“Oh, besides wanting to be fed every hour, growing so fast you can practically see them getting bigger, molting—which makes them itchy, so they need to be bathed and oiled constantly—no, they’re not so bad,” Ryse said dryly.
I could feel my eyes getting wider as I stared at him.
“I didn’t know about all that.”
“I’ve heard married cadets say it’s as hard as having a newborn human baby—only the baby in question gets bigger than you are in the first few days and big enough to sit on you and accidentally squash you in the first few weeks,” he said. He shook his head. “I swear when M’alex first hatched, I didn’t sleep for a month straight.”
“Mine kept me up all night, every night wanting me to sing to him,” another Second-year cadet called Stets chimed in.
“Mine practically lived in the Dragon Baths,” another one said.
“Wait—the Dragon Baths?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, they’re on Level Five, where the Dragon Caverns are,” Stets told me. “They’re kind of like a bigger version of the Cook-pot.”
“A bigger version?” I asked, wide-eyed. The Cook-pot was already big enough for two hundred cadets to swim in it at once. I couldn’t imagine an even bigger pool inside the mountain.
“It’s huge—big enough for twenty or thirty dragons at a time. But they keep the shallow end free for the hatchlings when they come out,” Ryse assured me. “Drakelings grow so fast they shed their skin constantly. The Academy goes through mountains of scrubbing sand and gallons of hide oil every year.”
I tried to imagine washing and oiling my very own dragon and couldn’t. Though I still had the dreams of flying and hoped desperately to Impress an egg, Professor Leesbruck’s words kept ringing in my head. I didn’t believe I would get a dragon from the present clutch of eggs.
I had no idea how right…and how wrong I was, and I wouldn’t find out until Impression Day.
34
AURORA
We got word the eggs were ready halfway through the morning. I was in the middle of my History class when a runner came panting to the door.
“What is it?” the professor demanded, glaring at the red-faced cadet. “How dare you interrupt my class?”
“Sorry, Professor, but it’s happening!” The runner exclaimed. “Master says the eggs are hardened and the dragons have started humming. Can’t you hear them?”
As a matter of fact, I had been half-aware of a low-level humming sound for the past few minutes. But I’d been focused on taking notes and hadn’t really stopped to wonder what it was.
The rest of the class around me was already scrambling to their feet. We had all been told that we had one shot at Impression—we needed to get to the Hatching Grounds as fast as possible if we hoped to get an egg.
“All right, all right,” our professor exclaimed. “Class dismissed—hurry up, go, go—and good luck to all of you!”
I joined the mad dash out the door, leaving my books and parchment and ink pencil on my desk. I had the shortest legs—I didn’t want to be left behind.
Luckily, all the training I’d been doing with Ryse paid off. Despite my shorter legs, I was near the middle of the pack of racing First-years, all of us clattering up the endless stairs which echoed with our frantic footfalls.
Then, just when I had reached the top of the stairs on Level Six and the golden door that led to the Hatching Grounds was in sight, something tripped me and I fell.
No one spared me a second glance—they were all too focused on getting through the door and onto the sands. The hum of the dragons that had been so faint earlier was louder now—drowning out my voice as I cried out in surprise and pain.
Then, before I knew it, someone was grabbing me by the back of my collar and dragging me down the hallway.
“What…who…” I looked around, trying to see my abductor. He had a firm grip on the back of my stiff collar though, so I couldn’t twist around. But I had a terrible feeling I knew who it was anyway.
We went through an open doorway and once we got there, the door slammed shut behind us. Looking up, I saw Chud Larson standing over me with an ugly smile on his lumpish face.
My entire body went cold. We were in what looked to be an unused classroom—there was dust on all the desks—and I was all alone with him.
“You can’t touch me!” I exclaimed, scrambling away from the big bully. “If you try to hurt me, your dragon will tell M’alex and he’ll tell Ryse!”
Larson’s smile got even wider and uglier.
