Smoke curled in lazy spirals around the young dragon and boy laying in the morning light, wafting toward the shimmering reflections on the cavern’s low ceiling. With each gentle breath, the mid-morning rays over her pearly scales leaped and spun, dancing. One lid lifted, revealing the soft green craters underneath. Rising, Tyrrick, she communicated through the bond.

Tyrrick slung his arm over his face with a grumble. She lifted her head and nudged him rudely in the side with her snout. Up! She prodded at his sleepy thoughts. Ere we miss feast.

He dropped his arm down to her head, fingers poking her between the furrowed scales on her brow. “You’ll keep growing whether-” he paused to yawn, and she lifted her head into his hand, so that he could scratch behind her budding horns, “--we attend feast or not.”

She rumbled, a deep murr of contentment at odds with her intentions. I grow faster when you are well fed, Tyrrick.

“Fine, fine, I’m awake,” he said. He sat up, brushing loose red hair from his face. “Go stretch your wings while I dress, Agmentha, I can’t see for all your vanity.”

She rolled up to her feet, bumping the boy up to his knees in the process. He grunted and grimaced, using her support at his back to fully stand with another yawn.

“Alright, get going.” His hand brushed down her spine, between the four sunken gaps where her wings branched off of her back and curled down toward each leg. Her thin tail poked him in the ribs again as a reminder to get going himself, and he swatted at the curled spikes, and then she was on her way over to the fissure running the length of the north wall and partially through the ceiling.

Tyrrick waited until she had launched into the morning warmth, a shiver of ghost-like heat twining around his own cool skin. He rubbed his arms and laughed. “That’s better than a splash of water to wake up to,” he said. He strode bare-foot over to the dresser in the west wall. Well-aged oak offered up an apprentice dragon rider’s daily garb; plain shirt and trousers; wool socks and leather boots that would buckle up to mid-knee; leather vest and attached half-cape; and leather bracers for his arms. He took up the final piece, an opal hair band, and roughly pulled his messy hair back, locking in the ponytail. He rubbed at green eyes with heavy bags underneath, shaking off the last of his sleepiness.

Now who is preening with vanity?

Tyrrick turned, his best glare meeting her cratered gaze. If he still had to squint to see through her glittering aura, well, he would adapt with more time as their eyes blended closer. I was not preening, thank you very much.

Feast! She reminded.

I’m going! He marched over to the east wall and the door. With a wrench, he pulled the oiled stone open, exhaled, and looked back. Now are you going to stand there and lecture me, or come down and store some fat, you lazy lizard?

Agmentha growled. Maybe I’ll take a morsel out of your soft pale hide instead!

He grinned. “Come and catch me then!” With those words the game was afoot. He turned and bolted out into the Apprentices’ Hollow.

Agmentha’s claws bit into the floor as she launched after him.

The chase through the marbled halls filled the young boy with laughter, light jumping across his leathers as he passed open rooms on either side. Close behind came the click of her claws. The end of the corridor arrived, splitting to left and right, ascending or descending, and Tyrrick flung himself around the right corner, barreling down the stairs. A beat later came Agmentha’s breath at his back. Almost! She sent through the bond, clacking her teeth at his cape.

Almost, he agreed. The floor descended, spiraling, as rider-to-be and growing-dragon raced through the lower floors. Slivers of the rainbow flickered by his gaze as narrow windows offered a fleeting glimpse of the true dragon riders quarters through the center of the mountain.

Soon, gasping, Tyrrick reached the first arching pillars, and stumbling to his hands and toes for a few moments as his momentum got the best of him at the sudden twist, he scrambled through the archway and into the foyer of the Grand Kitchen.

“Draconian!” The curse came from a startled apprentice only a few years older than Tyrrick. She wore finer-cut leathers over her garb, a full cape falling to her calves, with bands of amethyst circling her wrists to denote her advancement in skill-- and responsibilities. A matching band drew her slate-black hair back into a long ponytail, and the startled look in her hazel eyes quickly turned to ire as she recognized him, or more likely the pearly gleam of his dragon. Her own purple was absent.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Serena-drakin! Ow,” Tyrrick hurriedly answered, applying the honorific for the older student. He shoved up from the wall and tried to smile at her. Agmentha had sensed the older girl in time to slow into a graceful, loping halt beside her partner.

Serena shook her head, staring him down. “You’ll deserve those bruises, Kand. Do you know what hour it is?” He nodded. ”How do you expect your partner to grow to her fullest potential if you insist on being late to feast so often? Blessed light, let’s go then, while there’s still any portion.” She reached out to grab his wrist and march him ahead, and together the three of them approached the next and much more open hall, laid out with widely dispersed tables, pillars, and dragon riders of varying age. Most were older than him, however, and the only dragon present was Agmentha at his side. They found an open table and Serena shoved Tyrrick into a squat, rounded stone chair.

