Avian (The Dragonrider Chronicles) (27 page)

Lyon looked nervous. “What?”

I was nervous, too. I couldn’t keep myself from shaking as I reached to lay my hands on his broken arm. “I’m going to tell you something, and it’s up to you if you want to turn me in to the instructors or not. If you do, I’ll probably get shipped off to a prison camp right away. Or Thane will save them the trouble and kill me. No one, not even Jace could do anything to stop it.”

I took a deep breath. Lyon was probably the last person in the world I should have been trusting with a secret like this. But if it actually worked, he was going to figure it out anyway. “You already know I can talk to animals.”

He nodded a little. “Yeah, I remember. Like with the paludix turtle last year.”

“Well. That’s not all I can do.” I swallowed hard. “I can heal people, too.”

Lyon’s mouth fell open.

“Felix doesn’t know. No one else does. Well, except for Sile. That’s the other reason I came.” I looked down at his broken arm. “I’m going to fix it.”

“W-will it hurt?” He started stammering. His eyes were wide and afraid. “It hurt so much when they set it. I-I can’t go through that again.”

I shook my head slightly. “I don’t think so.”

Part of me knew I should warn him that doing this might kill me. But he already looked terrified. So I kept that to myself, and gathered my courage. These strange abilities I had were getting stronger. It was getting easier and easier to talk to animals. I barely even had to concentrate to talk to Mavrik. And now I could even feel Nova’s thoughts if I focused hard enough.

It was now or never. I had to try.

With my hands resting on his arm, I knelt down at Lyon’s bedside. I closed my eyes, and looked for that warmth in the back of my mind. I felt it there, tingling like a chill that wanted to spread all over my scalp. I felt the pressure settle on my chest, making it harder to breathe.

My ears began ringing. All around me, the room started to slip away. That little bit of warmth in my mind turned into heat, and it spread all over my body. It was creeping over my skin and making my palms feel like they were on fire. I got the sense like time was slowing down, that the room was spinning, and the pressure on my chest became so intense that I could barely breathe at all. I wanted to panic. The room spun faster, and my vision started to blur.

“No.”
My body jolted suddenly as I heard my mother’s voice in my mind.
“Do not lose focus.”

I braced myself. The room’s spinning slowed a little. The heat on my palms burned like I was sticking my hands into a roaring fire. I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming.

When I had healed Sile’s wife, it had felt like something inside me snapped. This time, it wasn’t like that. This felt like a slow, agonizing tearing sensation in my chest. Like someone was slowly ripping my lungs apart. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t give up. Next to me, I heard Lyon whimper. I felt him try to pull away, so I gripped his arm harder.

Then the tearing sensation stopped. I could breathe again.

My body was suddenly so weak I couldn’t keep myself from falling backwards. I landed on the floor, and I stared up at the ceiling. My ears were still ringing so loudly I could barely hear Lyon calling my name.

Then he slapped me across the face.

It jarred me. The ringing stopped, and I could hear him more clearly. Lyon was crouched on the floor beside me, shaking my shoulders. “Wake up, you idiot! You better not die over a stupid broken arm!”

I blinked, and looked at him. Every inch of my body was numb and tingly. I felt so exhausted I could barely twitch a finger, but I managed to ask, “Did it work?”

Lyon hesitated. He looked down at his arm, which was still wrapped up in bandages. Then, without warning, he began ripping them off. He tore through all the layers of gauze, and held his bare arm up to the light. I watched him wiggle his fingers, and run his hand over the smooth, unmarked skin on his forearm.

His arm was completely healed. There wasn’t even a scar. It didn’t look like it had ever been broken.

Lyon’s eyes were as big as saucers when he stared down at me. “What are you?” I heard him whisper.

I was too tired to say anything, even though the answer was simple. I had absolutely no idea what I was. But one thing was certain: I was getting stronger.

* * *

The last thing I remembered was Lyon pulling one of my arms over his shoulders so he could drag me to my feet. I must have passed out after that because the next thing I knew, I was lying back in my bed in our dorm room. I bolted up right in bed, and it made Felix scream with surprise. He’d been preparing to throw another shoe at me like he did every morning. Apparently, I had startled him.

