The silence became more and more annoying as the minutes went by at a slug’s pace. Dahlia expected Captain Jinglo to ask her something, but the man seemed content with simply sitting there eating. Between sips of wine and bites of sandwich, he glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.
Dahlia didn’t touch the food. She didn’t feel hungry since the choosing ceremony. Besides, she didn’t trust the food offered by strange people. She flinched as another flash of pain stabbed her head.
After eating in silence for about ten minutes, the captain sighed audibly. He grabbed a box and produced a fistful of herbs from it that he put into a glass cup with some steaming water. “Drink this before answering. I don’t like that pained expression of yours.”
Dahlia regarded the cup with cautious eyes. “Is that an order, sir?” she asked.
“Gods, girl. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t need poison,” he said. He waved at the glass with his free hand. “Drink, now.” His voice suddenly had a force to it, a fire appeared in his eyes.
Dahlia reluctantly took a sip from the glass. It was bitter and didn’t taste much like anything, but the aching dimmed just a little. She finished the rest of the water in one go, her lips burned as they contacted the herbs at the bottom.
The longing and the pain didn’t go away entirely, but the bees buzzing in her skull were a little bit quieter now. There were about ten people screaming in her ears, instead of the usual fifty.
“What is this?” she asked with wide eyes.
“For normal people, it is poison.” Jinglo said with a playful smile breaking through his mask of annoyance. “I guess you were right to be cautious, eh? For you, it is still poison but it also cleanses the corruption in your mana a little bit. Temporarily of course.”
Dahlia tensed as she kept her hand from going to her sword. Her mind was racing now that she could finally think again. She didn’t know what mana meant or what kind of herb would help with its corruption, but if there was something that would help with this pain, why hadn’t anyone given her mother any?
“What is it?” she asked in panic, her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“You are fine. Come find me or Phospha if you have trouble breathing, we will sort you out.” He picked up a napkin and patted his bushy beard with it. “Now, let’s talk business. How did you know that the badger is the only real stone in this room?”
Dahlia raised her eyebrows at the weird question as her hand slowly relaxed around the blade’s leather handle. “Well,” she paused for a second thinking as her eyes moved across the wall towards the statue. “Nothing else in here really feels like stone I guess.”
“Interesting.” Jinglo jotted something down on a small notebook with a pen he produced from his pocket. “What else can you tell me about the objects in this room?”
“Nothing much.” Dahlia said. “I think they look weird and lack a sense of cohesion. I think the Naysayer statue is hollow, but I don’t exactly know why I know that. It’s like the badger.”
“Alright, interesting.” The captain repeated. “What kind of dragon rider do you imagine yourself to be in the future? What kind of a person is ‘Dahlia the dragon rider’?”
It was a weird question to ask, made even weirder when asked by a man who seemed allergic to keeping his bloodshot eyes still for more than half a second.
She thought back to all the different riders she had met so far. As images flashed in her mind, the question made a little more sense.
Skybreaker was like a myth personified. He walked with the weight of countless tales on his shoulders. His blade was awe inspiring and iconic. Both his demeanor and his armor were grandiose, befitting a man of his station.
Faelix was the complete antithesis to her captain. Impulsive and animalistic, everything about her screamed danger, where Skybreaker promised safety.
Syllan was the quintessential soldier. He was disciplined and forceful, stable as the most stable spire. He was a hard teacher but his whole aura made his disciples want to get better for his sake.
Firar was the most unremarkable man ever. Dahlia even had trouble trying to remember what his face looked like.
What was most amazing about them was that all four of those riders were members of the same squad. The three that greeted the recruits today looked even more different to them.
‘Dahlia the dragon rider’… Even the thought made her stomach cramp. She pushed the taste of bile with the drops of poison water that remained in her cup.
Now that her mind was free from the shackles of her pain, fear started flooding in. It filled the void left behind by the longing that had been agonizing her.
