and pictured a boy about my age with an enormous poufy mustache. The mental image made me smile.
“Well, we’d best get moving if we’re going to get you to Receiving Day on time,” Jorn said. “Finish that bread and let’s head out.”
As he stamped out the fire and packed up his gear, I hoped and prayed that the other men I met at the Academy would be as kind as Jorn and all the dragons as sweet as G’lornie.
I had no idea how soon my hopes would be dashed and that all my prayers would go unanswered.