“Geez!” He started yelling. “Who the heck wakes up like that? What’s wrong with you?”

I ducked as a boot went soaring past my head. Before I could yell back at him, the door to our room opened. Jace was standing there, and he was frowning harder than usual. Felix and I exchanged a quick, panicked glance, like we were silently asking one another who he was here for.

“You.” Jace pointed right at me. “Come with me.”

He waited right outside the door while I cleaned myself up. I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday. They stank from sweat, so I changed quickly and started for the door.

Felix caught me by the arm on my way out. Our eyes met, and he didn’t have to say anything to get his point across. He wanted to know what was going on, and if I would be okay. I wasn’t sure. I smiled so he wouldn’t worry.

Jace didn’t speak as I came out into the hall to meet him. He curled a finger at me, and started walking. I followed him out into the early morning air. A thick fog had settled over the academy, and something about it made Jace seem even more dangerous than usual. His long dark cape rolled off his shoulders and licked at his heels. All I could see was the back of his head, but I knew he was probably scowling like an angry wolf.

Jace had a way of looking at everyone that way—like he was a predator about to strike. Anywhere else, that was probably a terrible way to look at people. No one wanted to be friendly with someone who seemed like they might suddenly bite your head off. However, I had a feeling that on the battlefield, men like Jace were exactly the kind of people you wanted fighting on your side.

He didn’t slow down until we reached the doors of the infirmary. By then, my stomach was doing nervous flips. Through the gloom, I could see two figures already standing there waiting for us. The old medic had his arms crossed, and he was looking at me with a hard frown. Beside him, Lyon had a stubborn glare on his face. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and he made a point never to look me in the eye.

“Is this the one?” Jace asked sharply.

The medic nodded.

Lyon didn’t say a word.

Jace turned on me with a look of wrath in his eyes that was downright terrifying. Still, I didn’t let him see me shake. I was learning better than to cringe away from him when he glared at me like that. I was a soldier now. Soldiers didn’t cringe.

“Tell me what you did,” he demanded. “Tell me now.”

“I told you already, he didn’t do anything!” Lyon tried to interject. Jace didn’t pay him any attention.

When I didn’t answer right away, Jace took an aggressive step toward me. He met me nose-to-nose, since we were about the same height now. His cold, dark eyes locked onto mine, like he was silently daring me to lie to him. “Tell me,” he repeated.

“I don’t know,” I managed to say, although I knew that answer wasn’t going to fly far with him. “I’m not sure how it works. I don’t know why I can do it. I just… can.”

“Is it because you’re a halfbreed?” The old medic was still scowling at me suspiciously. “Because of your elf blood?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. If you’re asking me if a gray elf trained me to do it, then the answer is no. I’ve never seen anyone else do it.”

Jace looked like he sincerely wanted to hit me. Instead, he backed off and turned away from us. I could hear him cursing furiously under his breath.

“Listen, I may not be a dragonrider, but I understand a threat when I see one,” the medic said. There was resignation in his voice. “What he did is nothing short of a miracle, but it’s not a threat to anyone. Quite the opposite, actually.”

Jace didn’t answer, and the silence became very tense.

Lyon flashed me an apologetic expression.

I nodded back at him. It wasn’t his fault. I should have been more careful with my planning.

“I owed him a favor. I promised him I would look out for you, if anything happened. But Sile never, ever mentioned anything about this.” Jace started to rant, muttering under his breath like a madman. “What am I supposed to do with you now?”

I flinched. Deep down I knew the answer. I had to leave. If Thrane found out what I could do, it would be all the excuse he needed to finally have his way. Miracle or not, any form of a gray elf doing any kind of magic was not going to be okay with the other instructors here. Thrane would finally have a good reason to kill me that no one else would argue with.

“Now hold on a minute, Lieutenant Rordin.” The medic stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder. “So far, we are the only ones who know about this, correct? So it ends with us. We won’t speak another word about it.”

“Are you being intentionally dense?” Jace growled. “Everyone in that gymnasium saw his arm get broken. Do you expect them to believe it just got better on its own overnight?”