In this newfound clarity, mixed with the images of riders still fresh in her mind, it finally hit her where she was: A completely unfamiliar spire that was filled with strange and powerful people, the best of which wanted to use her for her power. A scary place crawling with dozens, if not hundreds of scaly monsters.
Why did she ever think coming to Dragon Spire, of all places, could be the answer to the situation she found herself in?
The captain whistled impatiently. “The others are done with their little chats. Your blue-haired friend is in her room waiting already. I expect an answer today, little one.”
“Not my friend,” she blurted without thinking, it got dismissed immediately with a wave of the captain’s hand. “My mother died afraid,” she said, surrendering herself to honesty. “As far back as I can remember she was afraid. Afraid of the dark, the people, maybe most of all she was afraid of her own power. She raised me to be afraid of that power just as she was, I still am to this day, as that same power dwells within my blood.
“When those fearsome monsters attacked the Seventh, I froze as Helen fought them and protected me at the risk of her own life. I was immobilized with fear. Even now I am trembling thinking about the dragons that crawl on this rock.” Her voice unintentionally rose as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “You ask me what kind of dragon rider I want to be, sir? I don’t want to be one. I want to go back home, sit by the fire with my father and listen to stories of his life below the clouds. But I can’t go there, because my cursed blood is a bomb waiting to explode.”
Captain Jinglo’s eyes finally came to a stop. For the first time Dahlia could feel the entirety of the man’s attention on herself and it was an enormous weight. If she wasn’t past the point of caring, Dahlia would crumble under that gaze, but now she pushed back with her own stare.
“Eighty-seven people,” said the captain. “That is how many people you saved on that summit that day.”
Dahlia felt like she was slapped in her face. She felt the tears leave her eyes and run down her face.
“All between the ages of fourteen and seventeen,” Jingle continued. “Can you fathom how many children that is, girl? It is a miracle that rivals the greatest saints of the old age.” He mumbled something that felt like a curse under his breath. “I am placing you in the same group as that blue haired girl. You will have your basic training under Arachne. You will also have supplementary lessons with myself. I will teach you to use that power that you are so afraid of.”
Dahlia wiped her face with the back of her hand and took a deep breath trying to ground herself. “Yes, sir.” She did her best to sound forceful like Syllan taught them.
Captain Jinglo pushed the wooden box that contained the poison. “Take this, go get your stuff. Follow the hallway until you reach the castle. Follow the spider marks on the floor once you get there, to find your room.” He gestured to the door recruits had entered through before.
Finding her way to the castle was easier than she expected. Mostly because there were no other way she could have gone. The emerald door they went through before had disappeared, and the hallway with intricate drawings that led them there, directly connected to an open courtyard with a gigantic dragon statue in the middle. It was made of blue glass, a slender dragon with four spiked wings spread out. The clearing beneath the statue was decorated with pieces of steel, making a giant compass. As she approached the statue, Dahlia stood directly on a plate that had the old nautical symbol for the cardinal direction west on it.
Six paths led out from the center, four of which were marked with distinct symbols. The path with spiders carved in fifteen feet intervals into it, led to a large double door directly northward, to her left. Two unmarked paths led to the hallway she just came through and a large arch on the opposite side. The other paths; heading northwest, southwest, and south were decorated with symbols of a chess piece, a book, and a flame. Dahlia didn’t know which chess piece it was, as she never learned how to play.
It felt eerie how empty the courtyard was. Dahlia felt really exposed standing in the middle of it. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching, even though the faces that watched her walk from the cloudship to the hallway were now nowhere to be seen. She heard distant chatter with some laughter here and there.
She entered through the open double doors and kept following the spiders through a set of hallways and stairs. The symbols took her three floors up as she passed by at least fifteen closed doors. The building that started with the double doors resembled a large mansion. The floors and most of the walls were made from strange, dark wood. The interior was lit by low hanging chandeliers with varying numbers of candles on them. Strange armors of all shapes and sizes lined the walls in places. Their shadows, created by the fluttering light of candleflame on dark wood, made the whole place feel haunted.
