Chapter 14 #3
I look at the dragons flying above our city.
The rider who attacked me is not here. Somehow, I think I’d know if he was among the attacking horde, a chill that would be deeper than fear.
In fact, most of the dragons are riderless, with one exception, a red dragon with a person sitting on it, flying over the bay.
“Do you think that rider commands them?” I ask Alayel.
He narrows his eyes. “I’m not sure. When we were attacked, they had no riders, remember? So I think they don’t need to be commanded.”
Some dragons now launch blasts of fire on the roofs of the city. From here, I can’t see the Grease & Spice, but even if it got hit, I don’t think the building would burn.
Another glider falls, apparently on its own, and I have to turn around, too horrified to keep looking.
Alayel places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I thought…
“You’re fine. It’s just so… pointless. Grim.”
“Gliders disorient and confuse the dragons. It might look pointless, but… it’s what sky sentinels do.”
“I know. And to be honest, I’d still like to fly.”
He caresses the back of my hand. “I understand.”
When I turn and look again, the dragons are gone, and yet the bells are still ringing.
I frown. “The attack stopped, didn’t it? But the bells…”
Alayel leans over and looks down. “They must be clearing the bodies.” He keeps looking. “I don’t think any dragon was brought down. Only sentinels.”
So many lives lost. A bitter tang coats my mouth as I consider the broken gliders and their eternally silenced riders. Yes, I knew what being in the Sky Academy entailed, and yet watching it makes it seem so wasteful.
An angry snort leaves my lips. “I understand now why they don’t want us to look.”
Alayel closes the shutter completely, then sits by me and wraps his arms around my body, kissing my neck, then my ear.
I turn and kiss him briefly on the lips, so he doesn’t think I’m rejecting him, but then I get up. “I need to go.”
“Where?”
“I need to see the little dragons.”
“I’ll come with you.”
I could say no, I could ask him why, I could tell him I’ll go on my own. Instead, I nod, and find myself descending the stairs with him, holding his hand, unsure what that even means.
All I know is that I need to see Ava and Vos, need to check them with my own eyes, need to be sure they weren’t taken from me.
The guards don’t let Alayel through to the corridor of the hatchlings’ nursery.
“It’s fine.” He smirks at me. “You know where to find me.”
I rush inside and find Ava and Vos asleep side by side on the sandbox.
Fearing awakening them, I turn to leave, but a soft squeak makes me pause.
Vos stares at me with his cute gray eyes, and I go back and take him on my lap.
Tiny horns are starting to grow on his head, and when I try to caress him, he rubs them on my palm, perhaps to scratch them.
Ava awakes, climbs on my lap, then does the same with her emerging horns.
My breathing eases. The little dragons look calm and happy, assuring me nobody tried to steal them this time.
I kiss their small heads, then say, “I have to go now. But I’ll be back.”
When I put them on the floor, Ava squeaks, and Vos runs away and hides behind a rock.
“Do you think he’s upset?” I ask Ava, and she coos twice.
I have no idea what any of that means, of course, but I leave the room glad to know that they haven’t been harmed.
To my surprise, Alayel is outside the hallway, leaning on a wall, arms crossed.
He greets me with a warm smile. “Done?”
“Yes. Are you my personal bodyguard now?”
“No.” He looks down, then back at me, and raises an eyebrow. “But I’d like to be.”
My cheeks feel hot, especially when I realize that the guards are watching our interaction.
He reaches out and touches my face. “Where shall I accompany you next?”
“I need to check on Celine, then go to the city to see my brother. It’s a lot of stairs, though.”
“Are you requesting me to carry you?”
An amused chuckle leaves my lips. “Of course not.”
“Then let’s go.” He gives me that charming smile that makes my breath stop and my heart race. The worst is that he knows what it does.
I rush ahead, unwilling to look at his face more than necessary, at least for now, but he catches up with me soon.
“Your friend should be fine,” he says. “She’s in her dorm, right?”
“I don’t want her to wonder where I am.”
He tilts his head. “That makes sense.”
We climb the stairs quickly, and Alayel waits for me outside while I approach the women’s dormitory.
My friends are both in our room, playing a game of pawns and dragons.
Celine is losing badly, as more than half of Nelly’s pieces are flipped and have become dragons, while the second-year recruit’s pieces are all pawns except for one.
