CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Once my keeper duties for the day had been dealt with I found a secluded spot to eat my dinner.
The Victrolia headquarters were vast. The long low buildings hugged the base of the hills behind them and blended into the edge of the surrounding forest with their log walls and moss-green roofs.
All to house their massive team and numerous dragons.
It took me a while to find a good spot: a grassy slope that looked over the moss-covered buildings and into the forest. My dinner had been warming my hands through its container as I’d wandered around.
By the time I sat down on a smooth rain-worn rock to eat my insides were caving in out of desperation.
The smell wasn’t ever as good as the food back home.
In fact, the further south I went the less interesting it tasted.
However, this was the land of wheat and meat.
What it lacked in complexity it made up for in size and comfort.
I opened it up and began to dig in: a gigantic potato topped with red meat, cheese and a brown sauce that was quite possibly gravy.
I hadn’t had the patience to ask. I just wanted to get it and go.
‘Hey!’
The dollop of food dropped off my fork and back into the box as I lifted my head.
I’d thought I was alone. Evidently not, because striding up the hill was Colly Balen, the Prevere rookie.
He was waving at me with a big smile on his face like our single interaction last week had confirmed me as a new best friend. He was also carrying food.
Oh no. He was going to join me. I’d been trying to avoid this situation by picking a cold and grey spot to eat.
The gangly teenager cleared the slope in seconds and folded his long limbs to sit next to me on my rock. I’d only been there for less than a minute, but I felt that arriving first gave me ownership.
‘Nice spot, Lena! Look at that view.’ He held a hand up to his brow to shield it from the lowering sun and looked out over the Victrolia base like it was the ocean.
‘Um, hey.’ As disappointed as I was that I was no longer alone, it was difficult to be mad with Colly.
With people like Theo I was well versed in telling them to go away in the most colourful language I had, but Colly exuded an innocence that I couldn’t bring myself to ruin.
Even asking him why he was acting so nice felt rude.
‘What did you get?’ He opened up his own dinner, revealing two potatoes with only cheese, no meat or sauce. ‘It seemed like they had weird combos of foods to put together.’
I showed him my own dinner. ‘Have you not been here before?’
He looked at me, bizarrely earnest. ‘No, I’m a rookie.’
It was his first year flying in Volitant.
All his previous racing would have taken place locally to where he lived, meaning he wasn’t from here.
Judging from his lack of accent to my ears, he was likely from north Gedeinia too.
He was also still looking at me, except now he had the face of a kicked hatchling.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Panic shot through me. I scrambled to backtrack and hopefully remove his hurt look. ‘Oh! Well I know we bumped into each other in the city last week …’
He deflated. He was still half a foot taller than me even sitting down and slumping.
I fought the urge to gently pat his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’
I wasn’t entirely sure where he thought we’d met before because I’d have remembered an over six foot gangly big-eyed teen—
‘You were tiny!’ It came back to me. The only thing that hadn’t changed were his big sad eyes.
The last time I’d seen him he was half the size he was now. When he’d been hired by Prevere at the end of the last season the media had made a fuss over him turning eighteen right before the first race, which made him five years younger than me.
‘We flew together in the Wyvern Cup. You were a rookie then too, right?’
His entire demeanour changed. He sat up straight, smiled and was practically puffing out his chest. ‘Yes! Ah, I’m so glad you remember!
We missed one another in Junior Drake because I was too young still, but I remember watching you, Theo and Quinn race even when I was a kid.
Then when I got to the Wyvern class you and Theo were still there.
Once, I was queuing for the bathroom before the race when you walked past … and you said hi!’
Colly beamed at me. I got the impression that was the start and end of any interactions we’d had, but it was important all the same.
‘Well, yeah of course!’ I may not have remembered that exact moment, but now the rest of that race season was coming into focus.
I’d been preoccupied with competing with Theo, but Colly had been there making an impression in his rookie year.
A little kid almost too small for his saddle who still managed to score within the top five.
‘Oh, hey!’ He was yelling again, this time back down the hill. He turned to me and thankfully lowered his voice before speaking. ‘It’s Quinn. I told him I’d be out here.’
I sighed. My peaceful dinner was well and truly over. I leaned past Colly’s waving arm and spied Quinn walking up the hill, far more dressed than last time I’d seen him. I was grateful.
