The afternoon air bit sharply against my face as I crossed the landing platform toward Onyx. I was tired despite Captain Odinah going easy on me during conditioning, and it wasn't Alar's fault, well, other than keeping me awake at night. On top of not getting adequate sleep, I'd also spent hours inhabiting the bodies of nocturnal hunters. I'd been an owl scanning the mountainside for prey, a mountain cat stalking through the darkness, even briefly inhabiting the mind of a bat navigating by sound alone. That had been an interesting experience that I was not going to forget anytime soon.
Thankfully, I'd had no trouble shifting my consciousness back into my own body, but I'd given Alar a bit of a scare when I hadn't woken up when he'd tried to rouse me.
"Good afternoon, Little Warrior,"Onyx greeted me, his mental voice warm with affection."You look exhausted. Is it still because of the Podana dream?"
"I guess. I also drank the tea last night and had more dreams. They are not conducive to a peaceful, restorative sleep. But at least nothing urgent came through. No attacks to warn about."
"Hello, Cadet Strom," Ravel greeted me."How does it feel to be back?"
"Wonderful, sir. I feel safe here."
He regarded me with his dark, penetrating eyes, but said nothing, only motioned for me to get on.
"May I?" I asked Onyx.
"You may,"he replied.
I climbed up and secured myself to the saddle.
"We will be working on evasive maneuvers today." Commander Ravel handed me the goggles. "The kind that might save your life when someone tries to shoot you out of the sky."
My stomach clenched. "I hope you don't expect it to happen here."
After the assassination attempt, I would not be surprised if someone tried to take me out that way.
"Every rider needs to know how to execute evasive maneuvers," he said matter-of-factly. "The Shedun have projectile weapons, and a rider who can't evade is a dead rider."
I swallowed.
Onyx launched with a powerful thrust of his legs, and my stomach dropped as we shot skyward. No matter how many times I flew, those initial moments always triggered my old fear of heights.
"The first rule of evasion is unpredictability," Ravel said. "If your enemy can predict your path, you're already dead."
I nodded, concentrating on squashing my fear.
"The second rule," he continued as we climbed, "is to trust your dragon. In an emergency, there's no time for discussion. You give the command, and you commit to whatever follows."
"What kind of command?" I asked, having to raise my voice over the wind.
Instead of answering, Ravel said, "Onyx, demonstrate evasive maneuvers."
The world turned upside down.
One moment we were climbing steadily, the next Onyx had flipped into a barrel roll that left my stomach somewhere back near the mountain peak. I bit back a scream, clinging to the grips as we spun through the air. The horizon became a whirling kaleidoscope of mountain and sky.
Then, just as suddenly, we leveled out.
"That's an evasive roll," Ravel said calmly, as if we hadn't just defied every known law of physics. "Effective against projectiles coming from the side. The spin throws off their trajectory."
I tried to catch my breath, my knuckles white around the grips. "A little warning would have been nice."
"Enemies and assassins don't give warnings." He said. "As you've recently learned."
The reminder chilled me.
"Next one," Ravel said. "The dive-and-climb maneuver."
This time I was ready—or thought I was. Onyx tucked his wings and plummeted toward the ground far below. The wind screamed past us, tearing at my hair and clothes. My stomach lodged itself in my throat as the rocky mountainside rushed up to meet us. Every instinct screamed at me to demand we pull up, but I forced myself to keep my mouth shut and trust Onyx. Heknew what he was doing, and he wasn't going to let Ravel kill us all.
