the knuckles, knowing from past experience how much that would hurt. If I connected, he would just drop his staff.
I swung from a different angle, a really easy, two-handed swipe. All he had to do was push out with two hands on his own staff to catch mine. He flinched again, raising his arms too late, tangling his staff into mine.
My staff thudded into his shoulder and he slipped, one hand grabbing my own arm and bringing me tumbling down with him in a desperate attempt to steady himself.
I hit the ground and air whooshed out of my lungs. The sand hurt. I spat out a bite of dirt and rolled off him. “By the first dragon!” I stood, my face hot and bruises sore. I heard the laughter from the other trainees. Everyone had seen that.
Everyone knows I’ve got no chance of surviving in the saddle with this stupid peasant.
“Sorry…sorry, Thea. I tripped.” Sebastian got to his feet, wincing and brushing at himself. We all wore the uniforms of trainees now—a leather jerkin over a cotton tunic, and thick cotton trousers and boots. The cotton clothes were as fine as any I had at home, and the leather jerkins were in the colors to match our dragons. Somehow, Sebastian still managed to look dirty and unkempt in his Academy clothes, his hair was still a wild mess, and while he didn’t stink, he just didn’t look like he belonged. But if he went, I did, too. That meant I had to make this work somehow.
I glared at him, but muttered in a tight voice, “it’s fine. Fine!” From the look in his eyes, I could tell he didn’t believe it was. He’s going to let me down. All the hard work I was putting in was going to be wasted. I felt miserable. I just want to make Father proud of me. I wanted to prove to them all that I was worthy of being here, as I was from the House of Flamma. And Sebastian could mean I ended up getting kicked out.
He looked at me like a kicked puppy, but before I could try to explain things to him again, one of the dragon horns blew. Weapons practice was over for the afternoon. We only had an hour to clean up before the evening meal. We were on free time.
“Okay. We’ll get it tomorrow,” I said, dismissing him with a shaken nod. I turned to the weapons sheds to take back our staves. I heard Sebastian say something, but I was already walking away. I felt bad for ignoring him, but he needed something to make him start paying attention. I didn’t know if it made him feel any better, but I also ignored Shakasta who tried to start a conversation with me about how hopeless my partner was. I didn’t want to hear that.
With a sigh and a groan, I put the quarterstaffs back in their stacks by the door of the shed. I seized a short bow and a quiver of practice arrows. I had time before the meal and archery had always helped to clear my head. The concentration of it calmed my nerves.
The Academy was really mostly practice yard, when all was considered. The stone walls had six towers that formed a circle around the old keep. The keep was made up of a bunch of buildings all made of stone with a kitchen, a kitchen garden, the great hall where we met, the room where we dined and had lessons with its long tables, the rooms where we slept with two or five to a room, the store rooms, and then a lot of open space between the tower walls and the keep. I’d learned that in times of emergency, a dragon carrying a wounded rider could land right inside the Academy, between the walls and the keep. The open space left a lot of room for weapons drills, and the archery range stood at one end of that space, round targets fixed to straw dummies shaped like enemy warriors.
Taking up a position in front of the targets, I put my arrows into the ground where I could reach them. I breathed deep, centering myself, allowing my mind to become focused on one point. Fitting an arrow to the bow-string, I aimed and took a shot. I like to shoot quickly, a skill my brothers had told me was worth learning for us in a dragon saddle.
Gretchen Galway, Lucy Riot