Theo was with him. I was far less grateful. I ducked back behind my new giant friend and braced myself. I’d managed to avoid him for the remainder of the train journey, but here I was running into him again.
For the year and a half I’d worked as a keeper I’d managed to be alone, getting by with keeping my head down.
Yet the moment I had put on a helmet and raced he’d managed to wriggle back into my life.
I’d avoided thinking about contacting his parents, but that was going to get harder when he joined us for dinner.
‘Hey guys, pull up some turf!’ Colly gestured to the grass around us and chuckled at his own joke.
I couldn’t help but smile too.
The two newcomers spotted me as they arrived. Theo’s brows rose into his curls and a wary smirk played at the corners of his mouth. My own smile flattened into something far more neutral.
‘Hey.’ Quinn sat down opposite me, one leg hooked under the other. His greeting was quiet but not cold.
‘Hi, good to see you.’ I hoped Quinn and Colly would assume I was addressing Theo too, despite me avoiding eye contact at all costs.
‘Look at the four of us! Back together again!’ Colly beamed at the rest of us. ‘Although, I guess we didn’t all fly at the same time, did we? We nearly did though!’ There was no filter between his mind and his mouth. The entire thought process was laid bare for us all.
From the knowing smiles on Theo and Quinn’s faces, they were used to it.
A strange feeling came over me, suddenly protective of Colly. I’d seen the Bolls laughing at him without him realizing. If these two were doing the same I was going to shove their heads up their assholes.
‘Has Colly been reminding you of our glory days, Paldon?’ Theo tucked into his meal, conveniently not looking up as he spoke of our shared history.
‘I don’t think I’d go so far to call them glory days,’ I replied.
‘What?’
I leaned back from the wave of shock that came from Colly.
‘You’re kidding, right? You and Theo were incredible!
The way you pulled off that one-two move on Retan in seventy-two was insane!
I tried to do it myself when I started, but my teammate wouldn’t do it.
’ He kept going, listing very specific moves from very specific races during the Wyvern Cup, particularly the years Theo and I had been teammates.
My mouth hung open as I listened to him. On instinct I glanced at Theo, checking if this was real.
He grinned. ‘You’re his Bach.’
I scowled. ‘Hilarious. We’re only a few years apart, plus,’ – I jabbed in Colly’s direction. – ‘He’s better than me.’
That interrupted Colly’s flow. ‘Huh? No way. You’re way better.’
Theo wiggled his brows at me, biting his lip. He knew I couldn’t mention that we’d been competing for the past couple of races and Colly was, in fact, better.
‘Especially for a girl!’ he continued happily, like it didn’t completely undercut his compliment.
Quinn even nodded along. Theo was unphased, without any reaction at all. It made me miss Josie.
‘I did well during the Wyvern Series,’ Colly kept going, perhaps unable to stop talking even if he wanted to. ‘But that was because you three had already left. Once you were gone, so was the competition. I ended up winning the title for two years before being old enough to fly in Volitant.’
I hadn’t realized he’d been so good in the junior series. That admittedly took away the sting of him being so good as a rookie. It also explained how he’d gotten a job so young.
‘Prevere has a type then,’ I mused.
Quinn looked up, still eating his meal. My comparison between him and Colly had caught his attention, his green eyes narrowing slightly.
Colly kept going. ‘Right. Quinn had two before moving up too. He had you two on his tail the whole time though. I don’t know why, but my years flying in Wyvern weren’t nearly as close.’
He really didn’t know how to take a compliment.
‘I bet the lack of competition was less about the others being bad and more to do with you being good. I’ve seen you fly.’ I nudged him with my elbow. I hadn’t been keeping tabs on the Wyvern Cup in years, but talent like his didn’t come around often.
‘Not to mention Quinn was twenty-one when he got into Volitant, Col. You’re three years ahead of him.
’ Theo scraped his fork for the last bits of his food, almost done with his meal already.
He’d kept his eyes down while speaking, but I knew that teasing tone of voice.
He was waiting for a reaction from Quinn.
It was nice to know it wasn’t just me he liked to irritate.
Quinn didn’t react at all. He just kept on eating. If I ever got the chance I would ask him how he did it.
Colly, however, rushed to his teammate’s defence. ‘Only because there wasn’t space! He had to wait for someone to leave!’