Page 61 of Wings of Destruction

I move against her, and Astrid slips out of the way at the last second, knocking the staff against my Achilles tendon. I go down on my backside, the jarring hit spreading up through my tailbone. She steps over me, her legs on either side of my hips, and points the staff between my eyes.

“Please. This is pathetic, Kieran.” She adjusts the staff to lean her weight against it. “You’re embarrassing me.”

I’m embarrassing myself. A badly hidden snicker sounds from the left as I scramble to my feet. One warning look levels the other freshman student sharing our mat and he turns back to his partner.

The gymnasium is filled with sparring partners. I usually pair off with Astrid. No one else has the capacity to handle her brutal strength, and too many of the other students refuse to even attempt it.

Which doesn’t bode well for their tenure at DragonSpear.

She holds out a hand for me to accept, like it’s some kind of peace offering, and I slap her away.

“Reset. Okay?”

She silently takes her place opposite me, waiting until I have my bearings before striking. In a normal fight, Astrid wouldn’t wait. She’d go in for the kill before her enemy knew she moved.

It’s a miracle my father hasn’t snapped her up, and one of the only things working in my favor. If Roman Ryson knew about Astrid’s skills, he’d have her replace Tristan as his right hand. I’m sure of it.

I lunge for her midsection and Astrid sidesteps. But I pivot with her, anticipating her direction, and wrap my arms around her before she uses the staff.

I have a sneaking suspicion she escaped his notice not because of her skin tone, but because of her mount. Zicua is a basilisk. They are useful grunts and beneath my father’s esteem. They are not as powerful as dragons.

Any land mount is lumped into the same category. Handy to a point. A means to an end.

I squeeze Astrid until an explosive exhale marks the breath from her lungs and swipe at her legs to knock her down.

We move around each other, neither one winning. I hold my own but she isn’t going down and she’s still got the staff in her hands.

But she’s sweating, so I’ll count it as a win.

Her silver braids are tucked into a tight bun at the top of her head, her leather bracers laced against brown skin. She moves with a fluidity like air and her slender build disguises a ruthless, bloodthirsty soul.

She was nasty on the battlefield the one and only time I brought her out with me, my father absent from the fight. The square offs in sparring class only hone her abilities.

“Watch it,” I say offhandedly when she sends me back a step. “I’m not going to be of much use to anyone if I’m half blind. Stop going for my face.”

“You’re already half blind. I’d only be ensuring your outside matches your inside.” Astrid pauses, leaning on her staff for a moment before hurling it into the air in front of her and catching it deftly, swinging it at my crotch.

I drop low and shift my stance, forcing her swing to go wide. “I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you.”

She whips into motion before I have a chance to consider the direction of my next attack.

It’s what makes Astrid so deadly when she’s on the field.

There’s no way of anticipating where she’ll go or what her next move will be.

She’s a visionary and I’m lucky she’s on my side and not my enemy’s. She’s relentless; she’ll never stop. If I have half the amount of stubbornness she does, then it’s a great day for me.

She ducks low and brings the staff up against the small of my spine. I skid to a stop and pivot. Dragon dung, there goes my balance. Again.

Sparring without a weapon forces me to expand my awareness of the situation and consider the bigger picture, not just the easy death at the tip of a blade. Or my dragon’s teeth.

Which is why these classes are so important.

I have to be strong and fast. I have to make those split second decisions that mark the difference between life and death.

The mat beneath our feet absorbs the sounds of our footsteps and the rest of the large gymnasium fills with grunts and cries from other similar pairings. None of them have half of Astrid’s grit.

And I highly doubt they have as much to lose as I do.