Avian (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (36 page)

“These are just basic weapons,” Jace explained as he showed us how to wear our shields slung over our backs comfortably when we weren’t using them. “You’ll get to choose something more specific to your style later on. But for now, everyone is given the same thing so there are no unfair advantages during the battle scenario.”

As he spoke, Jace and I locked eyes for a few seconds. I had an unfair advantage, and we both knew it. He didn’t have to say anything to get his warning across. His glare said it all. I wasn’t supposed to use any of my abilities during the battle scenario. Trouble was, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to follow those orders in the heat of combat.

When Jace stared at me like that, as though he were expecting some kind of acknowledgement, I had no choice but to look away. I couldn’t promise him anything. Especially not when there was a chance things go could wrong. If our dragons started turning on us, I would be forced to act. I wouldn’t hesitate, and he was going to have to make his own peace with that.

No one really said much as we ate dinner that night. Felix was staring silently down at his food. Lyon was using his fork to arrange his peas into a pyramid. I was thinking about the animals, my nightmares, and the million other things I had to worry about now.

We were all shocked when the table flinched, and Jace sat down with us with a tray of food. He
never
ate with us. He was an instructor. He always ate at their table at the head of the room, or by himself.

“It’s like dining with corpses,” he muttered as he started cutting his meat into neat little squares. “You should eat. You’ll regret it later, if you don’t.”

Everyone was staring at him in surprise.

“S-sir.” Felix was the first one to get up the nerve to say anything to him. “We’re all worried. You know, about the battle scenario.”

“Because of the animals?” Jace didn’t even look up from his food.

The rest of us exchanged a wide-eyed glance at one another. Our silence was as much of a yes as we could muster.

“Forget about that. It’s irrelevant,” Jace said with a cheek full of potatoes. “The Canrack Islands are the most hostile territory this side of Luntharda. That’s the reason we have the battle scenarios there. The purpose of all this training isn’t to beat you senseless or watch you writhe in pain for our own amusement. Our objective is to prepare you to endure and survive what you’ll be facing later. The environment on the Canrack Islands is the most comparable to Luntharda. Even some of the trees and animals are the same. It’s the best place to test you. And it’s extremely dangerous, even if the animals aren’t going berserk.”

That was not comforting at all. In fact, Lyon looked like he might throw up from anxiety.

Jace looked up at us suddenly, his cold eyes as piercing as sword points. “Does that frighten you?”

No one answered.

“It shouldn’t.” His voice snapped over us, making me sit up straighter like I was standing at attention. “You are dragonriders, and we are bred to fight things that make other men stand paralyzed in terror. We are the kingdom’s last hope. Remember that. No matter what awaits you on any battlefield, you have been prepared to handle it.”

His words were inspiring, but I wasn’t satisfied. As everyone else finished, or gave up on eating, I sat there across the table from Jace and waited for the room to clear. Finally, we were the last ones left.

Jace was taking his time eating, but he didn’t waste any time getting to the point once we were alone. “You need to think long and hard about what you’re going to do if things do go wrong.”

I clenched my fists. “I have, sir. People have questioned my reasons for fighting on the side of humans from the very beginning, and my answer has always been the same. I fight for my friends. That’s it. And there’s nothing anyone can do to me that will make me too afraid to do whatever I can to help my brothers.”

A strange, disturbing smirk curled up Jace’s lips. He looked at me, twirling his fork thoughtfully between his fingers. “Brave to the point of stupidity,” he said like he was quoting someone. I had a feeling I knew who it was. “Sile told me I would like you. I didn’t expect him to be right, though. You’ve surprised me at every turn.”

His eyes darkened then, and he calmly placed his fork back down on the table. “But I fear that bravery is about to be tested. I pushed for Rayken to postpone this year’s battle scenario. There’s no need to let you all be butchered for the sake of tradition, not when you may be needed very soon to protect cities and villages from being overrun by their own livestock.”