“I’ll be back later,” I say, even as Celine gets up, obviously eager to have an excuse to abandon the game. “I’m going to visit my brother.”
“Don’t take long,” she says. “We’re going to the Outer Beach tonight.”
“What for?”
“Party!” Celine grins.
Nelly nods. “I can’t wait.”
They didn’t look out the window, didn’t see the gliders crashing, tumbling from the sky, the bodies falling to the ground.
Maybe that’s why the academy doesn’t want us to see the attacks.
They don’t want us to be mournful before we’re prepared to deal with death.
Perhaps I should have stayed indoors and not dared to look.
I force a smile. “Oh, fun. I’ll be back by then.”
When I step out, Alayel is pacing the hallway, but he stops and turns to me the moment he sees me.
“That was much faster,” he says.
“I just wanted to check on them.”
He gives me a cheeky smirk. “You do know that dragons can’t breach our walls, right?”
“The rider breached it,” I say in a lower voice.
He opens a door to a quiet staircase, and we start descending. “Still not a dragon,” he says. “So much so that you’re alive to tell the story.”
“Well…” I almost mention that the rider said he didn’t want to kill me this time, but it feels strange, treasonous, perhaps, as if for some reason it meant some odd alliance between me and the invader.
Then I recall the staff. Protect them. Did the rider leave it to me on purpose? It doesn’t make any sense.
Alayel touches my shoulder. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“You didn’t. I was just lost in thought. Do you know where they put the staff?”
“I bet some kind of vault somewhere, and I’m sure it’s too well protected for you to reach it.”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t thinking that. It’s just… So weird for a rider to breach the castle. And then they didn’t even stop the ball?”
“Some guards spoke to my father. Discreetly, so as not to cause panic.”
“How did you even know where to find me?”
He narrows his eyes, his expression playful. “Let’s just say I’m good at putting pieces together when I want to. It wasn’t hard to figure out what happened and where you were.”
“An impressive ability.”
“Not really.” He has a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Once you see more of my abilities, then we can talk about impressive.”
The innuendo is clear, and I roll my eyes. “Have you ever heard of a beautiful trait called modesty?”
“That’s something you won’t find in me. If I’m good at something, I don’t need to wait for someone else to notice it. I’ll be the first to boast.”
“I guess I noticed it.”
He stops, grabs me by the shoulders, and looks me in the eye.
“I told you I get everything I want, didn’t I?
How do you think it happens? Do you think I hide in the shadows and wait for Foros to grace me?
Do you think I sit and wait for other people to give me my due?
No. I seize what’s mine. So yes, call me pretentious, arrogant, vainglorious.
All it means is that I know my worth.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ll never apologize for that.”
“I didn’t ask you to apologize.”
“I know. I’m just sick of people who think that pretending to be small makes them virtuous. Meanwhile, they bathe in jealousy, wishing they were greater.”
“I don’t pretend to be small, I’m just trying to—”
“Of course you don’t. Had you been one of those people, I wouldn’t waste a second with you. You were born for greatness. Like me.”
I want to chuckle and say his words are ridiculous, but then I don’t want another lecture on the value of being a prideful prick, so I ask, “How do you know?”
“One more of my brilliant abilities. Again, not among the most interesting ones.”
This time, I laugh. “And what is your most interesting ability? Because I’m curious.”
“You know what you need to do to find out.”
Even in the dim light of the scattered lumos jars, I see the way he undresses me with his eyes, his meaning obvious.
I want to scoff, and yet the intensity of his stare makes me tremble.
“What if I don’t know?” I make a playful, childish voice, as if I was truly clueless.
He pulls me close and brushes his lips on the shell of my ear. “I’ll teach you.”
Something smoky and raw about his voice makes me flustered, but I laugh. “You know, for all your abilities, I don’t think your flirting techniques are the most impressive.”
“It’s honesty, not some technique. The goal is not to get you into my bed faster. It’s to ensure you’re fully aware of who I am and what I want.”
I shrug. “You can just tell me.”
“I already told you. When you scream your highness in my bed, perhaps your memory will be refreshed.”
“You know it’s never going to happen, right?”
“Is that what you think?” The corner of his mouth quirks up.
“Yes. In fact, if that’s the reason you’re walking with me—”
He lets go of my hand and looks me in the eye again. “Hey. I’m walking with you to the city because I happen to enjoy your company. It’s not some damn transaction.”
“What if I never—”