The Firedragon (3 page)

“
It’s
unacceptable!”

She whirled around, her gaze searching for
the woman. It was Mrs. Miller, supervisor of the Secondstringers –
orphans under state guardianship, who attended the Academy on a
work-study program. She was scolding a sandy-haired boy, telling
him he had to work double shifts as punishment for the mess he’d
made.

Sucker!
Aurelia thought, holding back a
snigger.

It wasn’t a nice thing to do, looking down
on the orphans, but she’d started off as one of them and gotten
herself promoted from Secondstringer to Cadet status less than six
months later. She’d not only climbed out of the low-class pit she’d
been born into, but had also taken her place among the elite. To be
a Cadet at the Academy of Supernatural Defense in the Triumvirate’s
capital, studying alongside the children of Enchanters … well, you
had to be the best of the best. And now, she had the attention of
the Triumvirate’s bigwigs. How many people could say that?

Once she won the
International Challenge, she would also be a hero, and would be
remembered forever as the girl who’d proven that Norms could do
anything Enchanters could … and beat them at it.
That
was her
future.

So it wasn’t arrogance for her to think she
was better than that sandy-haired Secondstringer boy, who’d
probably spend the rest of his life scrubbing walls. It was simply
the truth.

Still, at least he was distracting Mrs.
Miller. Years had passed since Aurelia was under Mrs. Miller’s
supervision, but the old nag still lectured her whenever she
crossed her path – usually because of the messes she left behind
after her training sessions. But she had better things to do than
spend an hour sweeping up the spilled contents of the sand-filled
practice dummies she’d demolished. Besides, in the real world,
Defenders never had to deal with monster carcasses. That was what
cleanup crews were for.

Managing to evade Mrs. Miller’s gaze – she
couldn’t afford to lose any more time – Aurelia slipped through a
gap in the group of older Enchanters and sprinted toward the
Scholar’s Library. Scholars were the children of the Enchanters,
their library closed to the non-magical Cadets. That never stopped
her, of course. She didn’t care about their super-secret magic
books anyway. She just needed to find Connor, the one Scholar who
wasn’t stuck up about his magic.

Which was amazing, considering he was the
son of Gold Triumvir Salvator, one of the nation’s three powerful
rulers. She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up buddies with him.
She’d been a Secondstringer when they’d met – and an outcast at
that. She hadn’t exactly learned to play well with others, having
been brought up by merciless trainers. But whereas everyone else
had gone out of their way to avoid her, Connor had done his best to
reach out, and she’d eventually realized that he was one of those
rare people who was every bit as nice as he seemed.

Which all led to her overwhelming need to
protect him, and right now, that meant warning him about what he’d
face in the arena. Those spheres may have been fake monsters, but
they were still dangerous. He was the only person in the world she
truly considered a friend, and she didn’t want anything to happen
to him.

She zoomed around the corner and stopped
just short of crashing into another batch of slow-moving adults.
They were speaking in a language she didn’t recognize, and all held
wands in their hands. She glared at them, frustrated at this new
delay, then recognized two of them from the waiting room she’d sat
in before her test with the Challenge judges.

These were contestants from one of the other
participating nations. And her competition.

“
Move it!” she exclaimed,
shoving past them. “How do you expect to fight monsters if you’re
so slow?” She didn’t care what they thought of her – they were just
a bunch of strangers she’d defeat. Enchanters. Who had to think
they were better than her. She couldn’t wait to see the shocked
looks on their faces when she outdid them and their abracadabra.
Oh, how she’d rub their arrogant noses in the fact that they got
beat by a Norm!

It occurred to her that Connor, an Enchanter
boy, technically fell into the same category as those bigheaded
jerks. But she’d never lump him in with them. She found it bizarre
that he’d been nominated for the Challenge in the first place,
since monster fighting wasn’t exactly his thing. Sure, he was way
ahead of his schoolmates when it came to fancy magic, and she’d
watched him vanquish enough practice dummies to know he’d be decent
if he ever faced a real beast, but he’d never battled an actual,
live supernatural creature before. Not even under the school’s
controlled conditions.

