“Yes, Sir, I was,” I admitted, because what else could I say? “I just…wanted to get a little more practice,” I told him. “I’m doing really well in my other classes and, er, not very good in this one.”
“Lysandra, I know it’s hard being the smallest,” he said, frowning. “And I know that Woody is really too big for you to ride properly. But I have to tell you, I think it’s entirely possible that you won’t Impress a dragon at all. Or if you do, it’ll be no more than a Brown. So you’ve no need to worry about your, er, petite build.”
“What?” My chin shot up in defiance. “But I come from a Great House! You only have to look at me to see my bloodlines!”
He only nodded.
“Yes, well—every bloodline, no matter how Noble, occasionally produces a runt. A stunted specimen who can’t compete with the other, larger offspring.”
I shook my head, feeling hurt and angry in ways I could barely express.
“Why are you telling me this, Sir?” I asked. “I didn’t break the simulator—all I did was ride it without permission. And I certainly didn’t cut the net.”
“Yes, after seeing how poorly you climb the rope, I don’t believe you could sabotage the net, even if you wanted to,” he said dryly. “You lack the natural athleticism that most of my students have.”
“I’m trying to work on my rope skills,” I said quickly. “I think if I just practice more?—”
“No, no—practice won’t cure what’s wrong with you,” he cut me off sharply. Then he blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair.
“Look, I’m not telling you these things to hurt you or punish you, Lysandra—I’ve heard that you’re top of your classes academically,” he said. “I just want you to manage your expectations so you’re not disappointed. Nobel Bloodlines or not, dragons know things about the candidates who try to Impress them. And I’m telling you right now, I doubt any dragon is going to choose you. So you don’t have to worry about my class because you won’t be using any of the skills I teach here.”
Even though I’d been worried about this exact thing, I still felt my heart fall to my feet. All my dreams of flying—the dreams I’d had since Auren had died—were they nothing but smoke? Just my overactive imagination wishing for something I could never have?
“I’m sorry to hear that, Sir,” I managed to say, though my throat was tight with unshed tears. Worrying that I might not get a dragon because I was secretly a woman was one thing—hearing a trusted professor tell me I just wasn’t good enough was something else entirely.
“Yes, well—I just don’t want you to get too upset if none of the eggs ‘speak’ to you,” he said, frowning. “Go on now—you might as well join the rest of your class at the Hatching Ground.”
The he turned away to get back to work on the limply dangling Woody.
I stood there for a moment, my heart squeezed into a fist of pain and my eyes stinging with tears.
Not good enough, whispered a little voice in my head. Not big enough—not athletic enough to ride a dragon. And none of them will pick you anyway because you’re a runt—a genetic throw-back. Unworthy of any recognition.
I tried to push the thoughts away, but they wouldn’t go. Somehow Professor Leesbruck had managed to make me feel twice as bad as I had earlier—and that was after I’d nearly been killed! Was I just a useless lump here? Not meant for dragon flight at all?
I didn’t know but I had to blot my tears on the sleeve of my uniform jacket as I left the cavern where the Flight Simulator was located. I knew crying was “girly”, but I couldn’t’ stop myself. I was miserable
I only hoped that no one would ask me why my eyes were so red when I got to the Hatching Ground.
26
AURORA
I almost didn’t go.
What was the point of showing up to the place where I was, likely as not, going to be humiliated by being the odd man out? The only one without an egg that held a dragon who wanted me?
It happened occasionally, even when there were enough eggs, that one of the candidates simply didn’t get picked. If that happened, there was no recourse—every cadet got only one shot to Impress. If he didn’t get a dragon when his time came, then he was either dismissed from the Academy or sent to study under one of the professors if he showed promise academically. If he didn’t show any promise and didn’t want to leave, he would be put in the kitchens or become a herdsman for the many sheep and goats that were kept for the dragons to feed on.
As for the egg which hadn’t chosen anyone, it would be rolled to the back of the Hatching Sands and the drakeling inside would go into a state of hibernation until the right cadet showed up. The scent of the right candidate would wake a sleeping drakeling and he or she would begin calling mentally.
I knew all that from tales my father had told.
“But it hardly ever happens that way,” he told me and Auren. “Mostly, the eggs just sleep away forever. Drakelings can live on, drowsing in their eggs for hundreds of years, you know. Some of them just don’t want to hatch.”
I wondered how many eggs were “sleeping” in the back of the Hatching Ground and then I wondered why I should care. After all, none of them were ever going to pick me.
In the end, I went to the Hatching Ground only because I knew my friends would ask questions if I didn’t. They would already want to know why I had hung back in the first place, and I wasn’t about to tell them it was because Professor Leesbruck thought I was never going to get a dragon and wanted to tell me to “manage my expectations.”