She said, ”Don’t be late again, understand?”

“I won’t,” he said aloud. Through the bond, however, he continued silently, especially if you intend to yank out my arm like that! Agmentha’s wry hum of laughter as much as gave the point across, to say nothing of his mulishly set expression.

Serena gave him an equally flinty stare. She turned and marched away without another word.

You may have upset her, his dragon communicated.

I didn’t ask her to interfere, and we aren’t that late besides.

Who is this ′we′ you speak of? You were wholly late. Preening.

He snatched up a free cup and filled it with Ambrosia rather than deign to answer. The fiery, cinnamon spiced mixture soon washed into his veins, and Tyrrick claimed a generous portion of the morning’s remaining platters, fish, rice, sprouts, and more of the cinnamon ale to wash it all down. As his stomach filled, he felt the ever-present, dry weight of the pit there soften, and Agmentha’s pleased crooning followed. The bond demanded sustenance.

For the remainder of the hour, he ate and drank, until the cooks had cleared away the last portions. That gnawing void deep down in Tyrrick’s gut had long quieted, and he leaned back. “Blessed light, I could race the entire mountain right now!”

“Perhaps you shall, Apprentice Kand,” interjected a dour, older tone. Tyrrick knew the voice of an instructor, and this man, Instructor Lumas, better than most. His satisfied grin stiffened into a sour grimace. ”Today’s remaining lessons are devoted to arms, and continue with steel. Mid-day feast will be followed by history.”

Tyrrick rose and offered the senior rider a deep bow with his right arm tucked across his belly, as tradition required. “Thank you for your guidance, Instructor Lumas,” he said.

Lumas’ voice carried a long suffering drawl, “Acknowledged, Apprentice Kand. You may rise. And perhaps awaken with the dawn, as we have reminded you well and often that you have not yet advanced to the rank of a drakin, fit to attend your sessions at will.”

He sent to Agmentha, How much longer am I going to be just another apprentice? We’ve been together for over a year!

She answered, When you take your lessons to heart? Perhaps when you are at his age.

We don’t have that much time.

He tried his best to put on a plaintive smile as he stood upright, and lifted his eyes to look over the weathered rider, from the plain, gray shawl and hood pooling around his slumped shoulders, to the bright pink scar beginning at his chin and carrying up, across his dark cheek, and through his left eye to end high upon his brow, slightly parting his flaxen hair. All that remained of his lost eye was the sunken lid, always closed. The remaining blue beside his smooth nose shone with life, however, as if making up for its missing twin. “Apprentice Kand,” Lumas said softly. “I believe I have offered a suggestion. What is your response?”

“Yes, Instructor Lumas. I will rise with the day from here on,” he said. Or else sprint quicker through the halls.

Lumas did not appear convinced by the platitude. “Very well, see that you do.” He turned his stare over to the pearl dragon. “That gleam is a testament that you are at least growing well enough, Agmentha-rin.”

She lifted her head and gave a deep hum. See? I do not preen, I am simply beautiful, as it should be.

Corina Dei preserve me, he sent back, invoking the name of their Order’s slain goddess. Aloud, he said, “Yes, Instructor Lumas. I’ll make my way to the Dueling Plateau, and you,” he directed to his dragon, “may take a very long nap with the nests. Share a little of that indulgence with the growing clutches.”

Agmentha’s tail unfurled from around her back legs and poked him in the same shoulder he had barreled into the wall with. He bit his tongue to avoid swearing, and Lumas gave a great exhalation and simply said, “Dismissed, Apprentice Kand, Agmentha-rin.” With that the old rider turned and made his way over to a group of drakin lazing about.

As soon as Lumas’ back was turned, Tyrrick grimaced and sent to her, Did you really need to do that?!

You know how I hate the nests, Tyrrick, for all the time I waited for you. But I am a good, obedient member of the Order, and I shall listen to my silly, ill-mannered rider-- oh, but you are not yet a Deiman. Nor I fully grown to bear a rider’s weight. She hummed again, a rather pointed laugh, and trotted away to the archway across from them, while Tyrrick rubbed at his shoulder. At least I shall be warm amongst my unhatched kin. Try not to gain more bruises among yours, perhaps?

He shook his head, reaching up to run his good hand through his hair until he hit the band. Lazy lizard, he sent, and then he was moving away in the opposite direction, toward the foyer again.