The Dragon Games

Master Class Pupil

For our next class, we filed into a place even stranger to me than the dragon stables, a place I have never been before – a traditional classroom. Maps and portraits hung from the walls, sandwiched between bookshelves full of ancient texts. Their cracked spines and yellowed pages reminded me of wounded forest animals, begging to be put out of their misery.

Instructor Austen, the woman from the morning's announcements, taught the class. She had us write our names on two sheets of paper, one for our desk, and one to tack on the wall. I tried not to wince when I looked at the finished product. 

My name immediately stood out, my handwriting looking like a child's scribbles compared to the others' swirly calligraphy.

"Every time you answer a question correctly, I will put a tally by your name," Instructor Austen told the class. "Whoever has the most tallies will receive my vote for the auction." 

She turned to a boy at random, reading off his name tag. "Howard, name one of the three pillars to success at the Blood Moon Festival."

Howard replied automatically, the answer coming as naturally as his home address. "Strategy."

"Very good, Howard." Instructor Austen tallied a point underneath his name. "Buford, name another."

"Strength," Buford said, without a moment's pause.

"And the last one..." Instructor Austen scanned the room, and then her eyes landed on the one pledge ducking her head, purposely avoiding eye contact. "Raven."

I told her that I must have missed that chapter in the textbook, because it seemed like a better excuse than I was too busy committing crimes and being a menace to society to study for the Blood Moon Festival ... but can I interest you in an astrology fact?

"Take a guess," she prompted.

My mind went blank.

"It starts with s."

"Uh... ssssss... strive for greatness?"

"One word."

"Strength?"

"Already written down."

"Soul?"

"Closer."

"Soul stone?"

Instructor Austen's eyes dimmed as if she thought I was mocking her. "Can anyone help her out?"

"Sociality," Gordo said, meeting my eyes with a pointed look. "As in, the ability to be liked."

As heat crawled up my face, Instructor Austen scribbled out the tally she had ambitiously drawn underneath my name and put one under Gordo's. Then she turned back to the class. 

"Today, we will focus on strategy. It was not always regarded so highly. For decades, the Blood Moon Festival had as much strategy as a free-for-all death game – a month of fire, blood, and terror. That is, until a young philosopher named Polixenes came along, claiming that if you studied the stars during the months preceding the festival, you would find the gods leaving a trail to the best dragon in the arena. The scholars of his day wrote Polixenes off as a loon, too weak and stupid to bond with so much as a drake."

Instructor Austen crossed the room, standing in front of a portrait of a rugged old man with a scar cutting across his forehead, just below his crown. 

"But when he bonded with the most powerful dragon in the arena, Polixenes the loon became Polixenes the king. For every following Blood Moon Festival, the court's prophet deciphers the stars. He copies his answer in whatever form he desires – a drawing, a riddle, a symbol, a challenge, an order – then his findings are duplicated and distributed to all pledges on the morning of the Blood Moon Festival."