In the end, she found herself in a large, high-ceilinged hall. Helen was already there, accompanied by three people that Dahlia hadn’t seen before. They were spread around the hall, keeping their distance to each other. Their eyes snapped on her as she entered the room.
Helen herself stood on a half-floor at the back of the hall, she cautiously eyed the others from above like a bird of prey. She was out of her uniform and now wore a flowing gray dress with two slits in its skirt to move comfortably. Her arms were exposed, displaying the pieces of red onyx still embedded in her skin.
The others were spread around the room. A tall, slender boy was sitting in the right corner, with his legs crossed, on a carpet made of glass. His eyes were wary and his back was to the wall. A broad-shouldered girl stood on the left, leaning against the wall as well. She was wearing her leather uniform, and her recruit sword and spear were on her back.
“Hello!” A kid sitting at the round table in the middle of the first floor spoke. He looked young, maybe the same age as Lilia. He had a head of orange, unruly hair and large red eyes. He sat on a chair that faced the door, and a large book lay open on the table in front of him. “I’m Helio. Nice to meet you, what is your name? The room on the highest floor is yours. You are the last one to arrive so it won’t be your choice, sorry about that.”
“Um… hi, Dahlia.” Dahlia muttered, stunned by the avalanche of words. She eyed the arch in the corner behind Helen. She could see a staircase through it and assumed the rooms were up that way.
“I was here first because the Sixth is apparently the closest spire. Did you know that? I never saw a map that shows where the Dragon Spire is.” The boy spoke with an excited voice that contradicted everything else about their environment.
“You are late.” Arachne’s voice came from barely five feet to Dahlia’s right, where the rider seemed to suddenly appear out of nothing. “Leave your bag and weapons here. We are leaving.”
“Yes, sir.” Dahlia said and took her belongings down from her shoulder. She felt incredibly unnerved by Arachne’s lack of presence.
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The others gathered near the gate while she put her sword, spear and bag in the corner.
“Where are we even going?” she whispered as she approached Helen.
“There is a celebration,” the tall boy said. He wore a sincere looking smile on his face. His whole body was covered in green tattoos of leaves and vines. He wore a simple green tunic and brown pants; his long brown hair was held back with a tiara made of brambles. “Name’s Kura, nice to meet you, Dahlia.”
His face with his smile and bright green eyes were incredibly disarming, which felt even more disturbing to Dahlia than the stone-faced girl that eyed her like she was about to start a fight.
“You will watch your seniors fight,” Arachne said with a crooked smile on their face. “Recruits from last year will fight in battle, it’s what we do to celebrate you new hatchlings. This way you’ll know where you are supposed to be after your basic training is done, it also doubles as a scouting opportunity for squad captains looking for new riders. Line up behind me, stay in formation and don’t do anything to make me regret I chose you.” They turned around and started walking with the ease of someone who was used to being obeyed.
The recruits followed the lieutenant until they were out on the courtyard with the large dragon statue.
Three other groups of recruits were walking on the other paths led by other riders. Dahlia spotted Doppan in Lieutenant Phospha’s group, walking on the path with the book symbol on it. Ollie was on the path with the flame symbol, led by a rider with green flames dancing on his frockcoat.
Lilia was on the chess piece path. Recruits around her all looked serious and kept their formation perfectly. None of them had changed out of their uniforms and their eyes looked straight ahead. They were, without a doubt, the most dangerous looking group aside from Lilia. The woman that led them had a great-axe on her back that would rival Skybreaker’s sword in size.
They followed Arachne westward, towards the hallway that led to the docks. The other riders followed behind them. The hallway had changed once again. Now instead of slightly curving left, it spiraled up in a slight incline. It all felt like the stone that wasn’t stone, just like the one in the room where Dahlia spoke with captain Jinglo. She turned to Helen in shock and met with eyes equally surprised as hers.
“What you are about to witness is a battle simulation,” Arachne said as they led the recruits up the incline. “There are some grudge matches in there, and some just want to be noticed by the squad leaders. They fight to first blood. It was invented so riders didn’t murder each other out of boredom.”
