Fledgling (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (9 page)

By the time we got to the dining hall,
I’d forgotten all about
Sile’s
accident that morning.
All I could think about was lunch. Felix brought us a tray of food to share,
and I started stuffing my face before he even sat down.

“So, you’re sure it was Lyon you heard
last night?” Felix asked suddenly. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he
looked.

I nodded. “I’m sure.”

“The instructors are writing this off
as an accident. But I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s just no way it
could have been. You’ve seen our saddles. You’d have to intentionally cut the
straps for one to fall off like that.” Felix leaned in to whisper. “Tonight,
when we’re done with academics, we’re going to go looking for his saddle. It’s
got to be just lying in the dirt out there. I want to see if the straps really
were cut.”

I swallowed my mouthful of food. “What
if we get caught? That’s a long way to walk.”

Felix shook his head. “I’m not saying
we walk. We fly out there, check it out, and come back. It’s the only way to be
sure.”

I wasn’t sold on the idea. But then,
I’d heard Lyon plotting first hand. I knew what I heard, and there was no
question in my mind that someone had done something to
Sile’s
saddle to make him fall like that. But once Felix got an idea in his head,
there was no way to talk him out of it. I was beginning to realize that was a
trend with him.

After lunch, we had our first official
lesson in flying. We were taught how to properly put on our saddles, piece by
piece, which buckle went where, and how the fit should be. After going to so
much trouble, I started to realize why Felix was so baffled at the way
Sile’s
saddle had fallen off. Someone really would have to
intentionally damage a saddle in a big way to make it come off like that.

The instructor checked all our saddles
twice over, making doubly sure they were put on properly before we took to the
air and began learning basic patterns. Felix and I had already gone over this
basic stuff a few times with
Sile
, so we knew what to
do.
For the first time, I felt a little bit confident.

After flight training, we began our
studies in academics and cartography.
That lasted the rest of the
afternoon, and we were dismissed for the day as the sun started to set
. Of course, we were expected to study
and practice everything we’d learned that day, but all I wanted was a bath and
something to eat.

 
When I finally flopped down onto my bed, I tried not to think
about how every muscle in my body ached. I thought it was safe to steal a few
minutes of sleep before I tried studying my maps again. Then the door opened,
and a shoe hit me in the face.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Felix
laughed, armed with his second shoe in case the first one didn’t wake me up.
“We’ve still got to study, you know.”

I groaned, and rolled onto my back. I
was prepared to take his other boot to the head if it meant I could sleep for
even fifteen minutes. “I’m exhausted. I can’t feel my legs.”

“Oh come on, don’t be a baby.” He
teased. “We need to at least look busy. As soon as evening roll call is over,
and everything gets really quiet, we’re going to find that saddle.”

He had gone over his plan with me
about thirty times already. I still wasn’t so sure this was going to work. I
hadn’t paid much attention to where we were exactly when I’d caught
Sile
in the air, much less where his saddle had landed.
However, I did have a pretty good idea of what would happen if we got caught.

“It was incredible. You know, the way
you caught him like that,” he said suddenly.

I rolled my head over to see if he was
making fun of me or not. He wasn’t. His face looked serious, if not a little
proud. “I couldn’t just let him fall like that. Besides, I’m pretty sure none
of the other instructors would want to take me on as a student. If he dies,
that’s the end of my career.”

Felix laughed a little. “Yeah, good
point.”

I only snoozed for a half hour or so
before guilt forced me to study. Felix and I sat up by candlelight, studying
our maps, and going through the complex language of hand-signals we’d only just
begun to learn. Right after the evening horn blew, we started hearing the
sounds of talking and footsteps outside as the various sponsors checked their
student’s rooms to be sure everyone was accounted for.

Sile
knocked on our door, and I got a hard
lump in the back of my throat when I saw him standing in the doorway. He had
one arm in a sling, and a bandage on one side of his neck. He looked between us
as we sat on our individual beds, our maps spread out in front of us.

“How was it?”
Sile
asked. I noticed he was making an effort not to look me in the eye.

“Not bad,” Felix piped up. “I’ve got
some questions about a few of the parry moves, but I figured I would just wait
and see if we could go through them tomorrow morning before combat training.
How’s the arm?”

Sile
sighed and shook his head a little.
“It’s just a precaution. The infirmary insisted I wear it for at least one day.
Knocked out of socket, they said. No real harm done.” He looked at me then, and
I felt like I’d been nailed to a wall. “Jae, I need to talk to you.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes sir.”

Felix cast me a haunted look as I got
off my bed, stepped into my boots, and followed
Sile
out into the hallway.

