Hello again! Fairly short chapter this time around, but I will be back on Friday!
9. Domino
A door slammed shut.
Emerald jumped despite herself, then glared at Mercury. "Well?"
"No luck. Old bastard won't budge."
Her eyes squeezed shut and she took a deep, shuddering breath. "We still have time," she said—but they didn't. Tonight. It has to be tonight. She'd rather die than disappoint Cinder again. "Maybe if we send someone else—"
"Yeah, no." Mercury kicked off his boots and flopped onto his bed. "Face it, Em. That bridge is torched."
"So what do we do?" Ilia asked.
Neo gestured at her, a silent 'What she said.'
"Fucked if I know."
Emerald squeezed both hands into fists. Were any of them taking this seriously?! "We don't need Rivers. We need the letters. So... we steal them, somehow."
"Cool." Mercury lay back, propping his legs up against the wall. "Anybody in here know how to crack a safe in, like... two hours?"
"Fine, we get the combination from him!"
Neo snapped her fingers, then spread her hands while raising one eyebrow. When the others only stared at her blankly, she heaved a sigh and scribbled on a scrap of paper. She held it up—'How?'
Mercury snorted. "I mean... he doesn't have a dragon. It's not gonna be that hard to threaten him. What, is he gonna die for the council?"
"Then what?" Ilia asked.
There was a short pause while Mercury thought it over. He shrugged. "Kill him?"
"No," Emerald and Ilia both snapped at the same time, while Neo put a hand over her face.
"What? I'm just saying!"
"Leaving a corpse behind is worse than him telling his sob story to the council," Ilia pointed out. "Too easy for them to pin that on us."
"I could probably make it look like an accident."
"And the council would still blame Cinder afterward. Even if it didn't look incredibly suspicious, due process isn't exactly their middle name."
"We're not killing anyone!" Emerald burst out. "Rivers whining about being threatened won't make us look that bad. The council saying he was murdered will." She looked directly at Ilia. "You'll have to do it."
"Hey, you were the one who screwed it up in the first place!"
"Mercury and I are supposed to look like bystanders, remember?"
"Yeah," Mercury agreed. "And we can't exactly have silent but deadly interrogate the guy."
Neo glared at him.
"C'mon. What are you gonna do, scribble at him? Real scary."
She showed him the only sign he understood. He opened his mouth—
"We don't have time for this!" Emerald stared both of them down. She wouldn't fail Cinder again—especially not because of these idiots. "Ilia, will you do it?"
Ilia went a sullen, poisonous green, but she nodded. "Fine. I'll lure him onto the grounds and jump him there. Then I'll text you the combination."
"While we break into the Dragonmaster's office and kick off the party," Mercury said. "Sounds like fun."
It was already dusk at Haven. Heavy shadows cloaked the practice field, concealing Justice as he lay sprawled in the grass. He would have been invisible if he hadn't twitched every so often, letting out pathetic moans.
Finally, he heard two sets of running footsteps.
"I don't know what's wrong with him!" Ilia was saying. "He just collapsed!"
"I'll call the infirmary."
He cracked an eye open. There was a human kneeling beside him, worry lines standing out on his forehead as he tapped on his scroll. A lazy swipe of Justice's tail slapped the device from his hand. He rolled to his feet, pacing in a slow circle around their prey.
"Look at that." Ilia smirked. "He must be feeling better."
Rivers swallowed hard and turned to look back at the academy. "What—"
Justice pounced. His forepaws slammed into the human's chest and bore him to the ground. He struggled for a moment, then went limp.
"Wh... why..." He squirmed, his breaths coming quick and shallow. Justice eased the pressure, bringing his head in close to the human's face so he could feel the heat of his breath.
"I have a question," Ilia said. "You tell me what I want to know, and you can go back to your comfy little office."
"You..."
"The old man has a safe. What's the combination?"
The human struggled again. Justice dug in his claws, then pushed down when he tried to shout. All that came out was a small croak.
"Okay," Ilia said, after a moment. "I think he gets the picture."
Justice eased up again. The human coughed and gasped for breath. "You want... money?" he wheezed.
"I want the council's letters." Ilia nodded at Justice. He heated his scales—not enough to burn, but enough to show that he could. "Do you really want to protect them this badly?"
The human's jaw set. Justice squeezed again, his claws just barely drawing blood, smoke curling from the man's shirt. He pressed down, watching as the human squirmed and gaped like a fish. Finally his hand thumped against the ground once... then again and again, faster and faster, frantic.
Ilia nodded, and Justice let him breathe again.
"T-twelve," the human stammered. "F-forty-three. Uh, eight..."