“… But you just said that it shouldn’t matter what’s going on. You said we are prepared to handle it.” I was totally confused, and a little upset to hear him contradicting himself like this. It seemed like he was lying to everyone to keep them calm.

Jace shrugged. “Morale is everything, avian. Wars are won and lost before anyone ever sets foot on the battlefield. Broken spirits lead to broken bones.”

“You shouldn’t have lied to us,” I dared to sound defiant. Sure, his reasoning made sense, but it still didn’t sit right with me.

“So it would be better to send them all into the jungle completely terrified?” he countered.

I frowned. “No, I guess not.”

“Few of us live to see things get this bad. And those who do can’t help but feel hopeless and afraid, even if they are supposed to be the ones standing firm and fearless. But you need great darkness in order to see great light.” Jace stared at me from across the table. His expression was hard to read, and his dark eyes burned with something I couldn’t understand. “Don’t let the darkness shake you. I believe the world is about to witness something incredible. I believe we are all about to watch you shine. The question is, are you ready for it?”

I wasn’t ready. As much as I wanted to believe I was prepared for what was coming, there was no way anyone could have been. The months leading up to the battle scenario were just as terrible as everyone had promised they would be, and then some.

There was no set schedule. That probably doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. But after you’ve lived in a constant state of routine for so long, not having any idea what’s coming next is like living in the constant state of drowning. I could barely keep my head above water.

Sometimes the call to arms sounded at the normal time, and we got up, dressed, and started our aerial combat training with our dragons. We still had a lot to learn when it came to attacking targets on the ground and using our flame against the enemy without hurting any of our own forces. Some of the maneuvers were extremely difficult, and we switched up partners daily, so I was never able to get used to anyone else’s style.

But then, on other days, the battle horn would blare in the darkness long before the sun ever rose. The eerie, panicked sound of it made me bolt upright in bed. My whole body tingled like there was ice in my veins. We all scrambled to put on our armor, grab our go-bags, and get our dragons saddled as quickly as possible. The instructors gave us a brief mock-scenario of a battle, and we had to fly specific attack patterns to do mock attack runs. It was supposed to simulate how things would be once we were put on the real battlefront.

Sometimes, they would mix the two days. We would be sitting calmly, listening to an instructor give us a lecture about some of the dangerous plants and animals in Luntharda, and then the battle horn would blare. Immediately, everyone bolted into action, rushing to get to the Roost.

I figured out right away that falling behind was not a good idea. The first time I was a little late coming to the Roost, I felt the bite of something across my back. It didn’t hurt that badly at first, but then the pain hit me like someone was holding a white-hot branding iron against my skin. Jace had popped me across the shoulders with his whip, and it set my back on fire. The pain brought me to my knees instantly, and I could barely breathe. When I checked under my shirt later, I realized I had a huge black and purple welt where the tail of the whip had snapped over my back. It took days for the swelling to go down enough for me to sleep on my back comfortably.

The closer we came to the battle scenario, the more intense training became… and the more I started to wonder if my nerves were finally going to start snapping. We were called by the battle horn in the dead of night, or even after we had only been asleep for a few hours. The scenarios the instructors gave us were getting more and more difficult. Our attacks had to be precise and synchronized. We barely had time to sleep, much less eat or study. If you didn’t know something, forgot some of your gear, or were too slow to respond, you got to taste of an instructor’s whip. We were all being pushed to the limit, our noses shoved into the molten gears of war to see if we could handle the fire.

Then the interrogation training started. All my other training at Blybrig Academy had been difficult from the very start. I’d spent days with all my muscles aching, drenched in sweat, and feeling like I was going to drop at any moment. But interrogation training was, by far, the most horrible thing that had ever happened to me. There was no comparison to anything else I had been through so far.

I was already exhausted, starving, and in a constant state of panic because I was terrified I was forgetting something. It was impossible to ever feel relaxed or confident. Lying awake in my bed, I strained to hear the sound of the battle horn. Every second felt like an eternity, and my brain played tricks on me, making me believe I was hearing things that weren’t there.

