Aliya woke up with a start. She took in an unsteady breath and shivered in the cold of the morning. Unfortunately, the dorms of the Academy were not well-heated. Many nights she'd rather have slept in the cave with Kilnik than have to sleep in her cold bed.
She'd gotten caught doing that one too many times already and had been threatened with extra training if she kept doing it. Not that she minded extra training but she didn't particularly want it as a form of punishment.
She got up and got dressed quickly, braiding her long black hair into a plait and then winding it around her head.
A part of her liked her life as it was now, she really did, but she'd liked it better before. Maybe she didn't have any room to feel cheated, maybe that was too selfish of her. After all, she was just an orphan and a common one at that. She'd been thrust into a life she'd never asked for or dreamed of. It was at once wonderful and terrible.
She would never give up the people it had brought into her life, Kilnik, Tate, and even Cade. What she did regret was the circumstances that had led to that fateful moment on that long-ago Choosing Day. She'd give almost anything to have her mother back, anything. She also didn't particularly enjoy how most people in the capitol treated her now. She was something between an interesting insect to those around her maybe like a butterfly and to others she was a cockroach they just hated the sight of and longed to crush under their shoe.
If she was going to be honest with herself she'd do anything to rewind the clock to just before her sixteenth birthday, to before she and Tate had left Castle Nourii. The past five years had been full of good things, at least for her. She'd had a safe place to live, food for every meal, Kilnik within reach at all times, and Tate to guide her. Here in the Academy she felt cut off from what had made her feel safe. Tate was completely gone now, missing probably dead. She was glad that she'd made up with him a little, she still had so much she'd wanted to say to him, so much she'd wanted to ask.
Once outside she fell into step with other students on their way to the first lecture. Dragons flew in waves overhead going to their own lessons in different parts of the Academy. She would have a class with Kilnik later in the day. She tried to spot him in the skyways above but she couldn't see him.
She heard a few people mutter under their breath as she came near them.
"What a freak..." She heard a female voice whisper.
"...she's good though, did you see her in flight class." a male voice muttered from somewhere else.
She tuned it all out. She'd quickly gotten used to both the compliments and the insults.
"Aliya!" The crowd parted for Cade as he approached. He was smiling and waving but when she waved back he hesitated for some reason looking uncertain for just a step.
He came up next to her and the crowd parted even further. He may not technically have his prince's status here but people still remembered he was royalty. "I didn't see you the last few days, what were you up to?" He asked.
"I was studying in Kilnik's cave."
"I like Shasiv but I don't spend half as much time with him as you do with Kilnik. I don't know any dragon rider who does. Shasiv has so many of his own friends that he hardly has time for me." He said with a chuckle.
This gave her pause, was Kilnik not socializing well, was she keeping him from making more dragon connections? She would have to grill him later.
"Well, I just enjoy his company that's all."
"What about my company?" Cade said with bravado but when she looked at him he was red and looking away.
The corners of her mouth twitched. She'd decided early on that Cade loved to tease but sometimes his teasing rebounded onto himself.
"I like your company too." She answered as casually as possible. He looked at her again and grinned even wider.
"Of course, you do what's not to like."
"Wait I take it all back, we can't be friends anymore." She deadpanned.
He shoved her and she looked at him and grinned. She did like being around Cade, he was funny and lighthearted. Well, except for that day at the strangest dinner she'd ever been forced to attend, he'd always been friendly and open.
"I know there's been a lot going on lately." His tone had turned somber. "How are you coming with studying for the quarter test?"
He was referring to the first of four tests the final years had to take at the Academy before applying for the Dragon Corps. If they failed even one of the tests they would be held back another year.
She sighed. "I think I'll be okay. I'm not going to lie it has been hard to focus on studying. I keep thinking about him, wondering if-" Her breath stuttered and she shut those thoughts down. She couldn't get caught up in her emotions. She had to keep going. If anything this was what Tate had taught her for, this was why he'd put so much time and effort into her and Kilnik. If she fell apart now she'd be letting him down. She would not let him down.
She remembered something he'd said to her once. She'd been thirteen at the time. He had been working on her swordsmanship. She'd been huffing and puffing barely keeping up. She'd had to learn at a run, things that most young nobles learned over ten-plus years, she'd had to learn in two. Sometimes she resented his training. It felt like he was always asking the impossible of her.
The wooden sword had flown out of her hand for the fifteenth time in two hours. Her hand stung, her muscles screamed, and she bent over panting.
"Get your sword, let's go."
She didn't answer.
"Aliya, get your sword and let's go."
She'd finally looked up and with all the balled-up frustration of a teenage girl she let him have it. "No, I need a break. I can't keep doing this. You are going to make me pass out! Why can't we go a little slower, I bet none of those nobles have to train this hard!" She whined incessantly.
Tate stood upright and tucked his own training sword under his arm. The look he gave her was completely unimpressed.
"You're right."
Her head flew up, startled at his admission.
"They don't have to train like this." He pulled the sword and pointed the wooden tip at her chest from where he stood, "you do. You have not had the training they've had, you are behind. If you want to survive in this world, in the life of a dragon rider you have to train like this. Why do you think I'm here."
"Huh?"
"Why do you think I'm here? Why did the Emperor send me."
"To train me." She said hesitantly.
"To keep you alive. He sent me to keep you alive, and part of that is giving you the skills to stay that way. You are so far behind where your peers are in basic combat, not even bringing a dragon into it. You will be in the Dragon Corps one day but if you do not master these basics you will get yourself killed before you even get there. Make no mistake about it Aliya, I'm not here to just train you, I'm here to make sure you survive. I'm here to make sure you become a Dragon Rider in the Dragon Corps. If you fail, I fail and I do not fail. You will not fail because you will not fail me. Is that understood?"
She'd stared at him dumbfounded.
"Aliya, you train like this because you will survive, you will thrive. Only by training like this can you be safe and can you rise above what they are going to say about you."
Only now did she really understand his words. She could survive, she could rise above what the nobles said about her and to her because she was better than them. She was better than them because Tate had trained her to be. She would not let him down now. She would pass her exams, she would become a Dragon Rider in the Dragon Corps with top marks. She would rise in the ranks until no one would dare look down on the student of Tate Delmont.
Cade grabbed her arm and pulled her along. "You're going the wrong way. Relax you look like you're about to go to war." He teased. "You're going to do great on your exams, I know it. You're already top of the class."
"I know. I'll be the top and you can be second."
He snorted. "Gee, thanks." He paused for a beat. "But I'll take it."
She grinned.