When he was done the human smelled like blood, burned cloth, and fear. Ilia was smiling—the human couldn't be cruel now that he'd been made weak.
This was how it should be.
Neo's scroll buzzed. She slipped it out of her pocket, glanced at the screen.
— 12 43 8 25 33 2. Rivers tied up outside.
Go time.
Whisper had already flown her onto the roof, making sure to keep the building between them and Benedictus, an earth dragon belonging to the professor loyal to the council. He would eventually find Rivers and raise the alarm—but she'd been studying their patrol patterns for weeks. It would be about an hour. She had less than that to get in, grab the letters, get out, and start a riot with Ilia.
All while Emerald and Mercury sat around looking innocent.
Neo rolled her eyes and went in through Lionheart's window. So she was doing way more than her fair share of the work—what else was new? She pictured Roman gasping and clutching his chest in mock-indignation, and smiled.
Inside, the office was dark and deserted. That was good—Emerald had texted her about ten minutes ago saying she'd spotted Lionheart talking to another professor in the courtyard, but that wasn't completely reassuring. She usually had better information than this going in. If Roman knew she was trying to pull something this rushed...
Safe. Safe. Where was the safe?
Neo peeked behind a painting near the heavy oak desk, found blank wall. Knocked. Nope. She peeled back the carpet, checked all the drawers on the desk. Finally she tugged on a bookcase and felt it slide forward. The safe was built into the wall behind it.
She clicked in the combination without looking at Ilia's text. Inside was a mass of papers. Financial documents, bank statements, everything she'd need to clean out Haven's accounts. She ignored most of it—Roman had probably just twitched without knowing why—and finally found a small stack of envelopes wrapped in a rubber band. Grabbing one at random, she tugged it open and skimmed it.
...hope you will consider relocating Celeste to Harvey Mills Broodery ... a warm, caring personality with no violent incidents to speak of...
Another envelope. This one a response from the council.
...cost of reimbursing the rider is a fraction of the upkeep required to house and feed a fully grown dragon that cannot fulfill its basic purpose. We regret to inform you...
Something ugly bubbled up in her stomach. These were the letters.
She shot a last wistful glance at the remaining papers, then opened the office door and slipped out into the hallway, relocking and closing it behind her. All without a hitch—except for the fourth year that had been walking by, and who had frozen in place upon seeing her.
Neo stared at her. The fourth year stared back.
"Is it time?" the fourth year whispered.
Neo blinked. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"Good."
Word spread.
Whisper and Justice split up—he took the fire and earth barns while she handled wind and water. Some of the dragons woke up groggy when she came through their stables, blinking in confusion and asking their neighbors what was happening. The rest already knew. They looked at her with fear, excitement, rage... and all of them spread the news to their neighbors, fanning out to the other barns, waking their riders.
Meanwhile, Whisper knew that Neo and Ilia would be posting Lionheart's letters to and from the council where the students would see them. Some were on the walls of the dormitories, others hanging from lampposts or scattered on the ground. They just looked like squiggles on paper to her, but already she could hear angry shouts in the distance.
"Are we going to let them kill us?" Justice roared, flames licking at the air as he spoke. Whisper let him rally them—he was better at being angry. She stuck to the shadows once she'd spread her message, waiting.
The first professor to respond was one of theirs—her fire dragon let out a piercing howl. After that, no one could stay asleep.
A fight broke out. Whisper sprinted over to where two dragons were scuffling, batting at one another with their paws. They weren't using their claws or their powers, but their riders showed no such restraint. She prodded them apart with her tail.
"You're going to get us killed," the smaller one hissed. "What is wrong with you? The council is going to come and—"
The bigger one put a hand on his dragon and said, "Let them."
Somehow, a fire started in the cafeteria. It didn't get very big—a water dragon that belonged to one of the fourth-years put it out within a few minutes—but soon after that two brawling earth dragons crashed through a nearby wall and part of the roof caved in. Lionheart still hadn't made an appearance.
Whisper couldn't find Neo. She slipped around the back of the fourth year dormitory, feeling a slight twinge when she saw that a nearby statue had lost her head. Then she heard another roar and recognized Justice.
She found him in the courtyard, crouched as though he was ready to pounce, Ilia standing on his back and clinging to his neck for balance.
"This is not a protest," she said, her voice carrying over a sizeable crowd of nearby students. Distant sounds punctuated the statement—a crash, shattering glass. "The council has made it clear that they don't care about protest... and Lionheart obviously doesn't care about dragons."
