29. Investigations
W ith Nyra fast asleep in her bed and both Aeden and Lyric reluctant to wake her, the two of them decided to go and have a cup of tea in Lyric’s hut.
Aeden refused to wait around in the hatchery longer than was necessary; the heat inside was making his skin itch, and he genuinely feared his blood would begin to boil if he stayed inside any longer.
If Lyric’s hut looked untidy the first time Aeden saw it, it was even worse now, with every spare surface filled with open textbooks and scribbled notes beside them. There was no order or coordination, and the urge to tidy made Aeden’s skin crawl.
“Here you go,” Lyric said as he passed Aeden a cup of tea.
He went and retrieved his own, then sat in his oversized chair and let out a satisfied grumble before sitting back and taking a sip.
“Ah, that hits the spot. You can’t beat a good tea,” he said.
“This leaf was a gift from my cousin who lives in Forusha. It’s a small island a long way from here. ”
“It’s really nice,” Aeden said as he took a second sip. It was surprisingly sweet and somewhat less earthy than the last cup of tea he’d had here. Aeden took a moment to look over all the papers and open books that surrounded them. “What is all this for?” he asked.
Lyric’s eyebrows furrowed as he took another sip of his tea.
“Is it not obvious?” he said. “I am Master of the Hatchery, and we have an unknown breed of Aer-Kin in our ranks, hatched from a consecrated egg. I have a lot of research to undertake. Let’s not forget while tending to the other eggs and making sure they’re ready for hatching. ”
“It’s a miracle you’ve had time to adapt a harness for Nyra.” Aeden wrapped both his hands around the cup and allowed the heat to bring warmth to his hands. “Honestly, I appreciate everything that you’re doing for her.”
Lyric waved away Aeden’s praise with a flippant, rather bashful hand. “I’m just doing what any decent hatchery master would do. She really is a fascinating creature.”
On the messy table to Aeden’s right, he noticed a piece of parchment with a charcoal sketch on top of it. It took him a few seconds, but he soon realised why he recognised it.
The pattern matched the scales on Nyra’s feathers. Details that you could only pick up by getting up close to her and examining them. It was like each scale had hundreds of tiny scales inside of them, with tiny, swirling patterns that were not visible from a distance.
The sketch wasn’t the best, with gaps all over the picture.
“That’s a tracing of her scales. Funny enough, Nyra liked the sensation of me rubbing the charcoal over the parchment when it was pressed against her side yesterday morning. ”
“I wondered what that was,” Aeden said, recalling the sensation he had felt through the Weave while he was having breakfast the day prior.
“Did you know that each set of scales on an Aer-Kin are unique to that Aer-Kin? Kind of like the prints on our fingers.” Lyric placed down his cup of tea, reached for some charcoal, then rubbed the charcoal over his finger before pressing it against some parchment, revealing a copy of his own fingerprint.
“I did, it really is fascinating,” Aeden answered. He had done enough reading on them to know this, but he loved how excited Lyric was to tell him.
“Scale textures and patterns are unique, but you can generally group them to figure out what Aer-Kin breed or bloodline they are from.” His expression turned to one of confusion. “Well, in most cases you can, but not in Nyra’s.”
“What do you mean?” Aeden picked up the parchment to examine the charcoal print of Nyra’s scales more closely.
“I’ve indexed scale prints the whole time that I’ve been hatchery master here. Every time an Aer-Kin hatches, I take a copy of their scales like this one. You get used to what patterns different breeds have, little nuances that you pick up over time.”
He fetched one of the open books and placed it on Aeden’s lap. On either side of the pages were charcoal prints of scales. Aeden placed the print of Nyra’s wing next to the first page. The scale had faint zig-zag marks running through them close together in a symmetrical pattern.
The one on the right was similar, but with a bigger gap between each zig-zag .
“This book is filled will all the prints of the Aer-Kin from the Support bloodline that I’ve hatched over the last twenty years.
The bloodline is pure, and you can see that although each imprint is different” – he turned the page to demonstrate some more imprints he had taken – “they’re all similar enough to understand that these come from the same line of Aer-Kin. ”
Aeden nodded. It was a simple enough concept to get his head around.
