“Is that all?” Vanya asked, leaning around me.
“The teachers here don't allow a lot of wiggle room, but if they like you, it will come in handy.”
“Are you saying they play favorites?” Vanya said.
“They all do. Well, except for Bryce.”
I glanced back at my paper. “The lairmaster?”
Shep nodded. “He’s cutthroat, but he’s the best. He’s what made me the, well, he taught me everything I know about dragon riding.”
Vanya swished her hips a little as she said, “He's what made you the best. Is that what you were going to say?” Vanya elbowed me. “Ari certainly can’t forget that you’re the best.”
I shot Vanya a murderous look, but she merely smiled and kept walking. Shep glanced at his feet, pausing a few steps before the door to the classroom. He held the books toward me, and I took them carefully, tucking them under my arm.
“Thank you,” I said, bewildered that a third year was talking to me at all.
“No problem. I like to do what I can to help. Seems more useful than intimidating you all.” He shrugged. “Good luck.”
Vanya was staring at me from inside the classroom. She tilted her head expectantly, as if wanting me to recap everything that had just been spoken outside in the hall, though certainly she’d heard us. I ignored her prying glance and walked into the room, beautifully lit with morning sun. Not a speck of dust rested on the long tables in this room, though plenty of it floated through the air, catching the light as it drifted by.
The first years from Houses Ruby and Sapphire filed into the room and took seats two to a table, books clunking against wood, chair legs scraping against the floor. Soon, we were all settled and silent, ready for our first lesson as students at Cardan Lott.
Professor Enplencourt’s shoes tapped like a gavel as she walked into the room, one arm lifted, curly hair billowing. She wrote her name on the long blackboard, finishing with a loudtapof her chalk.
“In 578, a monumental shift occurred in our history,” she began, voice sonorous and deep. Her name was Resean based on the spelling, like mine. That alone intrigued me, as most Resean nobles had been relegated to a second-class aristocracy after the fall of the Laurent dynasty a hundred years ago. Her family must have managed to survive as part of Cavaria’s high society despite the prejudices against Reseans—and a flare of hope sparked inside me.
A few students quickly dug out pieces of paper. I shifted my stack of books into two piles so I could see around them better and grabbed a sheet of paper. For a moment, I stared at the soft ivory page, blank and ready to be filled. Paper was so expensive that my family had never once had any in our house that wasn’t sent to us in the post or sewn into the few books we owned. Here, every student had sheaves of it.
“Does anyone know what that event was?” asked Professor Enplencourt, scanning our faces expectantly. “Yes, Miss Hawthorne.”
A girl in the row behind me, someone from Sapphire, said, “That’s when dragons first appeared on this continent, migrating from across the sea.”
The professor’s brows pinched a little. “Yes.” The word was drawn out, long and slow. “There are many versions of history, but I will teach you the only accurate one. Those with knowledge of the truth, of what really happened, will always have theadvantage over those who believe only lies.” Her eyes snapped quickly from face to face. “Dragons did indeed reenter our land in 578, but they did not migrate here. They were here before we were, but then they left.”
Several students lifted their brows and exchanged quizzical looks.
Two hours later, we staggered back into the hall, most of us looking shaken. After her eloquent decimation of even the best answers, I felt a little better about my lack of knowledge on ancient history.
My mind whirled with all the information that she’d thrown at us on the first day. Conspiracy theories, alternate versions of history, talk of truth vanishing into shadow, and somewhere in there a caveat to test everything we heard from her against our own research. My hand ached from trying to write it all down, and I’d failed miserably. My penmanship was slow and out of practice. At least the library had a slew of typewriters for us to use when composing our essays.
When I walked into the literature classroom, a stillness came over me as I observed books standing upright on each table. A small shelf stood on one wall of the room, on it a variety of books with gilded lettering.
I wanted to walk over and touch them, but that would look strange to these people who’d grown up in homes with personal libraries. So instead, I walked to the nearest table and picked up the book that was standing there.The Fury of Winter.I’d heard of that one, apparently a great and heartbreaking tale of a young man growing up on Gray Mountain when the city of Treston was little more than a few homesteads. In it, the hero spends a few blissful years with his dragon, only to lose his dragon early in life. I’d never checked it out from the library because I liked my heart whole and happy while reading, not broken and left for dead. I set the book back down. It was then that I noticedthe wiry man in the back of the classroom. The dark professor’s robe swallowed his thin frame, and glasses hung at the end of his nose. He wore a tidy black beard barely touched with specks of white, and his movements were quick and precise as he walked toward the front of the room.
“I am Almar Siva,” he announced when everyone was seated. “Graduate of Cardan Lott, then Winchester University, whose illustrious literature program has produced our country’s finest writers, many of whom you will read about in your first-year studies.” He picked up a copy ofThe Fury of Winter, a critically acclaimed book I'd never read,and raised it at his side. “My good friend, Ulmsted, penned this novel during my first year as a doctoral student at Winchester. I had the pleasure of reading an early draft of it, a fact I like to say is one of the reasons the book turned out so well.” He chuckled, but the class remained silent. “It was truly an honor to participate in the creation of this great book. A fitting place to begin your studies here at Cardan Lott.”
I glanced at Vanya, whose lips were pinched just enough to let me know she felt the same way I did about his glittering introduction. With a sigh, I grabbed my copy of the book on my desk and flipped it open to the introduction, which Master Siva read in a booming voice. “To my friend, Almar.” He placed a hand on his chest.
Literature wasn’t going to be as thrilling as I’d hoped, but I tried not to let that dampen my spirits as we trailed out of the room two hours later, ears buzzing with Siva’s literary commentary and constant self-praise.
“That book is awful,” Vanya moaned as we strolled down the wide hall after lunch. The wood floors reflected the bright sunlight, drawing my focus toward the windows. I longed for the fresh air and our first lesson at the lair. “How can we be expected to read all six hundred pages by next week?”
I shrugged, trying not to think about it. “Maybe the book gets better?” I offered.
Vanya shot me a look. “Come on, we have fifteen minutes before chemistry.”
The Great Hall sat adjacent to one of the small courtyards that dotted the grounds. The sun was shining through a thin veil of white clouds, just enough to create soft shadows on the ground. Stone statues stood at intervals in the courtyard, spots of lichen marring their faces. This building had been the home of a duke long before it had become the school and was filled with vestiges of its royal heritage, including these statues that looked hundreds of years old.
