Boreal

Chapter Fourteen

"You what?" Shyam hissed, her eyes wide.

"Hush up!" Ptarmigan snapped back. "They made me swear not to tell anyone!"

"I can't believe you'd be so...so...urgh!"

Shyam clicked her beak, her crest raised at half-mast. Her talons flexed, and for the first time in a long time, Ptarmigan was glad she'd chosen to perch on the fence, and not on his shoulders. Long, curved claws dug at least an inch into the sodden wood, in and out, in and out, as she chittered to herself. Lost in thought, verging on anger. Ptarmigan turned away, trying his best to ignore her.

The Academy's training field was seething with people. The large, open expanse was one of the few places in the city clear of towers completely, sat nestled at the very western tip of the Academy grounds. It took up a good chunk of the upper step, easily covering half a league. The fields back in Hayd had been lined with grass, but here, the runways were formed from frost-bitten gravel, leading towards the cliff edge and the waiting oblivion below. Dragons and drakes rushed along the strips. Racing each other, beating their wings hard as they picked up speed, before letting gravity take them when the ground ran out. Wyverns danced in the cloudy sky above, ducking and weaving around each other – Show birders, Ptarmigan reckoned, practicing for the coming displays.

Some carried adults, fully fledged racers, though others were ridden by pairs, one larger, and one much smaller. Children, and their instructors. They were chased by juveniles, mirroring the positioning of the older mounts with such precision they may as well have been their shadows.

Ptarmigan sighed, slumping down to sit back on his haunches. His own racing mask was growing cold in his hands. Made of clay and painted white, foggy glass eyes peering back at him. Harrier had urged him to rush – the thirteenth gong of the day had long since passed, and they wouldn't want their instructors to worry now, would they?

The deal had been simple; Ptarmigan wouldn't tell of what the Guardian Captains had asked him to do, and Harrier would look past anything and everything they'd done in their pursuit of the monster, the angel. They'd even allowed him to keep their lantern, now tucked safely away in the bottom of his satchel. Though now it seemed it was well and truly broken; no matter what he tried, he couldn't get it to spark back to life.

He wouldn't tell anyone, but Shyam wasn't just anyone. She was his mount, and as he'd seen her, hidden in the weeds at the edge of the field waiting for him, he knew he couldn't keep it a secret.

Now he was beginning to wish he had.

"I know what we saw," She hissed, "that wasn't a dragon."

"They said it was, showed me too, the claw marks matched up."

"That...that thing wasn't a mount." She shook her head. "Why would a mount hurt people?"

"We don't know if it's been hurting people."

"Oh, aye, because the Show master – after it attacked him – simply strolled off with it. We saw his mount attacking something-"

"Something with no starlight. Everything has starlight, Shyam."

"Almas said-"

"Well, maybe Almas was wrong," he snapped.

She was beginning to get to him, her words mirroring the little, nagging voice in the back of his head. There were other things, too, of course; Grebe seemed to know what was going on, and Harrier's explanation of the list had been flimsy at best. And, of course, the Dockmaster had been rambling about angels when last Fulmar had seen him. But no, no, Harrier and Vivaan had to be right. The gashes had been made by a dragon, and if there truly was a monster beneath the city, surely, someone would have discovered it long before they had.