CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ascil trotted in a circle while Bach observed us. I’d been in the saddle for two minutes and so far it had been the best two minutes of my life.
‘Which drills will we be running?’ I shifted my weight as I got used to her movements. Her monumental size felt less daunting after getting into the saddle, but the second pair of wings behind my legs still concerned me.
‘Tag,’ Bach replied. Before explaining any further he walked off into the aviary.
I attempted to twist around and watch what he was doing, but Ascil had decided to limber up, dipping into a stretch while her two sets of wings were flung wide.
He arrived back outside riding Vepari, which I tried to not take personally.
Seeing the azure dragon in motion was stunning in itself, but with Bach in the saddle it was like watching a race cast from a decade ago.
Her long white horns rippled slightly in shape, ending in points far sharper than the recent breed regulations allowed.
‘So cool,’ I muttered to myself. My stomach curdled with jealousy, despite that fact I was riding my favourite dragon of all time who, until an hour ago, I’d presumed dead.
‘She’d agree with you. Vepari knows just how good she is.’
The safety lines went taut as I jumped with surprise.
Bach’s voice had come through helmet comms I hadn’t known about.
His voice was clear and went directly into my ear, which was how he’d heard my comment – open comms like Josie had set up for me at Kiestral.
At least he’d assumed I was talking about the dragon.
‘So, tag?’ I asked, diverting back to the training.
I had a reasonable idea of what that meant, given we were both on dragonback and ready to fly.
There was the logical, practical part of my brain that was hoping that I wasn’t about to be chased down by a six-time Volitant world champion when I hadn’t even won a race yet.
Though, as Josie liked to remind me daily, that part of my brain was small, shrivelled and under-used.
The rest of me, however, was lit like dragonfire at the prospect.
‘You’re going to take off and thirty seconds later so will I. Then I’ll take this,’ – He held up a training spear. – ‘and hit you with it.’
My flight suit cooling system switched on.
‘After that, you’ll try and do the same to me.’
He tossed a second training spear over. It was lighter than I expected and the end was dusted with white powder.
So we weren’t going all out with arcanite weapons.
I was almost disappointed. They might have been strictly regulated and not for public purchase, but since Bach had everything else that wasn’t on the market I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I also couldn’t help but noticed he’d added ‘try’ into the phase when I would be chasing down him. Nice to know my new mentor believed in me.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Any rules?’
‘Your helmet comms will buzz if you go near the boundary of the estate. It’s around five square miles. There’s no height or speed minimum or maximum. We go until I say we stop.’
I nodded, not trusting my voice to keep my excitement a secret.
‘Go.’
I tapped my heels on Ascil’s flanks and she was off into a run immediately. Her legs were so long that the runway disappeared in an instant, the dense trees closing in rapidly. The heavy thumps of her footsteps vanished, no longer reverberating through me, because we’d taken off into the air.
If thirty seconds was all I had to put distance between myself and Bach then I had to use it wisely. I missed having Josie on comms to be my external brain.
I pointed Ascil in a straight line, hoping that distance would be my ally.
By the time I’d had the thought, my shoulder thumped and a dusty white spot had appeared on the black leather.
‘Fuck!’ The curse was out of my mouth before I had the sense to stop it. I slowed Ascil down and wheeled her around in the air to face Bach.
He was gone.
‘What the—?’
‘If you waste time after a loss, you’re further away from the next win.’ As Bach’s proverbial advice rankled at me through the comms I spotted a blue tail disappearing into the canopy. Whatever injuries he had, they didn’t stop him from flying like the champion he was.
Luckily for me, irritation fuelled my competitive fire.
So we dived into the treeline to follow Bach and Vepari. Regret literally hit me as the branches whipped me on the arms and across my visor. I’d become too used to flying with armour.
Ascil, despite her elegance, was far bigger than Vepari. The dense terrain was definitely not in our favour.
Still, my determination didn’t falter. There were only a few routes Vepari could take through the jungle, so I followed the gaps she’d left behind. All I had to do was twitch for Ascil to follow my instructions. It was glorious.
By the time I saw the end of the blue arrowed tail I was drenched in sweat, breathing heavily and completely tunnel-visioned on my mission. Even with the augments running constantly to cool me down and increase the airflow it felt like the toughest workout so far.
