“To Runt,” the rest chorused and then we all took a bite.
The Dragon Custard was like nothing I had tasted before. It melted like honey on my tongue and tasted sweet and tangy and delicious. And though Jorn-o had said it had no magical properties, I could feel strength and vitality coursing through me as I swallowed the single spoonful. It almost made me wish I’d kept the entire bowl for myself.
But then I looked around at the wondering faces of my new friends and was sure I’d made the right decision.
“So that’s what it tastes like,” Jorn-o breathed.
“Fucking delicious,” Leaper muttered, licking his spoon as Toady and Bugs nodded in agreement. “Can’t wait until we get our dragons so I can have more of it,” he added.
“When do we get our dragons? I mean, our eggs?” I asked curiously. My father had told Auren and me a lot about the great aerial flights and training exercises at the Academy, but he hadn’t spoken much of the minutia of life here.
“A few months into our First-year,” Jorn-o told me. “There’s a clutch of eggs hardening on the Hatching Sands right now. They’ll be ready for Impression soon.”
“After you Impress an egg, you visit it as much as you can to strengthen the connection,” Bugs explained. “That way, when your dragon hatches, it’s all ready to bond with you.”
“But how do you know which egg you’ll get? I mean—how can you tell which one is right for you?” I asked.
“Oh, you’ll know. The drakeling inside will speak to you.” Toady nodded wisely and tapped his temple. “Here. You’ll hear his or her voice in your mind and then you’ll know—that’s your dragon.”
“Really?” I was surprised—my father had never spoken about any of this. But maybe it was a sacred, private kind of thing. Making mental contact with your dragon for the first time must be a life-changing experience.
“Really,” Jorn-o confirmed. “And if you’re wondering how boys from the Great Houses always end up with Noble-blood dragons, it’s because they can smell your blood—right through the shell.”
“Really?” I felt my eyes go wide. “I didn’t know dragons could do that!”
“Sure, they can—the right blood smells sweet to them. Didn’t you ever spend time with your father’s dragon?” Bugs asked.
“Yeah—didn’t he ride a Crimson Gold-wing? Before he…” Leaper trailed off abruptly.
“My father’s dragon was too fierce to get near,” I said, ignoring the way all of them were looking in different directions and pointedly not talking about my father’s suicide. “My bro—I mean my sister and I didn’t dare get to close to him.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Jorn-o gave me a pitying look. “I grew up with G’lornie. My father took me on my first ride the minute I was able to walk.”
“My father’s Blue is grumpy most of the time,” Toady said with a sigh.
“My father’s Green wants attention day and night—but she’s a female, so what can you expect?” Bugs rolled his eyes.
“I thought female dragons were getting scarce?” I said, frowning. “Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have a female dragon?”
“It is if they have Nobel bloodlines,” Jorn-o explained. “For instance, it’s the Head Master’s dragon who laid the latest clutch of eggs. She’s a Turquoise Gold-wing—the only female of that kind in the whole Academy.”
“She also laid the only Midnight Gold-wing dragon egg in years—that’s the one that Ryse Skoren Impressed,” Leaper murmured, nodding at the Second-year North Wing table.
“Of course he Impressed it—the Skoren’s aren’t just a Great House—they have dragon blood in their bloodlines,” Jorn-o said.
“Wait…you mean they…?” I raised my eyebrows, unsure how to go on.
“Interbred with the wild drakes, long before we domesticated Dragons—or so the stories say,” Jorn-o finished for me. He shrugged. “Who knows if it’s true, but everyone knows that no one of the Skoren line has ever bonded to anything less than a Silver-wing and most of them fly Gold-wings.”
Yeah, the Skorens are like royalty around here,” Toady said, nodding.
I thought of how Ryse Skoren had saved me from Chud Larson and wondered why he’d bothered. Was it because he saw my hair and eyes and was extending a courtesy to a member of another Great House? Or did he just see a pitifully skinny runt and decided to help me out of the goodness of his heart?
Studying his calm, stern face from across the room, I wasn’t sure which explanation might be the most plausible.
Just then a great bell started tolling somewhere and everyone jumped into action.
“That’s the after-dinner bell—it means we First-years all have fifteen minutes to get to our dorms,” Jorn-o explained, when I looked around in confusion.
