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 liked it when he held my feet for sit-ups, and I especially liked it when he held my legs when I did pull-ups. At first I could only hang from the bar, but after a lot of effort, I was able to do more and more until I was up to twelve.
Ryse could do fifty without stopping himself, but he never denigrated me or called me weak. He just wrapped his arms around my legs and gave me a little boost so I could do “just one more” when I felt like I had reached my limit. Then he would help me down by supporting my weight as I came off the bar and setting me gently on my feet. It seemed like he always held me just a fraction of a second longer than he needed to, but I didn’t complain—I loved it.
Even when he sweated, he smelled good—like leather and clean, masculine musk. I hate to say that I noticed, but I did—I couldn’t help it. We were spending more and more time together and he was big and tall and strong and protective. Though I knew he could never return my feelings, I confess I began to get a little flutter in my stomach every time he was near.
Besides the hour we spent together in the morning, I went flying with him every day during our Battlefield Signaling class. Sometimes, when I was soaring on M’alex’s back with Ryse’s arms wrapped firmly around me, I thought that I had never been happier in my life.
But we weren’t completely joined at the hip. After some argument, I ate breakfast and lunch at my old table with Jorn-o and my friends, and had dinner with Ryse at his table in the evenings. After a few days of this, the Second-years seemed to accept my presence and there weren’t so many hard looks thrown my way.
I ate with a better appetite now, but every night, Ryse gave me his own bowl of Dragon Custard to eat along with my own.
“I can’t eat two bowls,” I protested, the first time he did it.
“You can and you will,” was his firm reply. “You need to build up your strength. Impression Day is just around the corner and after that, it won’t be long before Hatching Day. Once your dragon cracks its shell, you’re going to need as much stamina as you can get to keep up with it.”
“Are newly hatched dragons really that hard to deal with?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, besides wanting to be fed every hour, growing so fast you can practically see them getting bigger, molting—which makes them itchy, so they need to be bathed and oiled constantly—no, they’re not so bad,” Ryse said dryly.
I could feel my eyes getting wider as I stared at him.
“I didn’t know about all that.”
“I’ve heard married cadets say it’s as hard as having a newborn human baby—only the baby in question gets bigger than you are in the first few days and big enough to sit on you and accidentally squash you in the first few weeks,” he said. He shook his head. “I swear when M’alex first hatched, I didn’t sleep for a month straight.”
“Mine kept me up all night, every night wanting me to sing to him,” another Second-year cadet called Stets chimed in.
“Mine practically lived in the Dragon Baths,” another one said.
“Wait—the Dragon Baths?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, they’re on Level Five, where the Dragon Caverns are,” Stets told me. “They’re kind of like a bigger version of the Cook-pot.”
“A bigger version?” I asked, wide-eyed. The Cook-pot was already big enough for two hundred cadets to swim in it at once. I couldn’t imagine an even bigger pool inside the mountain.
“It’s huge—big enough for twenty or thirty dragons at a time. But they keep the shallow end free for the hatchlings when they come out,” Ryse assured me. “Drakelings grow so fast they shed their skin constantly. The Academy goes through mountains of scrubbing sand and gallons of hide oil every year.”
I tried to imagine washing and oiling my very own dragon and couldn’t. Though I still had the dreams of flying and hoped desperately to Impress an egg, Professor Leesbruck’s words kept ringing in my head. I didn’t believe I would get a dragon from the present clutch of eggs.
I had no idea how right…and how wrong I was, and I wouldn’t find out until Impression Day.
34
AURORA
We got word the eggs were ready halfway through the morning. I was in the middle of my History class when a runner came panting to the door.
“What is it?” the professor demanded, glaring at the red-faced cadet. “How dare you interrupt my class?”
“Sorry, Professor, but it’s happening!” The runner exclaimed. “Master says the eggs are hardened and the dragons have started humming. Can’t you hear them?”