The excitement in their voice coupled with the excited sounds of a crowd, that got louder as they climbed the hallway, signaled that the last part was no mere exaggeration.
“There are a lot of talented fighters out there. Watch them carefully, analyze what you can. I expect you will be much better than them in about six months,” they concluded.
After a sharp bend, the hallway came to a sudden stop. A sourceless light made the environment visible. On the floor were four platforms, large enough for a teacher and their recruits to stand on, looked to be made out of bronze. Arachne led them to the platform that had their spider symbol on it. The other riders took their recruits to each of the other platforms. They looked to be more engaged in explaining the situation to their students than Arachne had been, as all three were still talking.
“So, it is a game then?” asked Helen. Dahlia could tell the girl was extremely annoyed by her tone, as it was the tone she heard her cousin use most.
Arachne looked at Helen like she said something extremely stupid.
“Of course it is,” they answered with a cocked head. Their tone reminded Dahlia of a parent patiently explaining something obvious to their child. “Everything is a game, little hatchling. That is how we keep these long lives of ours from becoming boring.”
Dahlia knew that Dragon Riders lived unnaturally long lives. She had even read stories about riders as old as the spires themselves. While not entirely unbelievable after she witnessed the display of power Skybreaker and others showed fighting starbeasts, she couldn’t fathom how one could live so long without going crazy.
“Oh, some of us do go crazy,” Arachne said with a cheeky smile. “Sorry, hatchling, you were thinking too loud.” They gave Dahlia a wink before speaking to the wall in front of them. “We are in position, captain.”
With a loud crack, the platform they were standing on started rising, at the same time four circular holes large enough for the platforms to fit through, opened up in the ceiling. The sounds of the crowd silenced as the recruits found themselves standing on a large balcony. The balcony was atop a circular set of bleachers shaped from the stone of the spire itself. The seats were filled with riders, they were a colorful crowd. Hairs of every shade and shape and scaled skins flowed into each other. Step-like seats were broken in places by balconies like the ones Dahlia and others were standing on. They were occupied by riders who looked to be higher ranked than the rest. Dahlia could spot Skybreaker in one of the higher balconies, standing like a mountain in his perfect golden armor. Syllan was beside him, and Dahlia thought for a second that she saw the man smile at her.
They looked upon a large circular arena. On the far side, more than twenty riders stood side by side in formation. They all looked straight ahead, not paying any attention to the crowd. A man in absurdly colorful clothes was in front of them, talking with exaggerated gestures. The middle part of the fighting grounds was covered with a deep pond filled with crystal blue water.
“Is that a clown?” Helio asked, he was giddy with excitement. “Is he a rider too Lieutenant Arachne, sir?”
Arachne let out a snicker. “Yes, little one. That clown is a member of our Azure Library. He taught half those mongrels to fight.”
“Are members of grounded forces fighting today as well?” Helen asked. Dahlia followed her gaze to the middle of the fighters where a familiar figure stood.
Private Amryn, the member of Golden Vanguard that Syllan used, to teach Helen a lesson on their first day on the ship, looked completely different to the others around him. He was in his pristine uniform with no additional armor, a golden badge sat shining on his chest. Compared to the riders around him in armors of different shapes and sizes, his figure looked unbelievably dull.
Riders stepped forward at the order of the rider that looked like a clown. They moved to either side of the pond after giving a sharp salute. One of the fighters had a large cloak on with its hood pulled forward so his face could be barely seen. The other one wore barely any armor, her slim figure was covered in a cloak that looked like it was torn into strips of cloth, with metal pieces sewn to the ends of it.
They stood staring at each other. Slowly, silence fell on the crowd. The flap of heavy wings broke through the air, and a huge dragon appeared over the bleachers on the opposite side of where Dahlia and the others were. It was larger than Skybreaker’s dragon, the size of a medium sized building. It had six wings on its back, with scales that changed colors as it slithered and landed on an elevated platform looking over the arena.
