Wisteria Colland has prepared her entire life for the Rider's Quadrant. Why would you go into infantry or the scribes when you could have the chance to bond a dragon? But things aren't as simple as Wisteria had hoped when she gets herself tangled up...
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General Melgren is at the front, and his angry eyes are only on me. General Sorrengail stalks behind him—Violet's mom. She is staring at Saoghal. The roll-keeper scurries along behind them, looking worried. I don't bother to look at the other's faces.
"Colland," Melgren says, his voice commanding. Saoghal immediately breaks off her argument with Tairn and places herself behind me so I stand between her forelegs. Melgren doesn't even spare her a glance. "Can you tell me how you came across this..." finally, his gaze flicks upward, "dragon?" Saoghal bares her teeth.
"Uh...." I scramble for something that's not the whole truth. I doubt he would believe me if I said I was pushed, even though I am assuredly not in the business of protecting my attempted murderers. "I fell." He raises an eyebrow and I blink. "Into a hole." His eyebrow somehow raises further above his eye. "It was a very large hole."
"Was it?" General Melgren says through gritted teeth. "If you weren't aware, Wisteria Colland, this dragon was forbidden from bonding many years ago."
Saoghal growls low in her throat. "Tell him that I was not forbidden from eating impudent puny rats that call themselves humans."
"I'm not going to say that," I reply.
Saoghal snorts. "Are you utterly useless, then?"
I spin around to face her. "Did you bond me simply for the pleasure of insulting me every chance you get?"
Saoghal stares down at me imperiously. "It is a wonderful benefit, I must admit."
I scoff, and turn back to General Melgren. "My dragon...." I ponder Saoghal's words. "Disagrees."
General Sorrengail lifts her upper lip in disgust. "That dragon," she starts. "Is an abom—" She doesn't get to finish, because both Tairn and Saoghal had snapped their mighty jaws at her a mere two feet away. She slams her mouth shut with a glower.
"It is not up to him what I do," Saoghal. "Nor is it up to anyone but myself. Not even that stuck up Empyrean and their laws can restrain me. They brought this on themselves."
"I don't know what that means," I reply slowly. "But does it mean that you're still my dragon?"
"Well, I wouldn't phrase it that way, but yes, essentially. It means that I have made my decision and they cannot argue with it. After all, they cast me out. Why would I listen to them?"
I frown. "Cast you out?" Saoghal is frustratingly silent. I turn my attention back to General Melgren, trying to erase her words from my head. "She says that it's not up to you."
His eyes narrow. "We'll see about that."
But the roll-keeper steps up timidly. "Um...sir?" she mumbles.
