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)
After History, I went to Flight Theory and then I had Battle Signaling taught by a grizzled old combat veteran, Professor Humbolt. He and his Wing had cleaned out the very last caverns where the Madlings were known to nest and multiply like a plague and he had a lot of war stories to tell us.
Battle Signaling worried me. It was the only class I shared with Ryse Skoren and though I tried to keep out of the Wing Leader’s way, I kept looking up and catching him staring at me with a confused frown on his face.
I didn’t like that he kept looking at me that way. Did he know my secret? Was he going to expose me? So far he hadn’t but his interest in me didn’t seem to waver. I made sure I was always across the room from him so he couldn’t get a good look at me.
The other thing that worried me about Battle Signaling was that I didn’t have a dragon yet. The first part of the semester, we were learning all the signals and flags we had to use to communicate with other Wings in mid-air. But the second part of the semester, we would be practicing what we had learned on dragonback. But since I didn’t have a dragon, how would I manage?
I asked Professor Humbolt, but he only waved me off saying,
“Eh, don’t worry about that lad. We’ll get you sorted when the time comes.”
Which wasn’t a satisfactory answer, as far as I was concerned. But I had to be content with it.
After Battle Signaling, the Great Bell tolled for lunch, and everyone scrambled down to the Mess Hall.
I continued to sit with Jorn-o and my other First-year friends. They told me all about their classes and asked about mine. I let them know what they could expect for the Second-year curriculum, which often caused groans and cries of, “What? How do they expect us to learn all that?”
I might have asked the same thing if the tutor my father had hired for Auren hadn’t been so strict and thorough. I was grateful daily for his rigorous teaching methods. They allowed me to compete with and even succeed against the older and bigger Second-year students—though I was careful never to broadcast my success. Still, some of my professors would say things like,
“I can’t believe the highest grade on this test was from a First-year student! You boys need to do better!”
As anyone might imagine, this kind of talk caused resentment. I tried to keep my head down, but I could feel the eyes of my classmates on me whenever it occurred. It made me angry—couldn’t the professors who talked like that see they were making me a target? Professor Griven, who had called me a coward, was especially bad about it. I wondered if he was trying to cure me of my “cowardice” by putting me in harm’s way and provoking the older boys to hurt me.
Whatever the case, I was glad of the two First-year classes I had after lunch that had only my own age group in them.
The first of them was Botanical Healing for Dragons and Riders, taught by our Head Healer, who—surprisingly—was a woman. Professor Emmeline Zephyr had a quiet, controlled way about her that earned her students’ respect. She never raised her voice—she didn’t have to. Even the rowdiest cadets settled down when she turned her calm stare on them. I was in her First-year class instead of the advanced Second-year course because she insisted that no one skip the basic foundations of her art.
I loved learning about all the different healing draughts, salves, unguents, and ointments that could be made and prescribed for dragons and their riders. They ranged from the simplest lotion to prevent windburn on the faces and hands of riders that rode long distances to pain draughts and healing salves for those who had been burned by dragon fire.
I even wondered, wistfully, if I might have become a Healer like Professor Zephyr if only my father had put me forward to the Academy while he was still alive instead of planning to marry me off.
I didn’t really need to fly a dragon to be happy, I told myself. I would be content if I could just stay at the Academy and study and learn new things all my life. Or teach, like the Head Healer. I promised myself if I failed to Impress an egg, I would go to Professor Zephyr and ask her to take me on as an apprentice. But since we were still weeks away from Impression, I didn’t have to worry about it yet.
After the calm and soothing Botanical Healing class came the hair-raising Flight Simulator training. This class I also had with my First-year classmates, though I was far behind my friends. Jorn-o, Leaper, Toady, and Bugs had been playing on the simulator since they were little boys and they barely needed any coaching from Professor Leesbruck, who was Leaper’s father.