A Dragon's Rider (Edited)

Chapter 10

The light is blinding, and I squint my eyes as they adjust. Every single instructor is there and whispering. Airre sits on the porch, hunched over in worry, but she perks up and whistles when she sees me. She looks much bigger than the last time I saw her. She extends her wings to fly towards me. She lands on her usual spot on my shoulder and I stagger a bit from the weight. The instructors stop nervously tittering and stare at me.

"So –" Hunter clears his throat. "You didn't get eaten by the monster?"

I snort. "He's no monster. You're the only monster I can see. What did Soul do to you, anyway?"

Hunter's face blanches. "He told you his name?"

"Um. Yeah." Why does he care? "Anyway, do you make it a habit of throwing new students into dark, strange houses? Or was I just getting special treatment?"

Hunter's face is a blotchy red. "Well, you see, if – ah, Soul, as you call him – had eaten you, we would have known you to be evil. Since he didn't eat you, you're fine to continue at the academy."

'This place is mental.' I think to myself. Throwing new students into random cottages.

"Whatever," I say. "Can I go back to training, or what?" I don't want to – but I also don't want them to see how shaken up I am.

"Yes," Hunter says, with a curt nod.

"Good!" I huff and stomp back to the training grounds.

The boys are sparring when I enter so I just sit and watch. The instructors return and I get bored. It's the same pattern over and over. Slash, block, thrust, block.

I go up to one boy who seems to be holding his own and ask to duel him. He quickly agrees and I grab two knives. He holds a long, broad staff and twirls it across his body. We circle for a minute and then he jumps at me. His staff swipes at my stomach and I leap back, slashing at his forearm. He blocks and goes for a head blow, but I see it coming and dance quickly of the way.

It continues like that, neither one of us landing a blow.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see two boys looking angrily at each other before throwing their bodies together. It looks like a real fight, not training, and I take my eyes off my opponent.

While I'm distracted, the boy nearly slams his staff into my thigh. I try to sidestep, but I slip in a patch of mud and his staff misses my leg by a hair. I let myself fall onto my back.

The boy looks surprised for a moment before he thrusts at my stomach. I roll out of the way, and in the process, I purposely drop one of my knives. Now that I have a free hand, I grab the end of the staff and use its momentum to lodge it into the mud. The boy's muscles visibly tense as he strains against the grip of the mud. The hand which still has the dagger goes to point at his jugular, and I can't help but grin in the sudden rush that accompanies a satisfying victory.

The boy, however, doesn't seem to see it that way. He slowly reaches his other hand up to twist the staff out of my grasp. He uses it to knock my blades aside, and I relax my stance. We are both sweating heavily. I haven't worked this hard in a while.

The boy grins and drops his weapon. I sheath my knives and we shake hands. He does not look sad or annoyed about the draw – he seems happy. He's smiling, so I smile back.

"Good job," he says.

"Thanks. You too." We walk over the bucket of water for trainees and sit down, both still panting from the battle.

"I've never fought a girl before. You are a great fighter." I smile again. He seems like a nice guy – friend material. "I'm John," he says and sticks out his hand.

"Liora." I grasp it. "It's a pleasure meeting you. Everyone else sees the whole girl thing a different way."

He throws his head back and laughs – an infectious, heaving belly laugh. I look at him and finally see him as a person, not just something to cross arms with.

John looks like he's made of dust and gold – he has hair a shade somewhere between blond and brown, and his skin is tanned and speckled. His hands are weathered and scarred – he must have done farm work. And it must have paid off, too, because while his frame is slender and graceful, I can see sinewy muscles in his arms and legs. He has the air of a village boy.

He stops laughing, and I catch his eyes. They're flinty and grey, and I almost take a step back – they're so much darker than the rest of him. I can see something in them, lurking in the glittering depths, and I don't know if I like it or not.

He claps me on the back. "That is probably true. Don't worry, though, they'll just have to get used to it. You'll probably end up as their captain or something, and then they'll all be saying that they'd liked you since you first met. " He winks.

I like him. His easy-going, down-to-earth demeanor is refreshing and he seems to understand a bit of what I'm going through.