2. Aurora
AURORA
I was wearing my brother’s clothes when I opened the door.
I had given up dresses during the time I nursed him—it was difficult enough climbing up and down the mountain, carrying the water I needed so desperately to bathe him and make him broth, without worrying about tripping on long skirts.
And after he was gone, there was no one to see me, so I kept wearing his clothing for comfort—they smelled like him.
I missed him desperately and the worn fabric made me feel closer to the other half of myself—the half that was now nothing but an aching void.
I opened the door, wondering who it could be.
My ancestral home was located on a cliff’s edge—who would make the strenuous journey without a good reason?
We never got peddlers or salesmen—it was just too much trouble to climb the mountainside for a fallen Great House known to be destitute.
There was no money to spend—no reason to come.
The man outside was middle aged, with short brown hair going gray at the temples and a huge, poufy mustache. He was dressed in a uniform that was familiar—I had seen my father wear it when I was younger. The golden dragon crest on his sleeve made my eyes widen.
“Yes?” I asked, uncertain what he could want. “Can I help you?”
“’Course you can, lad. You can come with me—you’re of age now so it’s time.”
“Time? Time for what? What are you talking about?” I took a step back, but he took me by the wrist and pulled me out onto the broad ledge that served as our front step.
I fell forward with a gasp and saw there was someone else on the ledge—a small brown dragon about twice the size of a horse, who snorted when he saw me.
Brown—the least in size and status. Not very intelligent but can be diligent workers and loyal companions.
Riders who impress a brown drake at hatching will usually end up in the Courier Service arm of the Academy, whispered a voice in my brain.
And there wasn’t even a speckling of gold anywhere on his dull scales.
He would hold the lowest ranking among his kind.
It was all from the Book of Drakes that my brother and I had found among our father’s things when we were younger. We had studied that book—memorizing whole passages, desperate for knowledge of the world that took our father away for so much of the year and fascinated by what we learned.
“Someday I’ll Impress an egg and bond with a dragon. Not just any dragon either—one of Royal lineage,” Auren used to boast to me. “I’ll be a rider like Father—I’m going to fly a Silver-wing dragon or maybe even a Gold-wing—you’ll see!”
But up until this moment, I had never seen a dragon up close.
Oh, Auren and I had seen one from afar. Our father’s drake, F’lorn, was a Crimson Gold-wing—a deep red dragon with a golden sheen to his scales.
Auren and I had snuck out to see him often, but we never dared to get too close.
Dragons were bonded to one person only—their rider and they mirrored and amplified their rider’s moods.
We didn’t dare get too close to F’lorn—his flame was hot enough to feel through the stone walls of our home, and we could feel our father’s anger radiating from him as much as we did the heat.
He wouldn’t have cared that we were his rider’s children—he would have burned us to a crisp without a second thought, so we steered well-clear of his massive bulk and smoldering malice.
The little brown dragon seemed friendly, however. He pushed forward, nosing at me and his rider didn’t even try to stop him.
“That’s right, G’lornie—have a good sniff,” he encouraged. “Let me know if he’s our lad.”
I stood, frozen to the spot, as a head bigger than my torso lowered and the Brown’s nostrils flared wide to sniff me.
Though brown dragons were the smallest of the breed, they were still quite large enough to kill if they became enraged and getting too close to a woman could anger them—at least if the books I’d read from my father’s collection were to be believed.
But instead of growing angry when it smelled me, the brown dragon simply snorted in a friendly way. The air from its nostrils blew my long hair back and I gasped in startlement.
The courier—for he must be a courier from the Academy, I thought—laughed good-naturedly.
“Aye, seems G’lornie likes you. No surprise, given your bloodlines, I suppose. Nobility like that can be smelled from miles away by the dragons.”
“Nobility?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath.
“Oh, aye. You’re a Lysandra, aren’t you? Your bloodlines go back to the very first Riders. The only line more ancient is the Skorens. None of their line ever bond to less than a Gold-wing. I dare say you’ll be the same yourself, for all you’re a bit of a runt.”
He eyed me with a slight frown, shaking his head at my size.
I was just now beginning to understand what was going on—the courier had mistaken me for my dead brother. I had to set the record straight before he went any further.
