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Kerrigan patted Tieran’s neck. “Good luck.”
We need more than luck. We need a bond, he grumbled.
He wasn’t wrong.
She’d spent the last couple weeks researching the bond. She found the spell to brew the bonding potion. It was incredibly simple. She filched the supplies from the greenhouses on the eastern side of the mountain and put all of the materials together herself. Tieran was skeptical but willing to try anything. Maybe the bond hadn’t worked because she had thought that she shouldn’t be picked. Maybe it was a mental thing.
She read over and over about mental fortitude for the spell. That the pair had to want to be linked. Which, in the beginning, had been far from the case. But this time, there was no other choice. They had to bond, and they both wanted it despite their differences.
They took the potion. Kerrigan passed out again. She saw her father in a strange world, being beaten by a giant of a man. The man turned at the last moment and saw her. She could still hear the screams from inside the villa. She had just been getting over that particular nightmare, but here it was all over again.
She had no idea what Tieran had seen, but he awoke, shaking with real fear in his eyes. But the bond continued to evade them. It hadn’t worked, and Tieran refused to try again. She didn’t blame him. If what he had seen was as bad as what she had seen, then she hardly wanted to go through it a third time.
Now, they were on opposite sides of the arena prepared to trick everyone into believing they had a bond. Scales.
Gemina went up to each of the dragons as Alura strode over to the trainees. “Gemina is giving each dragon a location outside of the city, and you will have to trek to reach them by following the bond. It is the farthest bond that we’ve tried, and I suspect it will take a lot of stretching for you. But we can’t get better if we don’t stretch.” She was firm and unsmiling but somehow made it sound encouraging.
Kerrigan sweat with fear. She had no bond to follow. It didn’t matter how far away Tieran was; she wasn’t going to find him.
“We want you all back by lunch, and then we’ll start the second part of the test. Once Gemina returns, you’ll begin. Any questions?”
By now, even Audria kept her hand at her side. Alura didn’t actually want questions. She wanted them to be soldiers.
“Good.” She grinned viciously.
The five of them waited with nerves biting at them. Audria still looked as prim and proper as ever. Though she’d been letting her hair down more. Fordham hadn’t loosened up an inch, but he also had the easiest time with his dragon. Roake was constantly frazzled. He hated the schoolwork. In Elsiande, where he was from in the south, he hadn’t been big on book work, especially when he’d been playing Dragon Eggs. The endless rolls of parchment set him to ranting. But it was Noda that Kerrigan worried the most about. She was homesick—though she wouldn’t admit it—and the constant pace was running her ragged. Her cuticles were stripped raw and her nails bitten to the quick.
Kerrigan wasn’t sure where she fit with the rest of them. The bond was fake, and she was terrified to be kicked out. She hadn’t even had time to go to the few other protests the RFA had put together these last couple weeks. She wasn’t sleeping, but that wasn’t unusual. Nor were the nightmares. She was hyperfocused on not getting kicked out.
Gemina soared back into the arena then, and all five of them took off at a run. Kerrigan had no clue which direction Tieran was in. She had to get close enough that he could speak into her mind. Surely, he was shouting to let her know wherever he was.
Fordham was going to finish first. That was obvious. Once he was out of the arena, he set off at a run toward the South River. Netta must have been across the water. But the rest of the pack slowed once on the other side of the arena walls. They didn’t exactly travel together, but Kerrigan figured that each dragon had been sent in a different direction, and maybe process of elimination could get her to Tieran.
“This is insane,” Roake grumbled. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Just keep trying,” Noda said.
“We’ll get there,” Audria agreed. Her face was pale. Despite being top of the class in studies, she was worst after Kerrigan on dragon bonding. She couldn’t work extra hard to make it happen.
“I think I’m west,” Noda said with an uncertain look. “I’m going to head in that direction.”
She jogged off, leaving the other three to contemplate the rest of the directions.
