The "dangerous" place Baylen led me to turned out to be the Academy's main dining hall.
The moment we stepped through the wide archway, warmth wrapped around me — thick with the scent of roasted meats, fresh bread, melted butter, and something sweet and spiced that made my stomach tighten in immediate betrayal. The noise hit next. Laughter bouncing off high stone ceilings. The scrape of wooden benches. The steady clatter of plates and cutlery. Someone arguing loudly about aerial form in the far corner.
The hall was enormous, long trestle tables running in rows beneath iron chandeliers shaped like dragon wings. Sunlight poured through the tall windows along the west wall, catching in banners that bore the Academy crest and casting strips of gold across the floor.
Students were everywhere, some still flushed from flying, hair windswept, uniforms half-buttoned and grass-streaked from dragon ball, others had mounds of books in front of them as they ate. A few dragons lounged just outside the open doors, visible through the archways, their shadows occasionally sweeping across the stone.
My stomach growled.
Loudly.
Baylen's grin widened as he heard it.
"See?" he said, spreading his hands like a victorious tour guide. "I told you it was dangerous. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times I've nearly slipped into a food coma in here."
"Number of fingers," I replied, "or number of brain cells?"
He stopped mid-step and turned to me with a theatrical look of injury, pressing a hand to his chest as though I'd wounded him deeply.
"I risk my reputation to escort you safely," he said, beginning to walk backward toward the buffet line, "and this is the thanks I get?"
Kayne snorted quietly beside me.
Baylen pointed a warning finger at me as he continued retreating. "Keep speaking to me like that and I will formally resign as your assigned guard."
"You weren't formally assigned," I called after him.
"Details!" he shot back.
I laughed, really laughed, and the sound startled me more than anyone else.
It felt strange, laughing in a place like this. Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.
As Baylen marched forward, keeping his eyes on the food ahead, I was watching people instead.
Who sat with whom. Who leaned into conversations. Who avoided eye contact. Who watched too closely.
Trust wasn't something I handed out easily. The island had taught me self-reliance, not alliances. I knew how to listen to the forest, how to track movement through underbrush, how to sleep lightly and wake at the smallest shift in air.
People were harder to read than trees.
But Kayne stood close without crowding me. Baylen kept glancing back to make sure I was still following. Neither pushed. Neither demanded.
The air was warmer. Softer. Inside these walls, surrounded by familiar voices and harmless arguments about training drills and dragon tactics
I'd grown used to wind in the trees. To the hush of leaves shifting against one another. To birdsong in the morning and the steady rhythm of the tide at night. Sound there had space between it. Here, it overlapped. Layered. Pressed close.
Ahead of us, near the center tables, I spotted a cluster of first years I recognized. Ton hunched over a plate already half demolished, Aelric animatedly explaining something with far too much arm movement, Sige sitting upright and composed even while eating, and Roland leaning back in his chair like he owned the place.
YOU ARE READING
Through Smoke and Ashes
Fantasía*Undergoing editing. Half of these chapters were written when I was a child.* Book One: There is no prophecy. There is no tell-tale legend. There is no scripture written down in a book or a hidden cave. There is only the spoken word of the Gods. Dar...