We were alone outside the closed door
of my dorm room, and
Sile
stood with his side to me
for a moment as though he were collecting his thoughts. I had no idea what he
was going to say, but before he got a word out, my mouth ran away with me.

“Lieutenant Derrick, I think someone
is trying to kill you,” I blurted.

He turned a perplexed expression down
at me. “Because of what happened today?”

“Well, yes, but there’s something
else.” My face got hot, and I dropped my gaze down to the tops of my boots. “I
was out at the armories last night, I wanted to send a letter back home with
one of the craftsmen, and I heard someone else out there. They were talking
about us, and it sounded like they were going to do something bad.”

His expression became intensely
serious. “Who? Did you see them? Did you recognize who it was?”

I choked. I had recognized Lyon’s
voice, of course. But I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t actually seen anyone. I
didn’t want to run the risk of pointing a finger at the wrong person, so I just
shook my head. “No, it was really dark. I couldn’t see who it was. I mentioned
it to Felix, and he said I was just being paranoid. I really thought maybe he
was right. I didn’t want to assume anything. I’m sorry, sir. I should have said
something.”

Sile
let out a loud, noisy sigh. I wasn’t
sure what he’d do or say to that. I almost expected to get struck for not
speaking up sooner. Instead, I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder.

He was smiling down at me, and I could
have sworn his eyes seemed almost sad. “Jae, you saved my life today. What you
did was stupid, but incredibly brave. Thank you.”

I hesitated. “Sir, is someone trying
to kill you?”

His expression twitched. I saw
darkness in his eyes, and that sense of doom burrowed into the pit of my gut.
It made me nauseated.

“Apparently so,” he answered. He
didn’t sound surprised at all.

ten

Felix
was eager to get out and find the remains of
Sile’s
broken saddle. He still wanted hard evidence. As soon as the academy was
silent, and anyone with any sense was resting up for the next day, he drug me
out of bed and out the door. I was nervous about it; we weren’t allowed to be
out of our rooms like this, much less flying without an instructor’s
permission. If something went wrong, no one would even realize we were gone
until tomorrow morning.

           
But
Felix wasn’t backing down. He had decided we would take his dragon and ride
together. She was big enough to carry both of us without any problems, and it
would be easier to sneak one dragon out instead of two. I was just anxious to
get this over with. The sooner he got his proof, the sooner I could sleep.

Standing outside the Roost, I kept a
lookout while he went inside to saddle her up. I didn’t like standing out there
alone in the open. Somehow, I had the feeling that if we did get caught, I’d be
the one who got blamed for this regardless of anything Felix said. I was the
bad influence, after all. I was the halfbreed.

The night air was quiet and the wind
was still. Looking up, the stars were so bright they made the whole horizon
glitter. There was plenty of light to see by, so I started to hope that maybe
we would actually find the lost remains of
Sile’s
saddle.

 
I heard a rustling behind me, and let out a sigh of relief. I
just assumed it was Felix coming back with his dragon.

But it wasn’t. Not even close.

I turned around right into an oncoming
fist. Someone hit me so hard across my face that it sent me stumbling
backwards. My vision blurred. My nose stung. I could taste blood coming from my
nose and mouth.

“You just keep getting in my way.” I
couldn’t see who hit me, but I heard Lyon’s voice laughing over me. I knew it
was
him
. “You really should’ve just taken the hint and
quit while you were ahead. Now you’re in my way again.”

There was more laughter coming from
some other guys standing behind them. My vision cleared enough that I could see
them under the starlight. Four older boys, including Lyon, were circling around
me. They were all fledglings from my class—Lyon’s friends.
 

I scrambled to get back up, but Lyon
was quicker. Just as soon as I’d gotten my feet under me, he hit me again in
the stomach so hard I fell forward. I was gasping and wheezing for breath,
crawling across the ground to get away.

“No one wants you here. You’ll never
be one of us. Don’t you get that?” He snarled over me, and grabbed a fistful of
my hair to jerk my head back so I had to look at him in the eye. “You will
never be worth anything to anyone. You think Felix cares about you? He doesn’t.
No one cares anything about
halfbreeds
. You’re
nothing but filth, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

The other three boys circled me again,
and one reared back to kick me in the ribs. I couldn’t catch my breath to even
cry out for help. It might take half an hour for Felix to get his saddle ready,
if he did it the way he was supposed to, and by then . . . I wasn’t sure how
much of me would be left.