A few seconds passed with no sound at all, which ended with a quaking roar from the dragon.
The two fighters immediately shot towards each other. They would have met right in the middle of the pond if it wasn’t for the daggers that fanned from the strip-cloaked figure’s hands. The hooded one shot them out of the air with a wide swipe, but it made her slow down a little.
The two clashed some three feet above the surface. Sparks rained down as they kept weaving attack after attack. Dahlia waited for them to fall, but they seemed locked in air. Their movements were too fast for her eyes to follow accurately. In as little as five seconds, at least twelve attacks were parried and the two were still locked in a brawl mid-air.
With a crushing blow, the hooded rider threw the other’s sword aside. He leaned in with a shoulder check and flowed into a punch into her stomach which exploded outward. The two riders were thrown into opposing ends of the pond once again. They both started sprinting towards each other, literally running on water.
While they were on the water, the way they moved completely changed. The girl with the tattered cloak didn’t even look like she touched the surface as she moved. It felt more like she was running on air just above the water. While the larger rider definitely touched the water, and when he did, a small piece of water froze in a flash so he could step on it.
“It’s like he is sliding,” Dahlia whispered in awe.
“Why are they fighting on water, sir?” Kura asked. He sounded equally impressed.
“As I said, the battle is to the first blood,” Arachne said, their smile seeping into their voice. “The blood needs to fall into the water, otherwise it doesn’t count. Riders spend most their time fighting in air, ground is a luxury we don’t often have access to. It is important to learn to fight on the move.”
“But how are they doing it?” asked Helio. “I have never seen such flexible magic.”
“You will learn, that’s what the basic training is for,” Arachne said. “All in all, their application is sloppy. They both use too much mana.”
After another long flurry of blows in which the two riders traded parries and blocks above the water while circling each other, the girl’s cloak suddenly came alive. Each strip of cloth was like a separate whip as they moved like a snake, the sharp steel pieces at the ends attacked her opponent while her sword kept raining blows from above.
It looked like she had as good as won, when the hooded rider jumped back in a huge leap, throwing himself all the way back out of the pond. He stood there, his shoulders slowly moving from effort.
When Dahlia looked back at the other rider, she realized the strips of cloak were swimming in water. They encircled the girl’s unmoving body, the crystal blue of the water sullied by a bright red line coming from her belly.
The crowd exploded with cheers. Laughter and conversation resumed as if they didn’t just watch a member of their order get stabbed in front of them.
“Did you all follow that?” Arachne asked turning to their students.
Dahlia’s eyes were still glued to the blood swirling in water. She felt the pull of power, that had dimmed from the poison, return. “Does she need help?” she asked. Her voice shaked, her throat was dry. The half-healed cuts on her arms itched.
A kick in her shin brough her attention back to the balcony. Helen stared at her with daggers in her eyes.
“She will be fine,” Arachne said dismissively. “Now, who can tell me how that fight ended?”
“The hooded guy must have used some kind of magic unknown to us,” Helen said. “I was certain at least one of those metal edges were going to get him.”
“No,” Helio cut in. There was a luminous glow in his red eyes. “The boy took out a dagger from his belt in the last second and used it to cut the clothes. I think the knife was enchanted because the girl used magic to move her cloak, I assume it can’t be cut by a non-enchanted knife. He used it to nick her in the stomach after cutting off the strips of cloth. Right, Lieutenant Arachne, sir?”
Arachne smiled slyly. “Nice job, kid,” they said. “At least one of you isn’t completely clueless.”
The other recruits eyed the little boy with cautious eyes. Helio was already excited for the next battle, making running remarks about the quality of each fighter’s armor. During the ten or so battles that followed, he proved that his analysis of the first fight wasn’t a fluke. The boy, although he looked drastically more innocent than the rest of the class, had a sense for battle that rivalled a seasoned veteran’s. He correctly analyzed all but two fights almost perfectly, none of which Dahlia could keep up with when she watched them herself. The remaining two fights were correctly analyzed by Helen and Kura.
