Of course, they did still occasionally eat their trainers, but they didn’t break the fences, which was somehow more impressive to the governing body in Largotia.
Valenna couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering over the enclosures, hoping and fearing she’d spot Evander among the bustling keepers and flashing scales. With a wash of terror, she realized she had no idea what she would do if she did see him. A full year had passed, and she hadn’t heard from him once except the asinine letter he’d left on her bed, explaining that he loved her more than anything, but she deserved someone she could spend her life with, and he wasn’t that person.
She couldn’t remember the exact wording. She’d torn the letter to shreds, doused them in wine, and then burned the remains.
Leaving the line of trees, Valenna strolled across the grass to join a cluster of people leaning against a fence, watching the sky. As she reached them, a dreadnought dropped below the clouds, its four broad wings cracking the air. Valenna counted a crew ofseven clinging on its back as the creature descended rapidly—too rapidly, she thought.
The pilot was a small person, not a child and not yet a woman. She sat at the base of the dragon’s long neck, clutching thick leather reins in her hands. Valenna could make out her fearsome expression as the dreadnought plummeted toward the paddock. She was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, with a round face, dark eyes, and thick black eyebrows pinched together in stony determination. A training officer knelt behind her, but if he was giving directions, they weren’t helping.
Valenna caught her breath. The dreadnought was losing altitude with every second. If it continued like this, it would land too hard, bursting the gas pouch in its stomach and blowing the crew, and the onlookers, to pieces.
She turned to flee into the trees, but as she cast one last look over her shoulder, the training officer stood, and Valenna’s heart hit the roof of her mouth.
She recognized that chestnut brown hair, shining faintly reddish in the sunlight, the broad shoulders, and long, graceful lines.
She had found him at last. Evander Trevelyan. Riding a crashing dreadnought.
Frozen in place, Valenna clutched the fence rail and watched as Evander lifted the pilot by the collar of her jacket, unclipped her safety tether, and tossed her over the side. For the length of a heartbeat, the girl hurtled through open sky, then a glider made of dragon wing leather unfurled from her pack, and she landed, rolling in the grass.
The rest of the crew followed, tumbling through the air before engaging their gliders and landing in heaps on the hillside. All except Evander. He leaped into the pilot’s place at the base of the dragon’s neck and gathered the reins in his hands. The creaturewas in such a steep dive that Evander’s back touched its spine as he leaned back, tugging with all his strength.
Valenna’s hand flew to her mouth. Was this really how it would end between them? She finds him after a year apart, and they both get blown to bits?
The tendons in his neck jutting, Evander took the reins in his teeth and seized the dragon’s bridle, pulling until his face flushed crimson. Just when Valenna thought there was no hope, the dreadnought lifted its head and shoulders. Its wings caught the wind, billowing like sails, and it lurched upward. Its body leveled, its momentum slowed, and it landed with a whump in the paddock, spraying Valenna with sand. Sparks rained from the creature’s gaping jaws. The crew raced up the hill, their gliders bundled in their arms.
With weightless grace, Evander swung down from the dragon’s back. Similar to the rest of the crew, he wore a shearling-lined leather coat with a broad wool collar, except his coat was faded and soft with wear, while the crew’s were still stiff and shiny, the wool cuffs lily white. The coat was long, extending to the mid-thigh, and it fastened in the front with small hooks, fashioned from bone.
Valenna’s heart ached—how many times had she huddled under its weight, asking him over and over if he wanted it back, while he insisted he wasn’t cold. She missed its warmth, the scratch of the wool on her neck, and how it smelled like cedar shavings and hay. How it smelled like Evander.
Evander wiped his forehead with his arm, then lunged out and grabbed the jacket of one of the crew members as he scurried by with an empty pail. “Tell me, Lysander,” Evander said, his voice so low that Valenna had to lean over the rail to hear him. “Tell me that your altimeter was broken.”
“It was,” the boy replied, trying to jerk away, but Evander’s fingers gripped tighter.
“Let me see it,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I told you, it’s broken.”
“Let me see it, Lysander.”
Lysander lurched free, stumbling when Evander released him. His mouth twisted into a sneer as he produced a small brass instrument from his pocket and slapped it into Evander’s waiting palm.
Evander glanced down at it, then calmly handed it back.“It isn’t broken. You weren’t paying attention.”
“No …” Lysander spluttered. “No, it was … it didn’t work when we were up there …”
“It isn’t broken,” Evander repeated.
The boy’s face flushed red, and he shouted in Evander’s face, “I said it was, and so it was!”
Without so much as batting an eyelid, Evander said slowly, “It was not broken. You were not paying attention.”
“If you call me a liar, I will send word to my mother in Cobblepine. I will tell her that you are an unfit training officer, and I’ll see you fired ...”
Evander cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, no need to send word. You can tell her yourself tomorrow, because I’m sending you home.”
Lysander stumbled back a step. He opened his mouth, like he meant to object, but no sound came out.
“But we only have a few days left,” the pilot girl said, standing beside Lysander and taking his hand. “He can’t go home now and fail out of the program this close to the end!”
