Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
I didn’t add that I had sold the last of the scrawny sheep that used to graze on our pitifully small mountain pasture right before Auren had died, so I could afford enough to buy beef bones to make him a nourishing broth. I hadn’t wanted my beloved twin brother to die with an empty belly.
Those bones were dry now—boiled over and over and cracked and scraped clean of their marrow. The courier would likely have a better meal than I did that night, no matter how little he had brought with him. I literally had nothing to offer him, but tea made from leaves that had been boiled three times over already.
“Would you like to come in for some tea?” I asked, thinking I could boil the leaves once more and make at least a weak approximation of the strong black brew my father used to favor.
The courier shook his head.
“Nay, lad. I’ll be fine on my own—we’re not supposed to go in the house when we come for a conscript. ‘Specially not a Noble House,” he added, giving my cracked and peeling front door a dubious look.
“Oh, well…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I ought to send him away right now but if I did, I’d never hear more about the Academy. I wanted to ask him some questions—I wanted to learn more about what Auren’s life would have been if he’d lived.
“Well, if there’s nothing else—” the courier began, starting to turn away.
“Wait,” I said quickly, and he turned back.
“Yes, lad?”
“What…what should I bring with me?” I asked, reaching for the first question I could think of.
He shook his head.
“Nothing but the clothes on your back. Though if I were you, I’d put on my best.” His brown eyes traveled over the patched and ragged shirt and breeches I wore and then down to my bare feet. “Most like to appear looking a bit more formal on Receiving Day,” he added. “Oh, and cut your hair.” He nodded at my long, white-blond locks. “You’re already almost as pretty as a girl—you’ll have a hard time of it during the Mating Flights if you show up looking like that.”
I put a hand protectively to my head. Cut my hair? It was my one beauty. I had dainty enough features, but they were too sharp to truly be considered pretty or feminine.
When Auren and I were younger, we couldn’t be told apart. Then he’d gotten a growth spurt and shot up a foot taller than me, with shoulders much broader than my own. But still, our features were nearly identical—which was probably why the courier had mistaken me for him, especially if he had been given an old portrait to look at before he came for Auren.
“Cut your hair, put on your best, and be ready by six sharp tomorrow morning,” the courier commanded me. “We’ve a long ride to the Academy so wear something warm. Don’t know if your father ever took you flying, but it gets cold up in the sky,” he added.
“Oh, er, right.” I nodded and he started to turn away again.
“But what if the dragons don’t like me?” I blurted out, before I could stop myself. I was dimly aware that this was a question that would only apply to me—not to Auren, if he’d still been alive. He was a male with Nobel blood and thus compatible with all of dragonkind. But I, as a woman, was not.
“Don’t like you? Well, of course they’ll like you, lad!” The courier huffed a laugh that made his mustache puff out again. “G’lornie likes you, don’t he? Aye boy, come here.”
He motioned to his dragon and the little brown came forward and sniffed me again. Then he put out a perfectly enormous black and pink mottled tongue and licked the side of my face, startling me so much I let out a squeak of surprise. It was like being swiped at with a warm, wet mop and the whole side of my face was wet when he pulled back.
The courier laughed again to see my shock.
“There, you see? He’s already fond of you—he doesn’t lick just anybody. And if G’lornie likes you, all the rest will too. He’s not just a Brown you know,” he added confidentially, lowering his voice as though he was telling me an important secret. “He’s got a knack, he does, for scenting out the bloodlines. He only picks those with the blood of the Ancient Riders in their veins—can smell ‘em a league off. Can’t you, boy?”
He scratched the little Brown behind his eye ridges and G’lornie hummed, his golden eyes going half-lidded with contentment and pleasure.
“That’s my boy.” The courier looked at his mount with real affection and I saw a little of the deep connection a rider has with his dragon. There was something passing between them—some deep communication only they could understand.