Ryse had brought all my school supplies as well as my clothes. My study materials were stacked on the corner of his desk, beside some ancient, dusty tomes he must have borrowed from the library.
The Times of Ver Feloth, read one cracked spine. Ver Feloth meant “Fire Mountain” in the Ancient Tongue. It was the formal name for the Old Drake—the dormant volcano the Academy was located in.
Another book seemed to be a ledger that told how many dragons and riders there were during a certain year, and which types of dragons were being hatched and how much they all ate. So basically, it was an old accounting book, I supposed.
The third book, I couldn’t read at all. It was written in the Root Tongue—the language that had evolved into the Ancient Tongue centuries ago. But it drew my eyes anyway because on the cover of the ancient leather-bound book, was a golden dragon. And riding it was someone who looked very much like a woman—at least, if her long hair flying out behind her was any indication.
But what did I know? Maybe the male riders were just prettier back then.
Being extremely careful, I opened the book and turned the pages, which were vellum that had yellowed with age. There were marvelous paintings of dragons of all kinds—many more than we had now, I saw with interest. Despite the book’s age, the colors were still surprisingly vivid.
It looked like there used to be more common dragons—instead of just Blue, Green, and Brown, I saw what looked like drawings of a common Red, a common Orange, and even a common Yellow.
There were more Noble dragons too—many more Gold-wings especially.
I also saw more pictures of the mythical Pure Gold dragons and this time I was sure their riders were women. They had fierce, proud expressions on their faces and their dragons flew higher than all the others.
I frowned—what could it mean? Had there been female dragon riders in the past or was the illustrator just being fanciful? Probably the latter. Everyone knew there had never really been a Pure Gold dragon, just like there had never been female dragon riders. Maybe the author of the book just liked to tell stories and draw pretty pictures.
I wished that I could read the book, but my grasp of the Root tongue was weak. I did manage to find a few words I understood—but only because they were so much like the words that they had evolved into, in the Ancient Tongue.
I read “dragon” and “flight” and “rider” and “egg” but that was where my knowledge ran out. The book ended with what looked like a poem or possibly a prophesy. The illustrator had ringed the verses with pictures of dragons flying and flaming something from the sky that looked a little like huge black bats with long fangs and blood red eyes.
My stomach felt cold, and I had a feeling like my skin wanted to crawl right off my body and go hide somewhere. Were those…Madlings?
I had never seen one—no one had.
Except your father, whispered an ominous little voice in the back of my head. Or at least he’d claimed that he had—right before he and F’lorn had dived to their deaths together.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to see anymore. I closed the book quickly but carefully—so as not to damage its brittle pages—and went to wash my hands to get the dust off my fingers.
When I came back, Ryse was just stepping back into the room. He smelled like singed cinnamon—the smell of dragons—and his golden eyes were troubled.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“That was a short flight.”
“I wasn’t really flying,” he admitted. “I just wanted to be with M’alex for a while. I wanted to ask him…” He shook his head. “No—never mind.”
“Oh, all right.” I shrugged awkwardly, not sure what to say. “Well, I was just about to go to bed.”
“Fine.” He nodded. “I’m going to get changed and get some sleep too. You take the bed—I’ll take the floor.”
“What?” I protested. “But you can’t just give me the bed—the floor is stone—it’s hard and cold.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said shortly.
“No, you won’t!” I said. “You’ll never be able to sleep. If anything, I should take the floor.”
“You’d freeze to death,” he said dismissively. “You don’t have enough body heat to keep yourself warm.”
“I’m warm enough!” I said indignantly.
“You won’t be if you lay on the hard stone floor all night!” Ryse pointed out. “I brought you here to protect you—not kill you with hypothermia.”
“Look, I think we’re over thinking this.” I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to calm myself. “The bed is pretty big. Why don’t we just…share it?”
“Share it?” Ryse’s eyebrows shot up.