Then the door to our dorm room burst open. Six or seven instructors filed in, all wearing wooden masks that covered their faces. I couldn’t tell who any of them were, and I was terrified that one of them might be Thrane. They dragged us out of bed, and tied our hands behind our backs before shoving us out into the hallway. I caught a glimpse of Lyon before they slammed a burlap sack over my head; he looked completely terrified.

They herded us down the stairs and out into the night, and forced us to walk for what felt like an eternity. Then someone kicked me in the back and I went flying forward, landing on my knees and face. Someone else ripped the bag off my head, and grabbed me by my hair.

When my vision cleared, I was finally able to see who was standing over me. Lieutenant Haprick, from our survival training class, leered down at me through the holes in the wooden mask. I knew it was him. I could tell by the color of his eyes and the shape of his body against the pale starlight. I was so relieved I actually smiled. He probably didn’t understand why, or took it as sarcasm, which was also probably why I got another lash from a whip across my back. But honestly, I was just so glad it wasn’t Thrane.

They ripped us out of bed like that at random. Sometimes, it happened every night for a week straight. Then other times, they would only do it once every few days. We never knew when it was coming, and we never knew what to expect once we got there. Usually, we were bound up and dragged into the night, only to get beaten or whipped until we were too weak to scream. Instructors wearing those wooden masks would demand to know our names, or where our forces were hiding. We were not supposed to say a single word. That was the whole point of this training. We had to be steady and keep our mouths shut no matter what the enemy did to us. We couldn’t betray our brothers, even if we were threatened with death.

We seemed to be holding our own fairly well. That is, until they started singling members out. The first night they only took Felix out of our room, and left Lyon and I to sit there and stare at each other in the dark, I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. Neither of us made a single sound until morning. When they finally brought Felix back, he was a little bruised up, but he said they mostly made him walk around all night. Lyon and I were actually the ones being tested. If we had made a scene, we were going to get a meaningful taste of Jace’s whip.

“We’ve got to make a pact,” I insisted as we gulped down a quick meal the next morning. “If Thrane comes after one of us—”

“—you mean
when
Thrane comes after one of us,” Lyon interrupted.

I nodded grimly. “Right. Well, when he does, we can’t let anything he does or says break us down. Even if the others in our group start losing it, we have to stand together. Thrane is going to be looking at us even harder at the battle scenario. There won’t be any more reason for the other instructors to stop him from coming after us.”

“Are you thinking he’s going to use the battle scenario as an excuse to finally attack you?” Felix sounded tense.

“I hope so.” My answer made both of them stare at me in surprise. I shrugged and kept eating. “Better me than you. I can take whatever he dishes out. But I don’t want either of you to suffer any more because of me, so when he does come for me, don’t try to intervene.”

“Because you don’t think you can stop the battle fever? Even after everything he’s done so far?” Lyon asked. It was easy to read the concern in his tone. After all, he had been Thrane’s primary target until now.

I hated admitting to that kink in my armor, but there was no avoiding it. “Yeah,” I replied, and tried not to look at Felix. He still didn’t know about my healing abilities, but I knew it was only a matter of time now. He was already starting to figure out that it had something to do with my other strange powers.

“I think you should practice with your powers,” Felix announced suddenly.

Lyon and I swapped an uncomfortable glance.

“Seriously, I do.” He pointed his fork at me accusingly. “If something does go wrong on Canrack, and we get into a spot where the only thing standing between us and getting crushed by a bunch of angry forest creatures is you, then I want you to be on top of your game. No more desperate last minute saves. I want the full-force of your weirdness to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“When am I supposed to practice?” I scowled at him. “The instructors watch our every move. And we never know when they are going to sound the battle horn.”

Felix’s frown hardened. “I don’t know, but you need to figure out something. We’re running out of time.”