Rainbow Magic (Dragon Rider #1) {EDITING}

Students

"Ow."

Oz stared sideways at her, eyebrow raised. "You're on pain medication."

"It's not my fault someone slammed my head into something!" she grumbled, gingerly prodding at her bandaged head as she glanced around the darkened room. It was night-time, the full moon hanging low in the sky, just about visible through the closed window opposite her.

Raelynn snored loudly in the bed next to hers, interrupting their argument momentarily, pulling her attention onto the rest of her team. Some who'd escaped the chaos more unscathed than others.

Beatrice and Callum were curled up on a discarded mattress on the floor, the twins much the same at the foot of Silver's hospital bed.

They had escaped pretty much unscathed.

It only proved to Sora that she had the worst luck.

Either that or the universe hated her, though Sora supposed those options were both one and the same thing. That was the only explanation for things. Why else would the delightful Necromancer be targeting her team? Oz had already told her the Necromancer basically wanted something from her. She just wished she knew what.

"That guy has always been a bit of a clutz, just like our lovely bundle of sunshine over there, I guess," Oz said, leaning comfortably against the wall. "You should just be glad someone rescued you, otherwise we'd be cleaning you off the mountainside right about now."

Sora rolled her eyes. Why couldn't Oz tell her something she didn't know? Like why the Necromancer guy was obsessed with their cloaks – particularly the Shenlong, for all his love of snarling out its name. "I know, I know – take what I can get," she muttered. "Still, I don't get what happened up there..."

He stared at her levelly, a small smirk curling at his lips, and Sora just knew that meant trouble. Nothing good ever came from a smirking Oz. Ever. If there was one fact she'd learnt in her time at the Outer City, it was that. "Should I tell the nurse you have amnesia too, then?"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Oh really," he mumbled, his tone teasing, and Sora resisted the overwhelming urge to punch something. Ideally him. "Shocking."

"Stop being a git already."

Oz glared at her, his cheerful demeanour vanishing in an instant. "You should just be really grateful you're in the hospital."

"Stop getting off topic," she grumbled, ignoring his raised fist. "That Necromancer guy just so happened to pop up while you were taking us on a vacation up the mountain. Coincidence? I think not."

"No. It wasn't."

"Care to elaborate?"

Oz peered down at her for a brief moment. "No."

Sora scowled. He could not leave her in the dark like that. Wasn't she supposed to be the interim leader? His second in command? "He's going to come back, and you know it."

"Of course he will," he said, "but I'll take care of him again."

"Because you did such a great job of it this time," she muttered, crossing her arms as she slumped into her hospital bed.

Oz sighed, walking towards the door, throwing his black coat over his shoulders as he wandered out. "It's an instructor's job to take care of their students, Sora," he spoke, sliding the door open, light spilling into the room, illuminating his face as he paused in the doorframe ready to leave. "And that's what we intend to do."