While Aurelia had whooped
with joy when she’d been nominated for the Challenge, Connor’s face
had turned white as ash. He’d later told her that his father had
wanted one of his kids to represent him in the Challenge. And the
Gold Triumvir
had
made a big deal out of announcing that he had a personal
stake in the game. But why Connor, his youngest? Why not, instead,
nominate one of his adult children – Connor’s half-brothers and
sisters by a variety of stepmoms – who actually had experience?
Connor hadn’t replied when Aurelia had asked that
question.

She saw the entrance to the library ahead
and quickened her pace. The library’s two dark brown doors sat in
an arched frame that nearly reached the high, vaulted ceiling, and
Aurelia suddenly felt very short in comparison. She peered in, not
wanting to run into any other Scholars if she could help it. She
had no desire to regurgitate the Academy’s handbook as punishment
for trespassing on the Scholars’ turf – again. And she couldn’t
stand the hoity-toity way the Scholars always looked down at her,
even when they knew she could knock them out with her bare hands if
she wanted to.

Seeing no one else around, though, she
walked into the library and called, “Connor? You in here?”

She was positive the answer to that question
was yes. Connor spent half his life studying, and she never
understood why. Oh, she studied too – studied monster anatomy and
behavior. She had to know her enemies in order to hunt them. If she
needed to, she could devote her attention to pages of dense facts
for hours, since her life might one day depend on those details.
But why someone would lock himself up with textbooks voluntarily,
especially for the kinds of frou-frou topics Connor apparently
enjoyed – like art history and sociology – was beyond her. He could
be so serious sometimes. It was hard to believe he was only a year
older than her.

She darted toward the library’s tall, wooden
bookshelves and rushed down the aisles one by one, wondering if
Connor was browsing for some leather-bound pile of paper. She
didn’t see anyone. Then, hearing a slight rustling behind her, she
turned.

A pig made of miniscule books – obviously
put together by an enchantment – trotted toward her. A faint golden
shimmer clung to the little red, blue, and brown covers, which
glittered with tiny gilt letters, and the thin white pages rippled
as the creature moved. Aurelia grinned, knowing that only Connor
would have created such a thing. He’d told her earlier that day,
when she asked him how she’d know where in the humongous library
he’d be, that she’d figure out right away how to find him, and
she’d guessed that he’d leave some kind of sign.

The book-pig must have been it.

She crossed her arms and regarded the
enchanted creature. “Very cute, Connor,” she said. “C’mon, pig,
hurry up and show me where he is!”

The book-pig stopped, grunted at her, and
trotted into the shelves. Knowing it would lead her to Connor, she
darted after it.

Within moments, they’d reached a classroom
at the back of the library. It was a rectangular room with walls of
gray stone and a wrought-iron lantern, suspended by magic near the
ceiling and giving off a soft white light. In the center stood a
square table with a gleaming stone top and thick wooden legs. The
book-pig grunted and went to curl up in the corner, while Aurelia
scanned the room with her eyes.

Connor sat in one of the high-backed,
intricately carved wooden chairs, reading a thick book full of
complicated-looking diagrams. He tapped his golden-brown wand
absentmindedly against the page he was reading, and his auburn hair
fell onto his forehead, nearly reaching his eyes. Those pretty,
dark blue peepers, the cherries on top of his classic good looks,
made all the other girls swoon at the sight of him. But not
Aurelia. The idea of anything romantic between Connor and her made
her cringe. It’d be like dating her brother, or worse. And she
couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to. Relationships between
Enchanters and Norms were illegal, and she’d seen her non-magical
schoolmates get banished to the far corners of the Triumvirate for
making goo-goo eyes at Scholars.

So she crossed her arms and gave him a
disapproving look, instead. “You really need a haircut.”

He looked up at her with a slight smile.
“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “How’d your test with the
Challenge judges go? Think you’ll qualify?”

