Chapter 17
Seventeen
Morgan
The desperate need for sleep presses into my bones and warps them. They twist into something breakable, delicate, and my skin goes tight around them.
My brain, already sluggish under a constant diet of frustration and grief, turns to sludge and oozes from my ears.
Clawing up from my bunk, I slap my cheeks soft at first, then louder once I’m away from the circle of snoring. The pain sharpens my senses enough for me to grit through the discomfort and tiptoe on.
I’ve gotten used to the halls and the darkness. I’ve gotten used to silence and making the world mine when everyone else shies away, shrinks, hides.
My lockpicking skills are a little better than they were days ago but not good enough for me to execute with any kind of speed. Eventually, the mechanism clicks.
I stash the pin back behind my ear, the metal disappearing into my hair, and slip inside.
The door swings shut with a soft whoosh.
I hide in my corner with the book open on my lap. My heart races, pushing against the confines of my ribs. It tells me I’m a fool in one beat and I shouldn’t be here in another, all while desperation thorns in the space between.
Survival versus freedom and escape. I keep coming back, and I keep looking for answers to my scribbled notes. It’s a torment and a distraction at the same time. For some reason, I have to know if the author answered.
I come up with responses while I mop, sweep, scrub, and salve. I craft my answers to these unasked questions when I steal a drop of warm water under the leaky showerhead. And every chance I can, I sneak into the classroom to check and to devour other books.
It’s silly to expect them to answer.
Especially when there’s no way of knowing if they’ll even pick up the book. There are plenty of other books to pick apart.
I settle against the wall, the moonlight soft on the tip of my slippers, and pause.
Get a grip, Morgan.
In this place? I’m lucky enough to be alive and kicking. Sanity isn’t really part of the equation. Is it?
Reverently, I pry open the cover and flip to one of the longest comments I’d written in the center of the tome. My breath catches at the back of my throat. My fingertips go numb. Underneath my scrawl is a response in green ink.
The person who owns the book left a message for me.
You’ve written some intriguing insights.
Pins and needles dance along my skin, and I slam the book shut.
This is what I wanted. A response, someone to talk to me like I’m a human being. The revelation rocks me to the soles of my feet.
Is that why I really wrote in the book? To find someone who wouldn’t see me in my maid gray dress, on my hands and knees, covered in dirt and dung and other unmentionables? Someone who might recognize my intellect and engage?
They did.
Incredulity colors my laugh. They did.
Gathering myself, I peel open the book and find my page again.
The interaction begins easily enough. I really thought they’d be furious with me for continuing the desecration of their margins. I hadn’t cared enough to let it stop me. I still don’t.
Building off of what you said about unicorn horns being able to pierce dragon armor—
I stop. The quick drop of my stomach now reverses and everything inside of me soars higher. Not only a response, but a back and forth. Insight matching insight.
I grab Illonia’s pendant, closing my eyes against the awkward sensation in my lower abdomen. Something as small as an answer shouldn’t be enough to make me feel this way. But it’s not just a few scribbles in a looping script. It’s so much more than that.
The sapphire warms in my hands.
It’s hope distilled into ink and parchment. Knowledge that flows like lifeblood through my veins.
For the first time since the flames, I feel truly alive.
I’m someone worthy of consideration rather than a woman designed to blend into the background, acknowledged only for the strength in my hands. And what that means for the cleanliness of this place.
I flip to another chapter.
“Dragon armor is certainly burdensome,” I read aloud. My eyes skip over the lines. “It adds weight but is effective against all but a direct piercing of a unicorn horn in one of the connection points. Hydra and basilisk venom cannot penetrate the armor.”
Another dubious laugh slips free.
The owner of the book had some good observations and if I’m able to carry on this secret conversation longer, then I’ll learn more. I tuck each new tidbit of knowledge away. And soon I’ll be able to prove to both of those gilded parasites that they made a mistake in keeping me alive.
They won’t know it until I glide a knife through their ribs. Then I’ll swallow the surprise in their eyes before the light winks out.
I drop the pendant.
Sudden fear coils up inside of me, poised to strike. I swallow it down and tilt my head until it touches the wall.
