Read Online Shadowed By Wings by Janine Cross - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Janine Cross
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and throw yourself into his arms. Get.”
Ringus turned and fled toward the hovel, stumbling as if his knees no longer worked. He fumbled with the gharial hides draped over the hovel’s entrance and nigh on tore them down in his desperation to get inside.
I watched him go, the fingernails of each of my clenched hands digging flesh from my palms. I watched him go, knowing that he’d tell Eidon of what he’d witnessed tonight. But really, I didn’t care.
I’d remain a dragonmaster’s apprentice and become a dragonmaster myself one day, no matter what obstacles were hurled at me. Just to spite the haunt and prove that I could do it, I’d stay. I’d show Mother that I was every bit as clever and worthy as her precious Waivia, and then some.
I would.
FIVE
“ G et up, deviant.”
Dono stood before me, where I lay on my hammock in my stall. Splash! He upturned a bucket of cold water over my face.
Spluttering and gasping, I bolted upright.
The servitors and inductees gathered at the threshold of my stall snickered. Dono turned and walked out, his audience hastily parting to let him pass.
I had not the energy to leap after him. Every part of me was stiffer than old rawhide. I glowered at my unwanted audience and swiped water from my eyes.
“What are you looking at, hey-o?”
They muttered and returned to their hovel, where others were just starting to stumble from its depths and stagger across the courtyard to the latrines. My latrine, roofless, looked decapitated.
I remembered my mother’s visit. Shivering and sodden, I buried my face in my hands.
There was so much to fight, within and without me, and it would always be that way. Every moment of the life I’d chosen as a dragonmaster’s apprentice would be a fight, a fight for respect amongst my peers, a fight to survive the dragons while serving, a fight to survive Arena, when that time came. I needed to daily battle the iron will of my mother’s haunt, and would also need to fight against the conventions of society, the formidable laws of Temple, and the hatred of those rishi whose lives I strove to change for the better, even while defying the conventions they held so dear.
And where, in all that fighting, lay my goal of revenge, of ousting Waikar Re Kratt from his own Clutch, of ruining his life? I had not the spirit for any of it.
I was so desperate for sleep, my eyes felt like clots of clay-sodden straw, my bones like glass pipettes, my muscles like heavy, rotten melons.
What had I been thinking, to undertake such an impossible journey? I had been naïve. My situation was outrageous. Perhaps I should just give it all up, follow my mother’s bidding, seek a sister long lost and most likely dead.
Oh, Re. I needed venom to stave the haunt off. I needed venom to fight, to continue.
No sooner did I think it than the tang of the dragons’ poison was suddenly sharp in my nostrils. Startled, I pulled my hands away from my face, then reared back from the dragonmaster, who was standing right next to my hammock. His palms cupped a filled gourd.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. That effervescent, citric tang said it all. As if it were a fragile glass bauble, he proffered the gourd.
I shook my head. Pain from yesterday’s labor ran down my neck and across my shoulders like hot oil.
He proffered the gourd again.
My heart beat a little faster.
“No,” I whispered, meeting the dragonmaster’s blood-rivered eyes.
“No,” I whispered again as he stood there still, but no conviction was in my voice, none at all. Indeed, a rush of saliva was filling my mouth.
“No,” I said a third time, my voice husky. In answer, the dragonmaster lifted the gourd to my lips.
I drank.
With venom singing through my veins, I cobbled together a roof for my latrine before the sun was even full into the sky.
Temporarily freed from the bondage of my mother’s will by venom’s shield, and my aches and uncertainty eradicated by the same poison, I stood
Ringus turned and fled toward the hovel, stumbling as if his knees no longer worked. He fumbled with the gharial hides draped over the hovel’s entrance and nigh on tore them down in his desperation to get inside.
I watched him go, the fingernails of each of my clenched hands digging flesh from my palms. I watched him go, knowing that he’d tell Eidon of what he’d witnessed tonight. But really, I didn’t care.
I’d remain a dragonmaster’s apprentice and become a dragonmaster myself one day, no matter what obstacles were hurled at me. Just to spite the haunt and prove that I could do it, I’d stay. I’d show Mother that I was every bit as clever and worthy as her precious Waivia, and then some.
I would.
FIVE
“ G et up, deviant.”
Dono stood before me, where I lay on my hammock in my stall. Splash! He upturned a bucket of cold water over my face.
Spluttering and gasping, I bolted upright.
The servitors and inductees gathered at the threshold of my stall snickered. Dono turned and walked out, his audience hastily parting to let him pass.
I had not the energy to leap after him. Every part of me was stiffer than old rawhide. I glowered at my unwanted audience and swiped water from my eyes.
“What are you looking at, hey-o?”
They muttered and returned to their hovel, where others were just starting to stumble from its depths and stagger across the courtyard to the latrines. My latrine, roofless, looked decapitated.
I remembered my mother’s visit. Shivering and sodden, I buried my face in my hands.
There was so much to fight, within and without me, and it would always be that way. Every moment of the life I’d chosen as a dragonmaster’s apprentice would be a fight, a fight for respect amongst my peers, a fight to survive the dragons while serving, a fight to survive Arena, when that time came. I needed to daily battle the iron will of my mother’s haunt, and would also need to fight against the conventions of society, the formidable laws of Temple, and the hatred of those rishi whose lives I strove to change for the better, even while defying the conventions they held so dear.
And where, in all that fighting, lay my goal of revenge, of ousting Waikar Re Kratt from his own Clutch, of ruining his life? I had not the spirit for any of it.
I was so desperate for sleep, my eyes felt like clots of clay-sodden straw, my bones like glass pipettes, my muscles like heavy, rotten melons.
What had I been thinking, to undertake such an impossible journey? I had been naïve. My situation was outrageous. Perhaps I should just give it all up, follow my mother’s bidding, seek a sister long lost and most likely dead.
Oh, Re. I needed venom to stave the haunt off. I needed venom to fight, to continue.
No sooner did I think it than the tang of the dragons’ poison was suddenly sharp in my nostrils. Startled, I pulled my hands away from my face, then reared back from the dragonmaster, who was standing right next to my hammock. His palms cupped a filled gourd.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. That effervescent, citric tang said it all. As if it were a fragile glass bauble, he proffered the gourd.
I shook my head. Pain from yesterday’s labor ran down my neck and across my shoulders like hot oil.
He proffered the gourd again.
My heart beat a little faster.
“No,” I whispered, meeting the dragonmaster’s blood-rivered eyes.
“No,” I whispered again as he stood there still, but no conviction was in my voice, none at all. Indeed, a rush of saliva was filling my mouth.
“No,” I said a third time, my voice husky. In answer, the dragonmaster lifted the gourd to my lips.
I drank.
With venom singing through my veins, I cobbled together a roof for my latrine before the sun was even full into the sky.
Temporarily freed from the bondage of my mother’s will by venom’s shield, and my aches and uncertainty eradicated by the same poison, I stood
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