The Broken Scale (The Dragon Riders of Arvain) (16 page)

They did not speak to much as they waited; instead they watched the beautiful colors that were reflected off their dragonets. Hayden just stood in amazement as he watched his silver play with the others. He had wanted this for so long
, and now it amazed him and made it feel like a dream now that it had arrived.

             
The man came back through the door and he ushered them through quietly, as quietly as you could move five just hatched dragons. As they neared the edge the man told them to stop, and whispered to them to wait here until they heard their names called, and then they were to walk out beside The Three and line up with their dragonets. Hayden was last in line, but he could still hear what Elizabeth was saying.

             
“This year’s trial has been an extraordinary one, testing the limits of tradition and going above and beyond what any past year has ever brought us.” Cheers from the crowd filled the air. “As I have said, tradition has been stretched and things that have not happened in a long time have happened today. Let me introduce the new riders; Giles The Silver, Sebastian The Silver, Shane The Copper, Cassidy The Gold and Hayden The Silver.” She yelled all their names out so close together that they all ran right behind one another.

             
There was no more cheering as they listened to her rattle off the names of the riders and the colors of their dragons. From what Fendrel had told him just a day before it had been many years since they had a silver egg chosen. The past couple of years had all been four coppers and it had been longer than anyone cared to remember since a golden egg was hatched.

Hayden could tell that from when they had been in the Hall of Stories, there had been more copper armor then anything
, but there were only a handful of golden armor seen. Now this year they were getting three silvers, a gold and a copper. Then they broke loose as one man cheered, Hayden knew the voice as soon as he heard it and it made a smile come to his face.

             
Fendrel, he was cheering as loud as he could over everyone else. He had started everyone else clapping and cheering. The three new riders waved awkwardly at everyone, while Giles and Sebastian just stood like statues with grim looks on their faces.

             
“Now that you have met the new riders it is time to enjoy the celebration of our most successful trial yet. To stick to tradition, the riders will be spending the night alone with their new dragons, and then tomorrow they will come and join the festivities.” Elizabeth had to shout to try to speak over the continued cheering, the crowd might not have heard what she had to say but everyone on the balcony did.

The man that had guided them this far was going to take them to their new rooms. They turned and left the cheering people behind and went back to walking through the torch lit hallways of the Metallic Pyramid. Their footsteps were muffled by the thick paws hitting the ground and the constant clicking noise made by the dragonet’s claws.

              “Since we only ever have four new riders each year we only have four rooms ready for you, but our queen has seen fit to allow you, Cassidy The Gold, to have a room with the other gold riders.” He stopped them at a side hallway where an older man wearing golden armor nodded to each of them and beckoned for Cass to
follow him.

Th
e gold rider was slightly hunched over with a white beard and long white hair pulled back in a ponytail. He turned and motioned for Cass to follow him as Hayden and the others continued on. She said good bye to Shane and Hayden and they watched as she disappeared with her golden dragonet down the corridor.

             
After she had left their walk continued for a short while until they came to an open room that looked like a large circle. Four doors were evenly spaced apart and they all appeared to be identical. The man again stopped and instructed them on what to do next.

             
“These will be your rooms for the next year; you will come back here every night unless told otherwise. There is food and drink in each room for you and your dragon. Tomorrow, someone will come to awaken you and take you to the city to celebrate your triumph.” The rider could not have been any less interested if he had tried.

“
After tomorrow your training will begin full swing. You will be given a schedule and you will be expected to follow it every day. Are there any questions?” No one had any, or they kept them to their selves. “Good, now each room is the same so it does not matter which one you pick. Good night, good luck, and I will see you in the morning.” He gave a slight bow and turned on his heels and walked back down the corridor they had come through.

             
“So who wants which room?” Shane asked. Giles gave an exasperated sigh and walked into the furthest room on the left, Sebastian then took the one next to him without a word or sound. They both slammed their doors as soon as their dragonets were through.

             
Shane looked at Hayden and Hayden just shrugged his shoulders. “Well I guess that narrows it down, which one do you want?” he asked Shane.

             
“I don’t care really, I wouldn’t mind the one on the far right though, if it’s ok with you.” Hayden had no objection to which room his friend took so he opened the door for Shane and ushered him and his dragonet in. Once he closed the door behind him he went to open his own door. He pulled his door open and let his dragonet go through first, and it led the way by sniffing all over the floor just like a hunting dog would.

             
Once his own dragonet had made it through the door way he entered, and while closing the door behind him looked around his new home. His first impression was that it was much larger then he thought it would be. The walls were rounded from the floor to the ceiling so it appeared the whole room was an oval.

The ceiling was nearly thirty feet high and
, like everything else in Celestial City, everything was made out of metal. The room that they were standing in seemed to be the common room and bedroom. The whole back side of the room was vacant and there was a bed that was a straw mattress lying on the ground with a few blankets that Hayden guessed were for him.

             
The room was big enough to fit a large dragon, which Hayden assumed he would have by the end of the year. There was a large open mouth cavern near the vacant side, and when Hayden walked down it he found what looked like a drawbridge with chains and cranks on the side of the walls.