“I’ve trawled through every single page of all these records, every reference that I have created, and I can’t find one similarity.”
“Could it be that her class is wrong? I mean, have you checked the other books, the other classes imprints?”
Lyric shook his head. “That’s logically what I was going to do next, but that wouldn’t make sense.
You yourself told me that through the Weave, Nyra helped numb the pain in your injured ankle.
With that and with your family’s bloodline being Support riders, everything points to her being a Support Aer-Kin.
” He picked up the book and started to flip through the pages himself.
“There isn’t a single similarity to any of these imprints that I’ve recorded.
I’ll check the other records, but it will take me a while.
As you can imagine, there’s a lot to get through. ”
“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?” Aeden asked.
“Well, if her scales don’t match with any record that we have, then that only means one thing.
” He stared at Aeden as if he was waiting for him to finish the sentence, but Aeden didn’t have a clue where Lyric was going with this.
“It would mean this is an entirely new bloodline, not just for the academy, but for the entire continent. Maybe even the world. Who knows? We have no record of her lineage, which means there’s no record of her parents, her bloodline, anything.
This is extremely exciting.” But then his face turned to a more solemn expression.
“Is that a bad thing?” Aeden asked, concerned about Lyric’s sudden change of tone.
“If people outside of the academy get wind, yes. Even if the academy itself gets wind of this, then yes. This is a military academy. Their purpose is to train riders and get them ready for war, to protect our skies against monsters and invaders. If a new bloodline has been discovered, the academy has a duty to report this back to the Conclave.”
“What happens then?”
“They might try and take her.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Aeden said, a fight stirring within him.
“You wouldn’t have a say if that’s what they wanted to do. The academy is under the command of the Conclave, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“We just won’t tell them.”
“As much as I agree with that plan of action, the director isn’t stupid.
Neither are the rest of the faculty. I can certainly try to stall them, to try and protect Nyra, but it’s only a matter of time before Director Vale and the other members of the faculty realise that Nyra isn’t like any other Aer-Kin that has ever graced these grounds.
Not only because of her damaged wings, but because of her breed. ”
“How long do you think we have?” Aeden asked, his mind instantly going into flight mode.
As much as he had a burning drive to find out more about his parents’ past, it paled in comparison to the compulsion to keep Nyra safe.
It was instinctive, like nothing else mattered to him.
“I mean, you’ve made her a harness. We could just run.
” And run he would, if that meant protecting Nyra.
“Without training, you wouldn’t last two days out there on your own. Besides, for all we know, the director has already fed back to the Conclave. After all, it’s not every day a rider bonds outside of our own ceremonies.”
Aeden’s blood ran cold. This was not the conversation he had expected to be having today, and it was yet another thing for him to worry about.
“What do I do then? What do we do?”
“You need to do one thing: train. Learn how to ride her, learn how to master your Weave as best you can between now and whenever the Conclave arrive. That way, you will be as best prepared as possible. But know this: if you run, they will hunt you. And although your life would end if Nyra’s did, please remember that hers will not if you are killed. ”
“So they would kill me and then take Nyra.”
“If you run, yes. That’s why I’m telling you to stay here, to keep your head down and train harder than anyone else. You’ll already be at a disadvantage because Nyra can’t fly.”
“So stay, and they might take Nyra. Run, and they’ll kill me and then take Nyra anyway. Why are you telling me all this? Why are you helping me? Lying to Director Vale will surely see you removed from the academy.”
“Because Aer-Kin are my life. I don’t know anything but this.
It doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything the academy does, or the Conclave for that matter.
At least this way, I get to make sure the Aer-Kin are looked after properly.
It’s the best hand I can play with what I have been dealt.
And as for lying . . . Well, I would call it withholding information.
” He offered a smile as if he was trying to convince himself.
“How will I know if the Conclave come?” Aeden had heard stories of the Conclave, but he had lived a sheltered life with his grandparents and never come into direct contact with them.
What he did know was that within their ranks, they had some of the strongest Aer-Kin and riders in the whole of Nevaria.