The Golden Rider Book 1: The Golden Traitor

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“Yeah!  Bath time!   Hey Val, watch this!” Jacey took off running before diving into the lake.  “Well?”

“I’d give it a solid six.  You bent your knees.”

“Darn it!”  She floated on her back and waited for me to jump in.  “Why do you make it look so natural?”

“Because that’s how I roll.  Now, sit on the rock.”  She swam over towards the flat rock by the bank where the lake lets out into a river.  I got out of the water and brought over the soap and bucket.  I ran the soap through her hair and then dumped water on top to rinse it out.  I wove her hair into an intricate braid before letting her dart off into the lake.  I began to wash my own hair.  When I finished, I tossed her a rag wrapped around a bar of soap so she could clean the rest of herself off.  She rolled up her sleeves to get to her shoulders.

“Is Aiden coming later?” I asked.

“Nah.  He went to Viktor to get an extra training session in.  What a moron.  Who wants to train with Viktor?”  Jacey answers.  We swam around a bit before getting out.  We each picked up our pile of dirty clothes and started washing them.  It took a while to clean everything off especially since Jacelyn insists on wearing like, two outfits a day.  Once we finished, we picked up our things before heading back to the Academy.  Today was our day off from classes, so Jacey forced me to come with her.  I only agreed because she reminded me that I promised to take her when she had the bad hair day.

When we reached the entrance gate, we saw that Aiden was in the Courtyard with Viktor.  Aiden was sweating a lot and his face was all red, but he continued to block Viktor’s advances.

“Wow.  He’s doing pretty well,” I said.

“Go Aiden!  Kick his butt!”  Aiden was distracted by Jacey’s outburst for only a moment, but it allowed Viktor to knock him off his feet.

“Nice work today, Aiden.  You’ve improved over break.”  Viktor held out his hand to help Aiden back up.

“Ha, thanks,” he said with a smile and accepted his hand.  Viktor gave him a pat on the back before heading back into the Academy.  Once Viktor was out of sight, he let out a loud sigh and collapsed back to the ground.  “Man, I’m beat.”

“When did you get really good?” Jacey asked and sat down next to him. He shrugged.

“I dunno.  Maybe Val’s bracelet thing got to my head.”  Jacey snorted.

“Yeah right.  If it did then she would have gotten it for me, right Val?”

“Sure.  Whatever you say.”  I looked up when I heard footsteps to see Justin coming our way.

“Aiden, Headmaster wants to see you right away,” he said.

“Aw man.  That means I have to get up,” he groaned.  I helped him back to his feet and handed him one of the wet towels I had.  He thanked me and followed Justin back into the Academy.

“Well, I have to go Val.  Remy told me that she wanted to see me sometime today to talk about my lost book.”  Jacey waved goodbye and headed back into the Academy.  I figured that with the two of them gone I had nothing better to do, so I decided to head back to my room to get started on the work I had to do.  Remy had assigned us another project that involved researching different herbs and stuff, and I was clueless about everything involving plants.  I figured that Aiden and Jacey would be just as lost, so I better get a head start if I wanted to help them pass.  I got back to my room and took my boots off to let my feet breathe.