The Dragon Games

The Cave

Scalding hot air swept across the floor, waking me. Chick must have left the bloody windows open again. How many times do I have to remind him how hot the burrow gets, even during the winter months? 

 Wait. I don't live in the orphanage anymore. I opened my eyes to find myself staring up at the roof of a cave. All at once, the previous night rushed back to me: the ritual, the wyvern, the constellation. After I guessed the wyvern's true name, it dropped me off at a cave in the mountainside. While the wyvern flew away, doing gods know what, I passed out from exhaustion.

Slowly, I sat up to find two onyx eyes pinned on my face, narrow as knives. The wyvern perched at the cave's entrance, its shoulders tense and coiled to lunge. Had Elio survived? Or was this his last sight before he died? I forced the thought from my head. One problem at a time. I had to make sure the wyvern did not kill me first.

"Brox – toh – sis," I said slowly, my tongue tripping over the foreign word, butchering its name.

A low growl tumbled from its throat, and its lips pulled back, revealing a cruel set of jaws.

"Toh?" I tried again, sticking to the only syllable I was confident pronouncing.

It settled back down, its lips drawing into a flat line. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it hadn't bitten my head off yet, which was probably the closest thing to a 'yes' I'd get from a dragon. Swallowing hard, I picked myself off the floor. Every rational part of my brain said run for the exit, but I forced myself to do the opposite.

Keeping my eyes pinned on the wyvern, I slowly drew forward. I half expected the wyvern to lunge, to close its jaw around me with a vicious snap, but it stayed completely still, like a statue in the garden. 

Only its eyes moved, the cat-like slits tracking my every move. All too soon, I was only three feet away, standing close enough to breathe the same air. Then I was a foot away, and I stretched out my hand in offering – only for my boot to snag on a crack in the ground, making me fall flat on my chest.

"Heh heh heh."

The wyvern made a rhythmic hissing noise, almost like a succession of snorts, then prowled out of the cave. I blinked several times, staring at the empty space it had just occupied – had it just bloody laughed? Then I pushed myself up, following it out the exit.

The cave perched on a mountainside, hundreds of feet in the air. Its height gave a full view of the valley ahead, of the rolling green mountains extending as far as the eye could see. The burning sun rose over one of the mountain's shoulders, painting the river at the base of the valley a glimmering silver. 

Cassian called it the River of Tears. While the winners fly into the amphitheater to be received by massive crowds from all over the kingdom, the dragonless pledges use the river as their guide out, making the long trek on foot. I've overheard many pledges call it a fate worse than death, but they'll have to make peace with it soon. Today was the final day of Blood Fest, after all.

The wyvern – Toh – tipped its shoulder at me, the smallest of movements. From Instructor Gallagher's lesson, I knew it was doing the stance that allows its rider to climb on its back. Or at least a modified version of it. Most dragons stooped low, bowing their head all the to the ground in a sign of respect, but it seemed Toh wasn't quite there yet. Toh bent, like, all of two millimeters.

I took one look between the long drop and the hatchling, and then I backed away to scale the mountain by foot. My fear of the wyvern had nothing on my fear of heights.

As I descended the rocky decline, Toh prowled a few paces back, probably waiting for me to change my mind and climb aboard. I didn't even consider it, though, too busy wondering if there was enough time to find another dragon. A tamer, older dragon, one less prone to bouts of –