They were kicking me, hitting me as
hard as they could. One of them had come armed with his riding gauntlets, and
when he hit me, it was like being smacked with solid iron. I curled into a
ball, covering my head with my arms, and prayed for it to end.

Suddenly, it stopped.

I was afraid to look up and see why. I
was afraid maybe one of them had come with a sword, or gone to get some other
weapon to finish me off. But what I heard was the sound of fighting, of frantic
shouting, and punches being swung.

When I finally looked up, I saw Felix
standing over me with his hands balled into fists. He had a crazed look of rage
on his face, and his lips were curled up into a snarl. One of the other boys
was already lying unconscious nearby.

“Get up, Jae.” Felix growled down at
me. “I can’t take them all by myself.”

I was in pain from the hits I’d
already taken. But at that moment, it didn’t matter. I got up. Felix was
fighting for me, and I wasn’t going to let him do it alone. I put up my fists,
facing the three boys left standing. Lyon was one of them, and he looked like
he wanted to kill me. He dove at me first.

And then it was a brawl.

Even if I wasn’t a good fighter, I
could at least watch Felix’s back. He hit them so hard it made me cringe. He
was a pretty big guy already, bigger than Lyon, and twice as strong. I saw so
much pent up anger in the way he fought them, and even when he took hits, he
never quit. At least, not until he had his boot on Lyon’s face and was grinding
it into the dust.

“Come after him again, and I’ll break
both your arms,” Felix promised with a snarl. “Not even your parents will be
able to recognize what’s left of you.”

When Lyon managed to worm his way out
from under Felix’s heel, he immediately started to run, and the rest of the
boys went with him. They disappeared into the night, and left their unconscious
friend just lying there.

I couldn’t believe it was over. I was
afraid to relax, expecting another attack to come out of nowhere. But they
didn’t come back. The night was just as quiet as it had been before.

I stood beside Felix, blood dripping
from my nose down the front of my nightshirt, and didn’t dare let my guard down
until I saw him drop his arms. We were both breathing hard, spattered with
blood, and looking at each other with no idea what to say.

At last, Felix’s shoulders sagged and
he came over to grab my chin, jerking my face up to poke at my bloody nose.

I winced and tried to squirm away.
“Stop it! I’m fine!” I didn’t like they way he hovered over me like some kind
of a worried parent. It was humiliating to be treated like a little kid, and I
was already embarrassed that he’d had to save me in the first place.

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” he
reminded me as he let me go.

I staggered back, still panting as I
glared defiantly up at him. “Why do you keep doing that? Why do you care what
happens to me? No one else does!”

Lyon’s venomous words were still
ringing in my ears, reminding me of the cold truths I feared the most. I didn’t
know why Felix was being so nice to me. I didn’t want to suspect that he was
just toying with me. But I couldn’t help it. No one else wanted to be a friend
to me, especially none of the other fledglings.

“You think I should just let them kill
you?” He yelled back. “Just because of who your mother was?”

I fought to choke back the tears that
stung in my eyes. “Anyone else would! So why? Why do you keep doing this? I
deserve to know!”

He looked at me like it was the
stupidest question in the world. I heard him curse under his breath. “You’d do
the same for me, wouldn’t you?”

I stared at him. He’d answered my dumb
question with another dumb question. “Yes.”

He pointed at me accusingly. “That’s
why. You understand that this isn’t just a contest to see who can be better
between you and me, who can outrank the other, or screw the other over behind
their back. Just because your mother is a gray elf doesn’t make your life any
less valuable than mine. I know you’d sacrifice just as much if it were my face
being kicked into the dirt. Am I right? So you tell me, why would I stick my
neck out for someone like that? Why would I want someone like that as my
friend?”

I couldn’t answer him. I just stared
at him, unable to keep tears from streaming down my face. He stomped toward me,
grabbing the back of my shirt and giving me a shove back toward the dormitory.

“Come on, we’ve
gotta
get back inside before someone sees us. Forget about the stupid saddle.” He
growled through clenched teeth as he kept me moving onward.

I knew he was angry. Even if I wasn’t
sure why, I still felt like it was my fault. After cleaning my face up,
pinching my nose to stop the bleeding, and assessing the damage to the rest of
my body, I curled into my bed. Except for some bad bruises, I’d gotten away
without any serious injuries.

Felix was awake, still looking like he
was fuming with rage where he sat in his own bed. As soon as I was settled,
lying with my back to him, he doused the candle and the room went dark.

“Felix?” I asked, not really expecting
him to answer.

“What?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Thank
you.”
 

He was quiet for a moment, and then I
heard him make a loud, exasperated sigh. “You’re welcome.”