Bleeding Ink

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Corliss glared at Meron as they sat cross-legged across from each other. She tried not to allow her eyes to drop to the bruise that started blooming across his left cheekbone or the blood that still oozed from his split lip. His healing magic hadn't taken hold yet to fix it. Good.

Ruvyn circled them, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't going to let them out of his sight anytime soon after their fight just a few minutes before. Luckily, Gaven had been gone for a few days for training and hadn't witnessed the stunt the both of them tried to pull, which ended disastrously.

"You both are complete idiots," Ruvyn scolded. "Do you know what could have happened if Odanth and Ollyn didn't stop in time? You could have collided mid-air and injured not only yourselves but your dragons as well."

"She started it," Meron blamed, hands curling into fists on his legs.

Corliss rolled her eyes and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Oh, sure I did, you big idiot. You were the one who had Ollyn basically cut Odanth off. We're supposed to be working with them in flying together, not against one another!"

"We've only been flight training for a week. There's no way Odanth would have known to..."

"That doesn't matter! Why would I have him nose dive at you when it would have...?"

"Gods, you're infuriating."

"Same to you."

"That's enough!" At Ruvyn's shout, both Corliss and Meron snapped their mouths shut. "I don't care who's at fault because you both are in the way I saw it. Your dragons are doing wonderful, but you two...you two need a hell of a lot of work if you're to be in this together. I don't care about the conflicts you two seemingly have with each other. How could you even have any when you've literally known each other for just a few months?"

Neither one of them said a word.

Ruvyn sighed as he ran his fingers through his dark hair, looking back out toward the main corridor of the caves. It wasn't hard to tell he was looking for Gaven, who was pretty much the only one who could settle the tension between Corliss and Meron, but he had yet to appear. He'd had his own duties in helping train the new riders and was due back after being gone for three days. Three days where Ruvyn had been the one to work with Corliss, Meron, and the dragons.

Three days where he already wanted to strangle them and take the dragons for himself. Too bad he'd have to get through Corliss to strangle Meron since she wanted to get to him first.

They'd been in Eld for all of a month and yet the tensions between them were at an all time high. Corliss had a sneaking suspicion that it was pure jealousy on Meron's part. Not just because of her bloodrite bond with Odanth anymore either. She knew he was watching her, envying her already great reputation with the other riders and even her custom made flying leathers. Now, she was just waiting on her saddle to be finished, but even that was going to take another few days.

And while Odanth and Ollyn were growing and thriving around the other dragons, Corliss and Meron were more and more on edge with each other and fought tooth and nail with words, fists, and swords during training. Neither one of them ever got too bad of a hit on the other, through there were some bruises, black eyes, and split lips that healed within a few hours. When that happened, they were usually forcibly taken to Ruvyn for punishment. Fights between riders weren't tolerated and they were the worst two.

Now, Corliss continued glaring at the male across from her, eyes casting down to his split lip and the dried blood just below it. She could feel the bruises blossoming along her ribs and the twinge of the two broken ones as her magic started slowly healing them.