Page 46 of Under Restless Skies

“Why are you here?” Nelly asks.

“I want this. I want to fly. I want to face dragons.”

“All right.” She chuckles in disbelief.

It’s unfair that I’m not allowed in the academy, while people who don’t even want to defend our kingdom are here as recruits, but I don’t resent the girls. They’re just doing the best they can. Instead, a spark of hope lights in my chest.

All I need to do is prove that I truly want to defend my kingdom, that I was meant to be here. Someone will notice me. And soon I’ll fly.

I have to believe it.

9

Nobody was sent to prison or expelled, as instructor Katrine only asked easy questions. Still, I’m glad when the bell rings and we leave for lunch. My stomach has been complaining for the last hour. Since I was told I could eat with the recruits, I follow Celine and Nelly.

We descend grand stairs and turn into a hallway. The refectory is an enormous room with hundreds of tables and two counters lined with containers from which we can serve ourselves.

Most of the tables are occupied, and the only line to the buffet comes from the other recruits who were in our Dragon Knowledge class. The smell of rice, shrimp, fruit, beans, and salad makes me salivate.

By Vigorlu, I can’t believe I’m so hungry.

“Everyone’s already here,” Celine mutters. “Some instructors let us leave class early. Katrine doesn’t.”

We stand in line as I watch the tables with recruits eating or chatting, sometimes doing both at the same time. My stomach roars furiously, but the line moves quickly, and I grab a metal tray with partitions for the food. I’m so famished that I pour a mountain of rice on it, then lots of beans. The meat they have today is fried shrimp, which I haven’t had in a long time. A servant puts it on our tray, just a small portion, and I’m glad I got the mountain of beans. Finally, I get some salad, vegetables, and a half-peeled orange.

Celine leads us to a table where she greets two second-year girls who are finishing their lunch, and then I force myself not to devour my food and look like a wild, famished animal. Well, I had no breakfast. Barely any dinner. In fact, I’m so hungry that my hand holding my fork is trembling.

The other second-year recruits leave the table, and, after a while, when enough food has satiated my gigantic hunger, I pay more attention to my surroundings. Up in the front, on a higher level, Princess Ledeia sits with some recruits and a young man.

The man… I can’t believe it. The same golden hair, same green eyes, except that his skin is no longer brown. That’s the man who told me he loved me once. The same man who forgot me once he got here. Marcus.

I look away.

“I know. He’s handsome,” Celine mutters.

“Who?” It’s stupid, of course, but I want to pretend I didn’t see him.

“Ledeia’s friend.” Her emphasis on the last word is suggestive.

Nelly looks in that direction and her jaw drops. “Wow, he is.”

“Oh. I see,” I say. “I was… curious. I didn’t know the princess ate with us, commoners.”

Celine lets out a small chuckle. “They want to make it seem like she’s one of us, except she isn’t. There are guards, at a distance from her, but they’re there. She’s surrounded by security.”

I notice the way she’s looking at Marcus—and how he’s looking at her. Just like he looked at me. The feeling coming to me tastes bitter, and yet it’s not jealousy. Yearning, maybe, for something I lost? Anger, perhaps, that he’d leave me and forget me. And something intrigues me.

“And she’s involved with a…” I almost say fisherman, but catch myself in time. “Recruit?”

“Nah. They’re just friends.” Celine rolls her eyes. “As if it wasn’t obvious.”

Quite obvious. “Does the king allow that?”

Celine lifts a shoulder. “I suppose the king allows his daughter to have friends, nothing more, and that’s what they claim they are. I don’t know what could happen if they were to…”

“Maybe she’d lose the chance for the crown?” I suggest. “Maybe that’s even why the king brought in another contender.”

“Maybe he wants a man to succeed him.” Celine’s eyes move to another table.