The Secrets of Arcana

Julian

"Julian get your royal self out of bed and get ready. We have a race!"

The curtains are thrown open, letting blinding light straight into my eyes. I groan and try to cover my head with my large bedding but it's snatched from on top of me and I hear it fall to the floor.

"God, you two, you couldn't even knock?" I mumble as I slowly get out of bed.

"We did knock. For five minutes straight. That's Luka's limit." Ada says as she grabs my arm and pulls me up.

I stumble and almost fall before glaring back at her once I've caught my balance. And she just has a sly smirk.

I leave my two idiotic best friends in my room as I head to change into some protective gear and work on changing my appearance.

I constantly go dragon racing, have been for years. But I like to keep my identity a secret. It adds mystery and what can I say? I like adding a little bit of the unknown, and hiding my identity and origin does just that. There's no reason for me not to expose myself. My parents even know about it and they couldn't care less about it, or me.

But enough about all that. Once I'm done getting all of my pitch-black fire-proof gear on and changing my appearance as much as possible, I head back into the main part of my room to see my friends jokingly teasing and flirting with each other. I just roll my eyes and clear my throat so I don't have to watch anymore.

They look over to me and both laugh a little. I'm able to tell they're both a little embarrassed but I've seen them do it so much that it's become hard to tell if it's real or if they just keep doing it to annoy me.

"Can we just get out of here please?" I ask as I start to leave my room.

I hear mumbles behind me as they follow me out of my room and through the complicated twists and turns of the castle.

I've known the two of them for as long as I can remember. I've known Ada all her life since she has lived in the castle all seventeen years, and I've been told Luka showed up a couple of years after her, but I can't remember a time without either of them. I'm the oldest of the three of us, I turn eighteen in a few months, then there's Luka who's about seventeen and a half, and Ada is the youngest and the shortest. She just turned seventeen about a month ago. Luka and I like to call her kid since she's so much shorter, like at least a foot shorter, than the two of us.

She's still the most mature.

My room is on a higher floor of the castle so it takes a little while to get to any door to the outside. We get there eventually though, Luka and I shoving and joking around with each other as Ada looks disappointingly at the both of us the entire trip. We head out to the stables since we're too far from the race to walk. The three of us each climb onto the back of a horse and soon enough we're on our way.

The horses held in the royal stables are racing horses. My father used to gamble on them all the time, but now that he doesn't have any free time he lets them train and be held on the castle grounds, and all of that means we get to the Outskirts pretty fast.

Once we get close enough to the meeting area that we can see people, I pull my hood over my head to try and disguise my hair a little more. We dismount from our horses and leave them in the make-shift temporary stables before heading to the dragon caves.

Since racing isn't the most legal thing, the planners of the race don't have much money for proper holding areas or the dragons. They deserve better, especially the larger dragons.

Like mine.

I've raised my dragon since before he hatched. I found the egg on a trip with my father when I was younger. He's very obedient and listens to my every command.

We've won every race we've had together.

My dragon's name is Hades. He's pitch back with identical smoke always pouring from his nose. He has large spikes as sharp as blades at the tip. Thick scales stretch across his entire body, seen the easiest on his chest and long wings. His blood-red eyes contrast the rest of him. If a race is at night or he's in a cave, they're all you can see. The rest of his body is disguised, leaving only his deadly stare.

Luka's dragon is Blaze. He's a blood-red shade, with large spikes across and down his neck. There are two large spies on his head that look like horns. His fire is always bright orange, brighter than I've ever seen before. He's a pretty large dragon, only a tiny bit smaller than Hades.

Ada's dragon is Artemis. She's a light gray dragon that is almost reflective in the light. She has crystal blue eyes and large patterned scales on her back. She's very long and skinny which may not sound like the best thing, but those two characteristics make her one of the fastest dragons I know, and Hades and I have only barely beaten her before. She's seriously impressive. Artemis and Ada.

Once I've tightened the saddle around Hades' back I head out for a walk. Not too far, just around the Outskirts a tiny bit so I have an idea of the course we're going to be riding through.

I'm only out here for races. I've honestly just never really cared for the history of it in general. I like to stay in my kingdom, where I'm respected without trying. I'm still respected out here, but we only go by our dragons' names. No one knows any rider's actual name, which is how I've been able to keep mine a secret for so long.

People look at the dragons, never the riders.

I've turned around and started heading back towards the caves when I feel something run into me.

I wasn't really paying attention to where I was walking since I was trying to keep my hood up to hide my face. So, I just assumed that I ran into something. But when I looked down I saw a girl standing up from the ground.

"Watch where you're going would you?"