“They saw what they
thought
was my arm getting broken,” Lyon piped up suddenly. He had a confident grin on his face.

We all turned to look at him.

I’d never considered lying to be a valuable skill. But the way Lyon did it—well, I don’t know how it could be called anything else. It was his craft. Some men made saddles, others painted beautiful artwork. Lyon told superb lies.

“No one except us knows it for sure,” he said. “So we say I got better. It was dislocated, not broken like we thought. No one else has to know anything about it.”

“Thrane will want an explanation.” Jace didn’t sound convinced. “You can bet he was sure he broke it. He won’t believe otherwise.”

“Then he can come to me.” The medic patted my shoulder roughly. “As good as he is at breaking bones, he isn’t a medic. If he wants to talk specifics, send him to me. I’ve dealt with him before. Don’t give him credit for brains he doesn’t have.”

I slowly started to realize that these men were rallying around me. They were actually trying to find a way to keep my abilities a secret from everyone else. It made me uneasy, especially since I didn’t even know the medic. People didn’t usually do kind things for me just because they could. I felt my face get hot with embarrassment.

The medic must have noticed me blushing, because he started to chuckle. “Make sure no one suspects you. In your case, my boy, any attention from Thrane will be negative attention, I’m afraid. Try to keep out of his way.”

I nodded. When I looked up again, my eyes met Jace’s. He still didn’t look happy. I knew I had a lot of explaining to do, and I wasn’t sure where to start. But I had to try. “Lieutenant Rordin, I—”

“Are you with us?” Jace interrupted.

His question caught me off guard. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“Do you understand that you are here to be a part of something greater than yourself? The people of this kingdom assume that we fight for them, for the kingdom, and whoever is wearing the crown. But you will learn quickly that kings and politics don’t mean anything when you are faced with the battlefront. You fight for the man next to you. You bleed for your brothers, because they would do the same for you. Our brotherhood, your peers and instructors, they have to be more important to you than your own vendettas.” Jace snapped in a bitter voice. “So I’m asking you, are you with us? Or is there something else that is more important to you?”

I swallowed hard. I don’t know why, but I immediately looked over at Lyon. If you had asked me last year if I was willing to lay down my life for him, well, I probably would have said no. Now things were changing. I was changing. And as far as I could tell, this was only the beginning. While we struggled together, we were all learning that petty differences didn’t matter. What mattered was our loyalty to one another. Protecting each other against any enemy. Trusting each other in times when one slip up could cost everyone dearly.

As I looked back at Jace, I felt a strange sense of calm come over me. I saw the same glare in his eyes, and this time… I understood it. This wasn’t just a job to him. He wasn’t being harsh, or ill tempered when he glared at everyone. He was giving this mission the best of his dedication because there were lives at stake—our lives and his.

From now on, I knew I had to do the same thing. “I’m with you,” I said.

“To the death?” He narrowed his eyes.

“If it comes to that.” I gave him a firm nod. “But don’t think for a minute that if it comes down to choosing between revealing my abilities to the others and saving someone, that I won’t make the obvious choice.”

Jace
smiled
.

Okay, so it wasn’t actually a smile. More like a challenging smirk. But it was the closest I’d ever seen him come to one. It gave me the creeps.

He glanced me up and down, and made a snorting sound. “Nice of you to finally show up, avian,” he quipped. “Fear is useless to me, so maybe you’ll finally be of some value.”

Lyon, Jace, and I left the infirmary together. It was still dark as we went outside the academy walls for our usual morning routine. No one said a word, even when Felix ran up to meet us. He was still sending me questioning looks. I knew I would have to confess to him sooner or later. He’d never let it go otherwise, and patience wasn’t exactly one of his better qualities. But for now, I was going to need to tread carefully. The less he knew, the better. Someday, when Thrane was out of the picture—or at least not in a good position to break anyone’s arms—I would be able to level with him completely.

As the days began to blur by, I discovered that my talk with Jace had put a new fire in my veins. I muscled through running laps and intervals of strength training exercises, but I didn’t feel defeated. Each day, I could tell I was growing stronger. Each day, I felt less and less like a victim, and more like a soldier.