The muscular girl, who was the last person in their group, didn’t speak one word. Arachne seemed to leave her be as well while they continuously bugged Dahlia to answer their questions before Helio couldn’t wait and answer in her place.
Amryn’s fight was the last one of the bunch. He slowly walked to his starting place at the edge of the pond without any unnecessary movements. His opponent was a tall, gangly boy who walked like he weighed little more than a small bird. He wore little clothing; his body was covered in ugly tattoos that were made exceptionally bad.
“That boy has been fighting every year since he got recruited five years ago,” Arachne sighed. “Some people should just give up on bonding.”
The dragon roared and the tattooed rider dashed on the pond, he held two jagged steel blades that were reminiscent of thunderbolts. The blades were also black, like his tattoos. It created a visual illusion that made the blades disappear into patterns on his skin. He flew across the pond like an arrow.
Amryn’s answer was simply taking a step forward into the water. As he walked, roots grew from the shore to follow him, giving him a stable surface to stand on. Dahlia narrowed her eyes to figure out if the roots came out of the ground behind him or the water just turned into wood below him.
They had seen many ways of treading on the water so far. The most used method was freezing the water and either walking or sliding on it. Some did unique things like Amryn did, Dahlia’s favorite being a girl who straight up made wings out of her cloak to fly.
As the tattooed rider crashed into his guard, Amryn’s body barely moved. He had his simple high guard up once again. His sword came down on his opponent’s almost invisible blades with incredible efficiency. He had no wasted movement in any of his muscles.
In comparison, his opponent used the entirety of his body in a strange way. As he struck Amryn from every conceivable angle, he didn’t even look like a person anymore. He was a floating storm cloud. He somehow surrounded Amryn even though they were fighting one on one.
Dahlia’s eye slowly turned away from the battle to Helen who stood by her side. The blue haired girl seemed a little too invested in this fight. Dahlia was sure she felt that if Amryn could win here, it would lessen the hit to her pride she had taken when he “embarrassed” her.
“Gods...” Arachne said while yawning. “Watching that boy fight is more boring than watching paint dry.”
Dahlia couldn’t disagree more. Amryn’s form was flawless. He didn’t do anything overly showy; but what he did, he always did it to absolute perfection.
As the fight went on, Amryn’s opponent got faster and faster. The black in his blade and on his body slowly started to brighten up, like metal warming up. First it turned dark red and he got faster and faster until there was a flurry of bright orange lightning hailing on Amryn.
The fight went on longer than all the other’s combined. All the while the orange lightning guy kept getting faster. Amryn’s blade was a wall made of pure steel. Dahlia tried to keep her eyes open as much as possible to not miss the moment that lightning passed through Amryn’s wall.
Instead of the wall failing, the lightning cloud suddenly went out. The boy with ugly tattoos sunk into the water, crimson blood filling the pool in its entirety as Amryn pulled his sword out of his opponent’s chest.
Amryn simply took a step back from the roots. He had not moved a hair since the fight started. He swung his sword in a wide arc to rid it of blood and slowly slid it back into its scabbard. He gave a sharp salute and a bow to his fallen opponent before walking back to join the other victors.
“That was amazing.” Helio jumped in his place. “Can I explain, teacher? Please please please!”
“No need,” Arachne answered as bored as anyone could be. “I don’t think he will get any offers this year either. Honestly, the lightning guy was more impressive.”
“What do they get offered if they impress?” Helen asked, clearly frustrated with not getting the information from Arachne that the other recruits got from their teachers.
“They might get sponsored by one of the larger squads and get taken to meet their private dragon eggs to see if they bond with one of them,” Arachne explained. “Bonding eggs is much easier than bonding living dragons. We are ready to head back, captain.”
With no ceremony, the platform started sinking down back the way they came. Dahlia found herself more confused than anything to what being a dragon rider is.
“We start training tomorrow at first light. Be in the courtyard before me or you get thrown off the spire,” Arachne said before they jumped from the platform and disappeared into nothing.