Fear makes me weak.
Fear makes me docile and biddable and if I let it, DragonSpear and the people living like insects in the walls will mold me into whatever they need me to be.
It won’t matter what I want.
It only matters what good I can offer to this place that demands more life to power it.
My stomach sinks further as I scan through the notes in the first three chapters.
“Dragons aren’t the only powerful ones. All mounts choose their riders based on what is seen inside their heads,” I whisper.
But dragons were the only ones capable of burning an entire village to cinders in a single swoop. The power radiating off that pale beast extended throughout the entirety of Fallkirk from mountain to mountain.
If they were all as massive, the kingdom would be doomed.
“Maybe it would be different if every dragon rider I met wasn’t a greedy dreg-heap.” The word makes me smile.
I glance at the door at the slightest brush of sound. My nerves are on high alert, but the door is closed. There isn’t enough light in the hallway to send shadows of warning. I hold my breath but when the quiet lands heavier, I release it bit by bit.
I study the questions and the fantasy conversations I’d concocted in my head falter. The answers I get are nothing like the ones I’d convinced myself I’d receive.
There’s a reason they keep this room locked. If anyone found this book and the scribbles between me and the author—
I shake my head. “Focus, Morgan.”
My demand falls flat.
What would Mother say about this whole business? She’d be angry, first of all, at my being forced to scrub toilets rather than learn. She’d rage against the way the administrators squashed my self-expression, my mind squandered on menial tasks designed to degrade.
She was never one for slavery.
Even in our village, everyone pulled their weight together. Mother insisted we all help each other—whether it was during harvest, or when someone fell ill, we were a community. People supported their neighbors, not servants.
I rest the book on my lap, my eyes closed, until my breathing evens out.
The book’s owner added to what I said and asked a few questions in return.
Flight times versus travel times on the ground.
What can be done to span the great differences?
If a course was charted from the Clinchwood Mountains to the Eldorian territory, any winged mount would be faster.
There is expedition in having an open sky versus an entire craggy range to traverse. Isn’t there?
I’m not saying dragons are superior, only that basilisk and the like would falter in the mountain range. Especially if the temperature drops during the winter months. When ice blocks the path, the trails are impassable, but a winged mount would still be able to make it.
The paragraph almost feels philosophical in a way none of the others have felt. I stare at the note and consider potential replies.
There are several more questions written throughout the book in response to mine. I’m going to have to really think through my replies, to make sure I’m getting the information out there in a way where I’ll receive the answers I need.
The author’s questions are insightful. They make me think, challenge me in a way I appreciate. How interesting. This is the best and most exciting human contact I’ve had since I came to the academy.
Heart lurching into my throat, I blink back tears. Tears are useless. They’re only a waste of time. Finally, I clear my throat, shrewd eyes narrowing on the text again.
I tap the pen faster against my chin, my heart racing.
A glance at the door shows no one out there but a girl can’t be too careful these days. The future isn’t decided or promised.
You are correct in that the Clinchwood Range is impossible to land mounts during the colder months. However, there are many places, deep in the heart of the land, made inaccessible to a dragon simply because of their girth.
I turn my attention to the next chapter, a murmured song rising from my chest. I don’t recognize the tune as I hum and read.
A scrawled passage near the last chapter snags my attention and holds it in a stranglehold.
There are those loyal to the crown who believe that the only might is found in the sky on the back of a dragon. Where do you stand?
There is always another hurdle to peace. There are those who lack the capacity to stand up for what is right, and there are those who will do whatever it takes to reach a nebulous end goal. How much wrong can one person do in the name of good before they become a monster?
I pull up short at the questions and my chest goes tight.
“Well, well.” Muttering out loud helps ground me. “This could very well be a trap.”
It probably is. Why else let the words linger there like a trap ready to close around my throat? Oh, boy.
The author knew exactly what they were doing when they penned it. I guarantee. None of the other responses were crafted haphazardly.
This one feels loaded and much heavier than any of the other questions.
And if I say what I really think, I could be killed. Somehow or another, the staff or the book owner will trace the comments back to me if I let too much information slip.