Can't Cheat Death - Brennan Sorrengail

V: Assault

My arm aches as I stretch up over my head, relieving some of the tension that had built up in my neck. The deep slash that had kept my arm tender for a week and a half after my last match was healing normally, though the healer, Winifred, had promised a speedy recovery, it would unfortunately leave a scar trailing diagonally across my bicep. Hugh and Abel had promised it looked badass, but something twinged in me every time I caught sight of it. What would my father say if he could see me now? Or Xaden?

You're going to get yourself killed!

His voice still echoes in my ears, with each tender ache of my arms healing muscles, they come roaring back into my head. He'd been so worried, and I can't even blame him. If it had been Xaden leaving on a possibly (more like highly plausible) suicide mission, I'd be more than a little cross as well. But I would have seen him off. I would have hugged him one last time.

The growing bitterness of my brother's nature was a taste I'm unfortunately growing accustomed to. Ever since we were kids, we'd talked of entering the Rider's Quadrant, our father had spoken highly of his own father, our grandfather, and his great Blue Daggertail, and we'd been enamored ever since. Every night, our father would curl up with us and regale us with tales of his father, which looking back on it, were probably just as true as stories of the Wyverns and Venin his wife had used to scare us into obedience.

The memories of our childhood, when the worst thing that could happen was to be grounded or refused dessert for a week, brings a smile to my face. Sometimes it's hard to imagine that Xaden won't be that thirteen year old kid when I leave Basgiath, but looking up at the stars I can almost imagine him sitting beside me, all gangly limbs and broody glares, stargazing as we so often did in Aretia.

I miss them. I love the little family I've made between my squad and Alill's, I don't know if I would have gotten this far without them. But my family... We'd only been here a month, but I find myself already counting down the days until second year, when I can finally send a letter to them, as close to speaking as I'll possibly come until after graduation.

Xaden will probably ignore my letter, at least the first few. I'm not even sure he'd care to ever hear from me again, but I refuse to let go of the little hope that still gleams in my chest. He'll get over it, I think, once he sees I've bounded a dragon, that I'm just like our grandfather, he'll calm down.

Father will probably respond right away, maybe even force Xaden to write something, before sending it back to Basgiath. I can almost picture my father's cursive handwriting, more attuned to the curving and looping nature of the Tyrrish he'd learned as a boy than the common language used by the rest of Navarre. Xaden's penmanship would be hard and slanting, using more ink than necessary and bleeding through the pages onto our fathers work desk, and all but stabbing holes through the parchment.

I chuckle at the thought of him taking out his anger on some poor piece of parchment and quill, huffing and puffing. I can only hope he'll take after our father as he gets older, grow out of whatever phase he's in by the next time I see him.

"Riorson!" I turn away from the moonlit sky, and climbing the last set of stairs to the outlook tower is Alice Killip, a sweet girl from my squad, though we don't talk very much. "You're free to go!"

"About time," I grin. "Have fun." I squeeze her shoulder as I pass by to start the descent down the stairway.

"I'll try," she sighs, though both of us know she won't. We'd had the same conversation every night for the last two weeks.

"Maybe next month you'll get a better rotation." I grimace. Sentries were some of the only 'chores' freshman handled alongside the upperclassmen. Unfortunately 5 of us from First Wing had been chosen to handle guarding the towers, a great honor and responsibility, but also a rather boring, menial task. I don't think many gryphon riders could manage flying this far inland, let alone be dumb enough to attack the most well protected hatching grounds on the continent.