CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #3
A few hours of unconscious bliss later it started again. Except when I jogged up the slope to the aviary this time, someone had beaten me there.
‘Good morning. I thought you’d be happy to see me, yet there’s a scowl on your face suggesting otherwise.’ Josie was in keeper overalls, tool belt to match.
‘Is Gottyk okay?’ Bad news was delivered in person and Josie was the type to show sympathy by taking care of business. Every bad scenario possible flew through my mind, followed by the impossible ones.
She softened, pausing from sifting the pellets. ‘Yes, Gottyk is fine, Lena. I checked in with headquarters this morning and I’ll be going back tomorrow.’
I appreciated her restraint in not telling me to relax. She knew just as well as I did how attached keepers got to their dragons.
‘Then why—’
‘I asked her to help out from now on.’ Bach emerged from the kit room, dressed in an all-black flight suit.
I coughed, choking on the rest of the question still stuck in my throat.
‘It was brought to my attention that maybe I’d been going about your training the wrong way.’ In all the hours upon hours of casts I’d watched of Bach Lotiere, I’d never seen this before. He was sheepish.
I shot Josie a glare for snitching on me.
In return I got a genuine-looking shrug. Josie got back to sifting the copper, while very obviously watching us in her peripheral vision. Whoever had been the one to pass on my complaints had both a dead arm and crushed rib coming their way from the punch and hug I owed them.
Bach cleared his throat. ‘So, while you’ll still be on the schedule to help out, just like everyone else, most mornings you’ll be in flight training with me.’
My knuckles whitened as I clenched my fists, trying to hold in my urge to jump and yell in triumph.
‘Choose your dragon for the day and meet me outside.’ He fastened the buttons on the front of his suit as he exited the aviary, like he hadn’t just given me permission to begin living my dreams.
‘You’re not going to wet yourself, are you? Because none of them will let you fly them if you do.’ Josie snickered as dozens of copper pellets came at her, courtesy of my kicking.
Choose your dragon.
It was a simple enough command on the surface, but the options were many and the reasoning for each ran deep.
Bach wasn’t aware, but I knew as much as humanly possible about the six dragons in the aviary.
I knew all about his other dragons too, the ones who had come before and in between, but they were in the Winds now. I had my favourites, of course.
‘Lena, you’re stuck in your head again,’ Josie called to me, having progressed further into the aviary for her chores. The only indication of how much time had passed while thinking.
‘This is a test, Josie. For once I actually care about passing it.’
‘Good to know you appreciate the fun quizzes I lovingly prepare for you.’ Despite the heavy sarcasm, I knew Josie wasn’t offended. She knew me well enough not to expect me to.
‘I’m going to put my personal feelings aside and choose objectively.’
‘Mhm.’ The noncommittal noise may have been to humour me, but I took it as an invitation.
‘Dragons have to be a minimum of two years old to fly in Volitant, and Bach flew each of them for two years before they were retired.
That makes Vilmaren the baby. Then her brother Baknil.
Working backwards through his racing history would put the two Prevere blues Vepari and Abenon next.
Followed by the two golden oldies, Surquet and Aloux.
‘I’m experienced with Kiestral dragons, thanks to Gottyk. While that would make me look good by having something familiar to fly with, it seems like a safe option. That rules out the two youngest.
‘The most tempting options are Aloux and Surquet to try out flying a northern Forge dragon, but they present the opposite problem of being so different to fly that I mess up and Bach reconsiders the entire offer to mentor me.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he would.’ Josie had reached the tunnel entrance, completing her floor cleaning.
‘That leaves Abenon and Vepari.’
It was tough to choose between the mother and son pair.
Vepari was the mother of a Decennial winner and Abenon was her offspring, honed to further fit the racing standards of the time.
In the last race of the season though Abenon had suffered a collision.
He seemed in good condition now, but I hadn’t seen him fly.
Vepari, however … she was so impressive that I flinched every time she snatched her breakfast out of the sky.
I finally moved again, lifting my feet out of the copper pellets that had pooled around my feet while lost in thought.
Vepari. A Prevere blue that was the first in a line of heavy-set dragons that began what became known as the Muscle Era of Volitant. The matriarch of Prevere. It was only a couple of years ago that the team had stopped breeding from her line.
Would it seem presumptuous to Bach for me to pick her? I’d done the mental gymnastics to get to my decision, but no matter who I picked it would definitely look like I just went for the coolest dragon in the aviary. It was an impossible choice.
Vepari was on her balcony. Her blue scales were bright against the cream stonework, still that same bright azure as when I’d watched her race ten years ago.
Her stubby snout and fan of spines gave her face a squished look, but that wide jaw had melted and torn down countless arcans, and those spines had been the biggest leap in aerodynamics Volitant had seen in generations.
‘Vepari?’ I called up to her after treading carefully across the copper floor.
The other dragons watched me. Even Aloux cracked an eye open to observe.
Her tail swung lazily back and forth.
‘Sorry to disturb you.’ I bobbed my head down, lowering my eyes as I did so. ‘Would you like to go flying?’
She rolled over to face the wall. Her tail twitched more quickly. So, all I’d managed to do was annoy her.
A soft keening noise echoed into the aviary. My heart jolted, sending a rush to the ends of my limbs. I’d not expected that from Vepari.
As it continued, I realized I’d misjudged. It wasn’t Vepari, who had raised her head to look at the tunnel entrance.
I followed suit, and saw a shape emerging from under the hillside.
A large green dragon shook out her wings as she approached. Her head was narrow, with short sharp horns jutting up in pairs on either side. That was a theme with her. Pairs. Because behind her big beautiful green wings that had now opened up was another set, smaller and more agile.
I swayed on the spot.
Her second set of wings fluttered outwards, as if testing they were still functional. The glint of intelligence hadn’t left her eyes, still as sharp as ever.
It was Ascil, the Victrolia green that Bach won his first Decennial with.
It was impossible to mistake her for anyone else – there hadn’t been any size restrictions or breeding standards in Volitant back then, so the teams had gone wayward with the options.
Ascil was slim and absurdly fast, but had a second small set of wings to help her turn in high-speed corners.
She was the first dragon I’d ever seen Bach fly when I was five years old.
She was the dragon that had made me fall in love with racing.
Ascil padded slowly over to me, her eyes half-lidded with sleep she hadn’t yet shaken off.
When she reached me she stood there, towering over me.
Her hot breath fell on to my head and shoulders like a gust of wind.
She was calm, placid, like she hadn’t just shown up unannounced after a week of me cleaning the aviary top to bottom.
‘Hello?’ I bowed slightly.
She took another step forward and gave me a nudge with her nose. Except that it came from a dragon who had grown to be nearly twice Gottyk’s size, so it was more like a tackle to my stomach.
I did my best to hide the fact she’d winded me.
‘Nice to meet you too, Ascil.’
She stood there expectantly.
I glanced around at the other dragons. They’d all gone back to minding their own business. None of them looked the least bit interested in me, other than the twenty-one-year-old in front of me.
‘Lucky,’ said Josie, having come over to join us. ‘She didn’t come to meet me until my second visit.’
Ascil gave Josie a similar nudge, which she seemed more prepared for than I had been.