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)
“You’ll wear it when you go to the Academy,” I remembered him telling Auren. “It’s magic you know—the Dragon Glass was forged by a Pure Gold dragon—one of the last ever seen before they all disappeared.”
“What does it do?” Auren had asked, his pale purple eyes wide with interest as my father fastened the pendant around his neck. It had been fashioned into the shape of a dragon’s head, lifted as though to breathe flame, and the obsidian was liberally speckled with flecks of gold, as all Dragon Glass was.
“Ahh, it’s magic is subtle but real,” was the reply. “It makes you into what you believe yourself to be—into what you want others to see when they look at you. So if you believe yourself to be courageous and competent and strong, why, that’s what you’ll be and that’s what they’ll see.” He had pounded Auren gently on the shoulder. “Wear it always—never take it off,” he told my brother. “Especially at the Academy. But remember—the amulet will work on humans, but not on dragons. The Noble ones are the only drakes with fire hot enough to forge the Dragon Glass, so they can see through its glamour. With them, you just have to be yourself and hope that they approve.”
It was that last part that made me nervous. I hoped that my family’s Dragon Glass pendant could help me pull off my deception among the professors and the other students, but with the dragons, I would be on my own.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to be near them that much, I reasoned with myself as I walked along the ledge to F’lorn’s old cave. After all, the beasts were too huge to be quartered with their riders. They had their own caverns, located around the top of the dormant volcano the Academy was built on. From what my father had said, the riders were quartered lower down. Only the most esteemed riders and professors had their own caverns, big enough for a man to live in close proximity to his dragon.
At any rate, I was going now. My formerly luscious locks had been shorn to a spiky cut that completely negated my beauty. No Baron or Duke would want me now, no matter how impressive my bloodlines. Also, the cupboards were bare—I’d had the very last of the weak tea for breakfast and there was no food at all left. I would starve to death before my hair grew out, making me presentable again, so I had no choice.
I’m going, I told myself. I’m going for Auren but I’m also going for me. I won’t live my life as some man’s plaything and servant. I’m worth more than that.
I lifted my chin and headed into the F’lorn’s old cave with determination.
“Ah, there you are!” the courier—whose name I still didn’t know—exclaimed when I came in, just as though he’d been hunting for me instead of the other way around. “Your hair looks better that way,” he added, eying me critically and frowned. “Still too pretty for your own good, though.”
I ignored his words, hoping that the men at the Academy wouldn’t think the same. I’d cut my hair, bound my breasts and I was wearing my family’s pendant—that was the limit of my disguise. At least my short hair made me look more boyish.
The courier’s little brown dragon was dwarfed by the cavernous space, like a puppy put into a kennel meant for a full-grown dog. Contentment radiated off him in waves—I sensed he was happy just to be near his rider. He was much nicer to be near than my father’s dragon had been, I thought. F’lorn had always been in a rage, his anger as hot as his dragon fire. G’lornie wasn’t frightening at all.
Despite the order that we were to leave at six sharp, the courier was sitting on an old stool beside a fire. There was a collapsible metal frame over the licking flames with an iron pan on it. Bacon fat was melting in the blackened bottom of the pan, and he was toasting thick slices of bread in it.
“Yes, here I am,” I said, trying hard not to eye his breakfast. It wasn’t the sight so much as the smells that taunted me. Everything I’d been eating for the past month had almost no odor—bones and tea that had been boiled over and over again. They had lost their aroma long ago. But the rich scent of bacon fat bubbling in the pan tormented me, coming so strongly to my nose that my mouth started to water.
The courier must have seen me eyeing his food, because he made a gesture for me to sit beside him and nodded at the pan.
“Come and help yourself to a slice, if you like, lad,” he said kindly. “It’s not good to fly on an empty stomach.”