A rumble went through the crowd. Then Paprika emerged from the press, Char sitting on her back. "He told me he would petition them!" He didn't have any real skill at public speaking, but there was enough raw fury in his voice to make up for it. "They messaged him back days ago saying they don't give a damn! As long as it's cheaper to kill her!"
"It's time we stop pretending these petitions are anything more than an old man screaming into the void," Ilia snarled. "It's time we stop taking promises and reassurances from people who only want to keep us down!"
The crowd cheered. If there were any council loyalists around, they were staying out of the way. Emerald and Mercury would be among them, biding their time.
"This isn't a question of politics," Ilia spat. "It's our lives. Our partners' lives. We're fighting for survival." Justice tossed his head, smoke billowing from between his jaws. "But we're not doing it alone."
A murmur in the crowd. Whisper recognized that as her cue, jumped to the front of the press and roared her approval. Others mimicked her, and the ground shook with the fury of dozens of assembled dragons.
"A few weeks ago, we were contacted by an outside group," Ilia said. "Their leader is on her way. And we're going to show her... to show the council... that they can't come for one of us without dealing with all of us."
The crowd cheered again... and then silence fell. Seconds passed. Neo had explained to her that the timing here would be the trickiest part of the whole thing—Emerald and Mercury would have warned Cinder that it was starting, but if she was delayed too long the tension and fervor Ilia had built up in the crowd would dissipate.
Somewhere far in the distance, a dragon shrieked. It echoed off the mountains to the north of Haven Dragonry, and Whisper felt a shiver of excitement run through her.
Strike roared again as she drew closer—a golden speck highlighted against the night sky, like a star was coming down to greet them. She swept over the school, knocking a decorative weather vane off the top of the tower that housed Lionheart's office.
Justice and Paprika moved out of the way, standing so that they were on either side of Strike as she landed. She flared her wings, showing off the slender curve of her neck, the stark black and gold stripes on her scales... and Cinder, who was standing in the saddle. Unlike Ilia, she didn't need to hold on to keep her balance once Strike had settled.
"I'll keep this brief," she said. The crowd was dead silent. "I don't know why you signed on to become dragon riders—everyone has their own reason. Whatever you were before you came here... whatever you wanted... you've been given a gift. The most precious gift in this world. A partner that loves you, wholly and unconditionally.
"There are two kinds of people here tonight." Piercing eyes roved over the crowd. "When you look at your partners, what do you see? A magnificent creature, fierce and strong and loyal, who would give its life for you without question?" She ran a hand along the striped neck in front of her, and Strike arched into the touch.
"Or do you see a tool to be used as you see fit?"
The biting question sent a ripple of anger and disgust through the crowd. Cinder smirked. "For the former group... you have a choice to make. Are you willing to give up your own comfort? Your safety? Will you risk your life for your partner, like they would do for you without question? That is the position the council has put you in—you can bow and scrape and let them decide whether your dragon lives or dies... or you can come with me."
She held up a hand as the crowd shifted, poised to shout. The smirk widened, showing a hint of teeth. "To the latter group... I only have one thing to say. Run."
Haven was in chaos.
Rudder struggled against a crowd of people fleeing the courtyard where Cinder and Strike had landed. He knew he wasn't supposed to get too close, but he thought he could at least get a last glimpse of Whisper and Justice.
By the time he made it there, a swarm of dragons and their riders were already in the air. He recognized the striped form of Strike at the head of the group... then a flash of grey. Maybe Justice, maybe some other fire dragon that looked a little like him. Either way, Rudder needed to get away from here.
He followed the flow of students who had escaped the courtyard after Cinder's speech. From what he could see, they made up less than half the school. Almost all the first-years were gone—probably because many of them had dragons with disabilities that the council would find if they stayed. Rudder was just thankful he and his siblings had all been lucky enough to escape the strange surge of health problems in their age group.
Finally, he rounded a corner, passing over the rubble of a smashed statue of a group of human riders. Mercury was there, and greeted him with a pat on the head. Rudder warbled sadly and looked up at the cloud of dragons in the sky. It was impossible now to recognize any of them. He picked a random grey dot and watched it fade into the distance, imagining that it was his brother.
"C'mon." Mercury nudged his shoulder. "You knew they were going."
He did. It still hurt.
He walked with Mercury through the school, wincing every time he saw a shattered landmark. Here was a lantern he'd found when he was still small enough for his rider to pick him up, where he'd hunted the moths that circled around the light at dusk. It was overturned, the metal warped by a blast of fire.
There was the hill where he'd sat with Justice the first time, ripped up by scuffling dragons, one of the trees now toppled onto its side. Rudder looked away and told himself it didn't matter. It wouldn't have been the same alone, anyway.