When he pulled the crank down the door slowly lowered itself
and it lead to the outside of the pyramid so that his dragon could come in and out when it got too big to go through the door anymore. He continued to explore their rooms and found a small wash room off of the main room.

Hayden had found food in the main chamber and his dragonet was already gorging on the
raw meat they had left, Hayden had been worried about the smell but he watched as the silver hatchling even licked the blood off the floor, leaving no trace that there had been anything there before.

             
Hayden loved the almost vacant room and sat down on his bed to eat his own food. While he ate he looked at the clothes they had laid out for him. The clothes were very bland and plain, being nothing more than grey pants, a grey shirt and a grey cape. The cape would start on his left shoulder and clasp in the middle of his chest, leaving his right shoulder completely uncovered as the cape went underneath his right arm.

He already knew how it would look because everyone in Celestial City wore capes like this one. Hayden put the food down and was startled to see the silver dragonet sitting in front of him staring at him.

              “I had heard rumors about what dragons can do, I know you will get to be huge of course, and that you can fly and breath fire. I also heard that you can do magic, cause things to happen for no reason and with no explanation, I also heard you can read minds and talk to people through your mind.” Hayden leant forward as he spoke, knowing that most of the stories he had heard about dragons coming from the Harvest Tavern back in Erskine were just the ramblings of old drunks.

             
Yes and no.
A voice sounded in his head, it was not the normal voice that he heard when he talked to himself and he was sure he had not meant to think it.

             
“Was that you?” he asked the hatchling.

             
Yes.
He heard, clearly in his mind, the same voice as before. It was a male’s voice, and deeper than his own by a little bit.

             
“You can talk to me then?” Hayden was too amazed at what he was hearing to be concerned with whether or not he was crazy.

Instead of answering
, the hatchling just nodded its head. Hayden felt his heart start racing again and his lungs fight for air as if he was under water or the air he was breathing just wasn’t enough.
Calm down or you are going to pass out, Hayden,
the dragonet spoke in his mind. Even though Hayden was not sure how to feel about what was going on, he did calm down and try to figure out what was happening to him.

             
“If you have been able to talk this whole time why haven’t you? When you first hatched why didn’t you say hello or something?” Hayden had to keep telling himself to calm down and keep his breathing under control.

             
Because if I would have done that then you would have reacted like you are now, but in front of everyone. This is how it has always been; the other riders are probably hearing from their own dragons now.
His dragon’s voice was calm and soothing and it did help to ease the struggle that was ragging inside of Hayden’s mind.

             
“What else can you do that I don’t know about, you said yes and no to my earlier questions.”

             
Dragons can all mind speak with their riders, but only their riders and other dragons. No other human will ever hear me but you, and although I can hear them talk, I cannot hear their thoughts as I hear yours. We can breathe fire and fly like you said, but we have no magic or any kind of strange ability like that that I know of.
As his dragon communicated with him, Hayden continued to calm down until he was normal and not on the verge of passing out anymore.

             
“Oh ok, so you can actually hear my thoughts, I won’t have to speak in front of you all the time?” Hayden asked.

             
That is correct, you can just think and I will hear it as if you spoke it.

             
“This is amazing. I guess I have to name you now don’t I?”  Hayden asked.

             
The dragonet made a deep muffled sound that Hayden figured was laughing.
You don’t name dragons like you do children; dragons are hatched already knowing our names. My name is Draek.

Chapter 9

Hayden and Draek spent the night talking to each other; Hayden did most of the talking by recounting s
ome of his most prominent childhood memories. At first he was very apprehensive about sharing some of his past but Draek was his dragon now and Hayden did not want any secrets between them.

Hayden told him everything he wanted to know
and did his best to answer all of Draek’s questions. He had a hard time explaining some things to Draek but he was more knowledgeable than Hayden thought a newly hatched dragon should be. When Hayden failed to describe some things he had to picture them for Draek to understand.

             
Although Draek was too young for memories of his own, he did have a better understanding about dragons then Hayden did. Draek knew things about dragon histories that Hayden had never even heard about.

             
So how long have you been waiting to hatch?
Hayden had stopped speaking out loud hours after they had started talking.

             
I don’t know. A dragon’s egg is a giant stone; there is no live dragon inside an egg. If you break an egg open it’s just like breaking a rock open.

When the egg is unharmed it can withstand immense heat and frigid cold with no affect to the dragon that it will one day become. If they would have broken my egg like you said they were trying to then the
y would have had silver. The dragons are the egg.

Hayden was having a hard time grasping the idea of a dragon being a stone. He had always thought that the outside was just a shell and that there was a dragon on the inside.
They had spent some time talking about how dragons hatched but all they had accomplished was confusing Hayden even more.

             
Hayden gave up on the subject and decided to change it to something different.
So how are we connected?
Hayden asked.

             
We are connected in every way; when you touched my egg half of your life essence, what makes you you and what keeps you alive, went into my egg and is now what is keeping me alive. That’s why if you die then I die and it works both ways.
Draek walked over to where Hayden was sitting and looked into his eyes.