The Golden Rider Book 1: The Golden Traitor

Prologue

The Golden Traitor

Prologue

I do not know my parents.  My friends do not know their parents; my enemies do not know their parents; nobody I know knows their parents.  We had them, of course, but we were too young to ever remember them.  If you were born with the writings of the dragons down your spine, the Watchers ripped you away and took you to one of the Academies to train you.  Whenever an egg was found, they held a large assembly and paraded the egg around until it found its master.  Eggs were found all of the time, so few rarely looked forward to these meetings.  I was one who did.  I have for over sixteen years.

Whenever a dragon is born, it marks their rider who was supposed to be born at the same time.  It was an ancient system, and no one questioned it.  So I guess when my parents saw those ancient words on my back, they sent for the Watchers and here I am.  The only problem is, my dragon egg has yet to show up.

All of my friends have their dragons.  Aiden has a large yellow dragon named Bane.  Jacelyn has an orange dragon named Thalia.  Everyone who has ever made fun of me because I don’t have my dragon has their dragons.  Mason and his red dragon Jericho were the main culprits.  Then, there was his group of friends, Karel, Evan, Austin and Grace along with their Dragons Frey, Hadrian, Hazel and Anastasia.  They thought they were all that because they believed they were going to be chosen for the Warriors because of their special abilities.

We all grew up together because we are in the same class level.  When we first started training at the age of seven, it was okay not to have a Dragon.  At that age, we were all pretty good friends.  I may have even had a crush on Mason, but that’s history.  All five of them found their Dragons and were training with them along with the older kids.  By the time we were about ten years old, about half of the people had dragons, and I was still considered normal for not having one.

Mason, Karel, Evan, Austin and Grace all have different colored dragons.  Mason’s dragon Jericho is red; Karel’s Frey is dark blue; Hadrian is forest green; Hazel is a light blue, and Anastasia is a purple.  All of their dragons have special abilities, and they parade around the school as if they own it.  Both Mason and Jericho could wield fire while Karel and his dragon can control water.  Evan and Hadrian can control the earth to some extent, but it is not as easy to wield as the others because the earth is solid unlike fire or water.  Austin and Hazel can change the wind patterns, and Grace and Anastasia can change people’s emotions.

Not all dragons have a special power which is why they believe that they were so cool and powerful.  They picked on the people who didn’t have powers or dragons, and after a while when we were thirteen, I was the only one in our year who did not have a dragon.  I had their undivided attention.  Over the next three years, it slowly grew worse and worse.  I still took the classes everyone else took like Weapons and Defenses.  This was so when I got my dragon, I would still be ready.  I couldn’t take other classes that required a dragon like Dragon and Rider Fighting because I don’t have my dragon.  I would sit out and watch as everyone fought in the air, while I picked up on tactics.  I hated being behind in classes.

They would tease me, saying that I was the freak, the girl who had the Marks, but not the Dragon.  Whenever that happened, I would train harder just to prove to them that I didn’t need a Dragon to make me stronger.  I was still better than most of the students in my level, but those five still surpassed me easily.  They had too much strength coming from their dragons.  But I was going to work hard so when I found my Dragon, I would be the best rider around.  Mason and his group would never be able to bother me again.

>>>Picture of Valerie