“
Of course, silly. But
before we talk about how awesome I did, I need to tell you
something.” She started to describe what had happened during her
test, but Connor held up a hand to stop her.

“
You can’t tell me this,”
he said. “That’s cheating.”

“
Who cares? So, the first
thing they asked me –”

“
Don’t.
” He stood, his expression dead serious. “Cheating’s a crime.
And they’ll do more than just disqualify you if they find out.
Aurie, they’ll send you to
jail
.”

Crap, didn’t think of
that.
She glanced back at the classroom’s
open door, suddenly tense.

“
Don’t worry about me,”
Connor said. “Despite what you think, I can actually handle myself
in the arena.”

“
What if you can’t?” she
demanded, her concern for him overtaking her nervousness. “I don’t
wanna see my best friend get his face ripped off!”

“
And I don’t want to see
mine get dragged to prison! So keep quiet, or we’ll both find
ourselves in chains.”

“
They wouldn’t
arrest
you
. Your
dad would throw a fit!”

“
Yes, at
me
.” His expression
darkened. “The Triumvirate’s supposed to be all about rule of law,
and how he treats me is meant to prove that. If we were caught
cheating, my punishment would be even harsher than yours. My
father’s image is more important to him than I am.”

She pursed her lips. The only thing worse
than going to jail would be taking Connor down with her. “There’ll
be healers waiting by the arena,” she said, more to reassure
herself than him. “They’ll rush in if things get ugly. I’ll grab a
bow and watch from the side, so I can shoot anything that gets too
close to you.”

“
That would also be
cheating.” He gave her an exasperated look. “You don’t have to
treat me like I’m helpless.”

“
But you
are
.” She fidgeted,
already picturing the nasty injuries he could get from those
fangbeast-imitating spheres. “Being good with magic doesn’t make
you a fighter, and let’s face it, if it weren’t for your dad, you’d
never be considered Challenge material!”

“
You’re not
helping.”

She suddenly realized how horrible she must
have sounded, and regretted her words. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a
jerk.”

“
No worries.” He smiled.
“I’m used to it by now.”

She twisted her mouth, still feeling bad.
“Why’re you so nice to me?”

“
Well, we’ve been friends
for so long, I guess I’m stuck with you,” he replied
jokingly.

His words made her pause, the question she’d
been asking herself since she met him popping into her head again.
“Why’d you act all friendly back when I was a Secondstringer in the
first place?”

“
Because you’re the only
person I’ve ever met who doesn’t care that I’m the Gold Triumvir’s
son,” he replied casually, avoiding her gaze.

The same answer, every
time
. It made sense, but she’d always felt
like there was something he wasn’t telling her. She just hadn’t
figured out how to get it out of him yet.

“
Anyway,” he said, seeming
eager to change the subject, “what do you think your chances are of
actually winning the Challenge?”

The idea of him facing
those tests – especially since one of them was about fangbeasts –
still bothered her, but what could she do? Between him getting hurt
and both of them going to jail … at least the former wouldn’t ruin
their lives.
I’ll make sure those healers
stay on their toes
, she thought firmly.
Her gaze fell on the complicated magic book he’d been reading,
which, upon closer inspection, appeared to detail a powerful
explosion spell.
If he can pull off stuff
like that, he’ll be all right. I should give him more
credit.

So she went with his change in topic, and
replied, “Better than yours, for sure.” The thrill she’d felt when
she’d stood before the judges crept back into her mind, and she
started bouncing on her toes, bubbling about how all her training
would finally amount to something more than just ganking the odd
monster that wandered too close to the Capital, and how she’d get
to become a Defender years ahead of time. “I’ll finally be free,”
she continued breathlessly. “All my life, I’ve been told where to
go and what to do, but once I’m a Defender, I’ll get to make my own
choices.” Excitement churned in her chest at the thought, and she
jumped up, unable to keep still. “When I win, it’ll … it’ll be the
best day of my life. And beating all those Enchanters, I’ll show
the whole world that you don’t need magic to –”