I loved it. Running laps, lifting weights and sparring had nothing on this.
Time blurred just as my peripheral vision did. All that existed was me, Ascil, Vepari and Bach. We inched closer, enough that I could see Bach’s movements as he directed his dragon.
So I did what had become my specialty – I copied him.
For every turn, dip and straight I was less than a second behind. If Bach tweaked his reins, I tweaked mine. When he leaned right, I leaned right. When he ducked low to gain speed, so did I.
‘Time.’
I felt a vein in my forehead throb.
‘I was nearly there! You’re calling it now so I don’t catch you? That’s unfair!’
Vepari pulled up through the trees, scattering debris on to me and Ascil as we followed. Their speed dropped dramatically as they circled back towards the aviary.
‘Come on, just a bit longer and I’d have had you!’ My burning energy had nowhere to go. If I didn’t hit Bach with the spear I was going to combust.
‘We’ll talk about it when we land.’
Ascil took us down to the ground. I unhooked myself from the saddle and dismounted, walking over to Bach and yanking off my helmet.
‘Seriously, what’s the point in ending the session now? I thought I’d get the chance to learn something today and I—’
Bach pulled off his matching black helmet after dismounting. I squared up to him. The moment I saw his face again reality slapped into me.
I’d been mouthing off at him. The first flight together and I’d started complaining. That shrivelled logical part of my mind started working overtime to compensate for the mistake I’d just made. Solutions weren’t coming fast enough.
‘If you didn’t just learn something from that two-hour flight then Josie has put too much faith in you.’ Despite his sweat-wetted hair, Bach was remarkably calm. Especially given his new mentee was trying to start a fight.
‘Two hours?’ My self-control was still losing out to impulse.
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Much longer than that wouldn’t be healthy. Or are you forgetting all your keeper training too?’
My jaw tightened. ‘I know what a tired dragon looks and feels like.’ I started ticking off on my fingers.
‘Ascil’s temperature was high the whole time, her scales didn’t tighten and the membranes of her wings are the same deep green as when we started.
Strategists might need augments to know how my dragon is feeling, but I don’t.
’ My nostrils flared. I’d signed up to have my flying critiqued, but not my love for dragons. Never that.
Bach watched Ascil for a long moment, then flicked his icy blue eyes back to me. ‘I didn’t say Ascil, I was talking about Vepari.’
I blinked.
‘Oh.’
For the first time since landing, I moved my attention to the Prevere blue. Her shiny blue scales were locked together, sealing in her body heat. Her wings were a solid blue, but Bach had said he’d wanted to stop before it got unhealthy.
‘It’s not just about your dragon, it’s about all of them.
If you only focus on what you’re doing you’re missing out on ninety per cent of the race information.
Don’t you think it would be helpful to know if the rider in front of you will have to go slower on the next lap to conserve his dragon’s strength? ’
It took a lot of inner strength to not pout at him having a good point. I bit my lips together instead.
I glanced at Ascil out of habit. It felt awful to be lectured without Gottyk standing next to me, my usual partner in crime.
Whenever Thorne had acted out, making eye contact with my dragon grounded me.
Even during the post-race debriefs with Josie it felt like I had someone on my side when my orange friend huffed in shared admonishment.
Instead I ended up looking into deep golden eyes, not brown ones. Ascil seemed more amused than anything else. She sat on her haunches, her head held high, so polite and elegant. The tip of her forked tail patted the ground lightly. It was as if she knew this was entirely my problem, not hers.
So much for teamwork.
She didn’t seem tired in the slightest. My hair was plastered down, I probably smelled awful and was longing to stuff my face with food.
If I hadn’t witnessed it myself I wouldn’t have guessed Ascil had even been flying, let alone at the pace we’d maintained for two hours – over double the average Volitant race time.
Age hadn’t slowed her down in the slightest.
I stuffed my gloves into my helmet, taking Ascil’s reins with my free hand.
‘I’ll get them dressed down then.’ My plan to mope in the aviary while falling into old routine was ruined by Bach following us inside.
My fingers fumbled on the buckles of Ascil’s saddle as I braced myself for more criticism. I didn’t do well with failure at the best of times, let alone in front of him. At least I’d been right about not wanting to meet Bach in the first place for fear of disappointing him.