Dragons Rising ✔️

Ch 2: Secrets

As soon as I shelled out nearly half a day's wages for an expedited ride across town, I hopped inside the windcarriage and pulled the curtains shut. The carriage's sail whipped to life with a spark of the elent driver's wind magic, and we were on our way. I slipped out of my work suit and shimmied into casual clothes. As always, they were stiflingly modest—Mother's choice, not mine—to conceal as much of my scales as possible. The worst of them were the tail scarves that seemed magnetically attracted to door hinges and cabinet handles.

After several excruciating minutes, the windcarriage stopped in front of my home in the elent district. Still holding out hope that Mother hadn't noticed how late it was, I raced inside.

Ashyr was on the couch, using the floor-length enchanted mirror on the opposite wall to chat with one of her friends. Both of them wore their elemental wands behind their furless ears, which was a dumb trend Ashyr had introduced to her school. My adopted sister was quite the snitch, so I moved as quietly as I could. The smell of sizzling galhok steak and gravy wafted out of the kitchen as I passed.

"Since you're home now, come in and help me finish dinner." Mother's stern voice made me skip a step. Maybe she hadn't noticed the time. Maybe she was just upset because she'd had a long day at work.

"Uh, I think I ate a bad apple at lunch, and I'm not feeling well. I was going to lay down for a while." And nurse my sore tail.

Mother rushed out into the hallway and gasped. For a split second, I thought I'd forgotten to cover up some 'important' body part, but she grabbed my wrist. A thin line of blood had soaked through my sleeve from my wrist to elbow. It was so thin and insignificant that I'd barely felt it in the heat of the dragons' battle.

"What happened to your arm?"

I'd probably fallen on a sharp stone during the fight—or I could've scraped my arm on a nail when I fell in the stables—but neither answer would keep me from getting grounded. I needed a nice, safe, horse-related excuse.

"I got cut on-" What sharp things would be around horses? "A tack hook. I tripped and fell on it."

"Do injuries like this happen often at your work?" She ducked into the kitchen and returned with a damp rag to pull up my sleeve and dab at my arm.

"No, this is the first time anything like this has happened. It's really safe there."

Her face contorted into the is-this-too-dangerous look that had ended many fun activities over the years.

"What if it does happen again, and-" She let go of my wrist and pressed a hand over her mouth as if she was imagining all the horrible fates that could befall me at a horse barn. If she knew the truth, she might just keel over in shock.

"It's safe there, I promise." I wished I could put my whole heard into an argument, but I could already see the answer in her eyes. She was utterly convinced that the disease that made me grow scales instead of fur would somehow become lethal if I exerted myself too much around the big, 'dangerous' animals.

"I'll have to talk to your father about it," she said at last.

That was her way of saying 'I'll convince your father to ground you after dinner.'

She retrieved a roll of bandages from the kitchen and wrapped my arm.

"Right now, you should go to your bedroom and rest until dinner." She let go of my arm and turned to leave, muttering something about how I'd die young.

What a comforting thought. Thank goodness I only had six days before I'd be free of her suffocating rules forever. 

***

My throbbing tail dragged me awake at an unholy hour. Glaring at the sliver of darkness coming through my bedroom curtains, I rolled over and tried to fall asleep again. My parents' muffled voices foiled that plan.

"-cut herself on a tack hook, isn't that strange?" Mother asked.

"Not especially."

I hadn't thought it was such a weird story, but apparently Mother did.

"How sharp can a tack hook be? And- and why is she falling over it in the first place? You don't think-" She lowered her voice, and I sat up straighter to listen. "-she's been going somewhere else?"

Father chuckled. "Honey, she's making good grades, and she does her chores. If she's sneaking off to see her friends, let her."

"I'm not talking about sneaking off to see friends."

Did she know where I'd been going—or at least suspect it? No, she couldn't have guessed. Normal teenagers didn't sneak out to work with dangerous beasts. Working at the stables didn't even pay that much. Most of my coworkers only worked there because Fraitan's lax interviewing process made it so easy to get a job.

"You can't seriously believe she's out there practicing," Father said, the word 'practicing' sounding like the foulest insult when he said it. "Where would she get a wand?"

I'd been leaning so far off the bed to hear them that I fell off with an audible thud. Cursing my luck, I scrambled to my feet and cradled my aching arm. My parents had fallen silent.