“Oh, I’m not—” I began…and then stopped abruptly.
Since Auren had died, I had been desperately lonely.
I had no money to spend in town and thus no reason to go down there to speak to anyone.
Not that many wanted to talk to me. Ever since my father’s suicide, I was known as “the git of that mad rider up on the mountain.” And since madness was thought to be catching, I wasn’t at all popular in any of the shops.
Even if I’d had gold to spend, they still would have shunned me.
Also, I wanted to know a little more about the Academy. Auren and I had talked about it ceaselessly—even at the end when it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere but into Death’s cold embrace. I wanted to know what kind of life he might have lived if the fever hadn’t taken him from me.
“You’re not what? Ready to go yet?” The courier blew out an exasperated sigh that puffed out his thick mustache in a comical way. “Very well, I can give you a single day. I’ll stay in your family’s cave, with your permission?”
“Oh, of course,” I heard myself saying and nodded further down the ledge where the huge cavern that used to house F’lorn was located. It was empty now—he and my father had dived to their deaths together, though no one knew why.
My father claimed he had been bitten by a Madling and some said he and his dragon had amplified and fed off one another’s pain and madness until they reached the tipping point and ended their lives together.
But that was impossible. The Madlings had been eradicated a century or more ago—burned from our skies by dragon fire and their poison had been cleansed from our bloodlines by rigorous culling.
“I have my own provisions, but are there any sheep or goats for G’lornie to eat?” The courier asked, raising his eyebrows—which were nearly as poufy as his mustache.
“Er, I’m afraid not,” I said, feeling suddenly ashamed at my lack of hospitality. A Great House—even an impoverished one—ought to be able to offer a dragon in need a meal.
“Eh, that’s too bad.” He frowned and shook his head.
“My father and his dragon, F’lorn, have been gone for over a year, so there’s been no point in keeping a flock anymore,” I hastened to explain.
I didn’t add that I had sold the last of the scrawny sheep that used to graze on our pitifully small mountain pasture right before Auren had died, so I could afford enough to buy beef bones to make him a nourishing broth. I hadn’t wanted my beloved twin brother to die with an empty belly.
Those bones were dry now—boiled over and over and cracked and scraped clean of their marrow.
The courier would likely have a better meal than I did that night, no matter how little he had brought with him.
I literally had nothing to offer him, but tea made from leaves that had been boiled three times over already.
“Would you like to come in for some tea?” I asked, thinking I could boil the leaves once more and make at least a weak approximation of the strong black brew my father used to favor.
The courier shook his head.
“Nay, lad. I’ll be fine on my own—we’re not supposed to go in the house when we come for a conscript. ‘Specially not a Noble House,” he added, giving my cracked and peeling front door a dubious look.
“Oh, well…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I ought to send him away right now but if I did, I’d never hear more about the Academy. I wanted to ask him some questions—I wanted to learn more about what Auren’s life would have been if he’d lived.
“Well, if there’s nothing else—” the courier began, starting to turn away.
“Wait,” I said quickly, and he turned back.
“Yes, lad?”
“What…what should I bring with me?” I asked, reaching for the first question I could think of.
He shook his head.
“Nothing but the clothes on your back. Though if I were you, I’d put on my best.” His brown eyes traveled over the patched and ragged shirt and breeches I wore and then down to my bare feet.
“Most like to appear looking a bit more formal on Receiving Day,” he added.
“Oh, and cut your hair.” He nodded at my long, white-blond locks.
“You’re already almost as pretty as a girl—you’ll have a hard time of it during the Mating Flights if you show up looking like that. ”
I put a hand protectively to my head. Cut my hair? It was my one beauty. I had dainty enough features, but they were too sharp to truly be considered pretty or feminine.
When Auren and I were younger, we couldn’t be told apart.
Then he’d gotten a growth spurt and shot up a foot taller than me, with shoulders much broader than my own.
But still, our features were nearly identical—which was probably why the courier had mistaken me for him, especially if he had been given an old portrait to look at before he came for Auren.
“Cut your hair, put on your best, and be ready by six sharp tomorrow morning,” the courier commanded me. “We’ve a long ride to the Academy so wear something warm. Don’t know if your father ever took you flying, but it gets cold up in the sky,” he added.