Chapter 3 #3
“You’re eighteen,” I reminded him, glancing over to where Min was spinning in circles, preparing to settle in for a nap. “There are plenty of Razes with bad attitudes out there for you to wrangle. Trust me.”
Dalton huffed in frustration. “Says you. By the time you were my age, you’d already excelled through training.”
And now a decade later, I’d learned that wrangling wasn’t all fun and games.
It was bloody and dangerous and, sometimes, deadly.
But the kid yearned for the adventure of wrangling, and I didn’t want to dampen his spirits further.
He’d started his wrangler training almost two years ago at the small off-shoot school where wranglers were instructed apart from the other riders at the academy.
Most dragon riders were trained to defend Cai’amar from all manner of threats.
But wranglers were a special subgroup of riders, trained to de-escalate dragon conflict.
Unfortunately, his progress had been halted when he’d failed to bond with his assigned dragon, a bright red Scorch.
Despite their fiery appearances, Scorches were usually a gentle breed that loved spending their days lazing in the sun and burning off spurts of energy by racing, which made them perfect for young dragon riders.
That misstep had set him back almost a year as he was forced to begin the training process all over again, starting with the most mundane of chores—upkeeping the nesting shed. I felt for the kid. Really, I did.
When it came to the bonding process, I’d lucked out with Min. She’d found me.
She’d chosen me.
But not all wranglers were as lucky. Even a domesticated dragon needed to choose to enter into a riding bond of their own accord.
Training with a dragon wasn’t the same as training other animals.
Dragons were highly intelligent and there had to be mutual trust for the rider bond to develop.
You couldn’t exactly force a creature with a bolder-crushing bite force to do something it didn’t want to do.
And for whatever reason, Dalton’s assigned dragon had decided he wasn’t ready to wrangle.
But I understood his desire to bond. To be in the sky. Min yawned loudly, showing off rows of jagged teeth. Every time I reached for her, I was putting my life into the claws of a creature that could crush my bones to dust.
Some called me reckless. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“C’mon,” I said, turning back to Dalton. “I’ll give you a hand finishing up, and when Min wakes from her nap, we’ll take a ride through the valley.”
Dalton perked up, a smile stretching across his face. “Deal!”
He wasn’t supposed to be on dragonback until his preceptor determined he was ready, but I wasn’t going to say anything. As far as I was concerned, what happened in Ember Ridge stayed in Ember Ridge.
“I just have to organize the tack room and fill Min’s water trough.”
I held my hand out for the bucket. “I’ll do that.”
He passed it to me, and I strung it over my arm, turning for the well out behind the shed. I spotted the loose nail in the floorboard seconds before my leg shot out, but despite seeing it, my reaction was too slow.
I stumbled over the floorboard, the bucket soaring out of reach as my arms extended to brace myself against a post. I winced as the residual limb of my left leg slid from its brace.
Min’s head jerked up, her scales shifting as she clocked the danger I might be in.
I turned, hopping on one foot, hearing the clunk as my prosthesis tipped over.
“Stars,” I muttered, reaching for the prosthetic limb—a complicated bit of metal and wood.
“That’s looking rough,” Dalton said, coming over to offer me a steadying hand as I fitted the prosthesis back into place below my knee. “Can’t you get the blacksmith to look at it?”
I shook my head. “He’ll just want to bash the hell out of it with that hammer of his.
I need to find someone with a gentler touch.
” But that would probably require a visit to the capital, and that was closer to my father than I’d prefer.
I took a tentative step forward, assessing the fit. “That should do it.”
I bent to retrieve the bucket. As I grabbed the handle, I flinched and hissed, the metal pressing against the raw injury on my hand.
“What is it?” Dalton asked.
“Nothing,” I murmured, knowing I’d disturbed the bandage. That damn burn nurse was going to give me hell tomorrow. I adjusted the bandage the best I could, grimacing at the pink stain.
“Should you get that looked at?”
“Trust me, the last place I want to be is back at the infirmary. At least until Gunther’s returned.”
“I didn’t know he was out.”
A loud snore cut through the shed. Dalton jumped, but I grinned at the sight of steam rising from Min’s perch. She needed her rest, and I was glad she had a safe place to do that. Now, all I had to do was figure out how to give her a safe place to retire.
Min might be the fastest dragon in Ember Ridge, perhaps one of the fastest in all of Cai’amar, but the day was coming when she’d no longer be able to take to the sky.
And it was coming sooner than I’d like.