Rainbow Magic (Dragon Rider #1) {EDITING}

Chapter One: The Stone of Fate

The redhead who'd clapped walked onto the plinth in the centre of the room was tall, her eyes flickering about the small crowd of teenagers waiting for her at the foot of the steps leading up to where she stood. "Right," she said, her soft voice echoing in the eerie silence which had fallen. "Kiddies, may I have your attention please?"

To which some smart mouth by the name of Raelynn replied, "no."

The same smart mouth soon found herself in a headlock. "That was meant to be a rhetorical question." She smiled, gesturing with her free hand to the clear shaped stone placed on its intricately woven metal stand atop the black slab of rock it rested on. "Now, we're going to be doing this in alphabetical order, so be patient, unless you want to find yourself like blondie over here," she said, tightening her grip on Raelynn's head. "I'll hand you over to my dear colleague here, who'll explain things in a bit more detail." Her hand waved over to the man waiting at the side of the room, smiling brightly at him as she released the blonde from her grip of death. "Pay attention, since he only explains things once."

"Might as well get started then..." he muttered, flipping back his hood, glaring around at the hopeful faces staring back at him. Instead of the grouchy old man Sora had been expecting to see under the hood, she was met with a man of around the same age as his partner – late twenties or early thirties – although he certainly didn't act like it. He folded his arms, only adding to the grouchy look, his hair fluttering slightly in the breeze drifting through the building. It was an inky black colour, half of it falling in a long fringe covering most of one side of his face, the rest tied back in a low ponytail. What was visible of his face seemed to be set to the permanently-angry-setting, angled brown eyes glaring out at all of the squirming sixteen-year-olds. Sora couldn't blame him – she'd be annoyed too if she had to deal with all of them. "When I call your name, come and place your hand on the stone. Depending on the colour displayed I'll give you a tag and tell you where you're going... if you're going anywhere at all, that is."

"One of the three lovely people behind us will have a tag corresponding to yours if you get one," the redhead explained, shooting a glare at her companion. "Give them a bit more information, Ethan... Honestly... you're nearly as bad as Oz..."

He remained stony-faced, staring right back at her, though his glare was half-ruined by the fringe of silky hair covering one eye. "Shut up."

The redhead grinned, muttering something which sounded something awfully like, "make me."

Ethan ignored her, turning a set of steely brown eyes back on the crowd in front of him. "If you don't get a tag, that means you're staying in your home and learning from your parents or whoever has a similar magic to you."

Tabitha shot a smirk her way.

"Let's see who's first..." Ethan said, unfurling the scroll he'd been carrying, peering at the first name. "Ellie Adams," he called, waiting and watching as a small mousy-haired girl crept out of the gaggle of teenage girls.

Sora bit her lip, waiting with bated breath as she watched the stone turn a bright blue colour. It was just one colour under green... which meant she was going to Fallsbrooke. She'd set the bar, and while it wasn't that high, it still wasn't a relief for her.

She wanted at least one person to get brown before her turn.

Maybe that way it'd be less embarrassing... especially if she didn't even get the stone to change colour.

"Tabitha Charleston."

The name snapped her out of her reverie, her eyes narrowing as she watched the girl prance up the steps and place one tan hand on the smooth glassy surface.

Internally, Sora cursed her to death as she saw the result.

She'd turned the stone red.

A bright crimson red.

Tabitha, the annoying bully, had red magic – the highest in the rainbow spectrum – and silently Sora wished she'd get white magic just so she could one-up the irritating girl. To add insult to injury, she hadn't just turned the glassy egg part that colour either. No. She'd turned the dragon red too... which meant she was a damn dragon rider as well.

She wouldn't hear the end of it.

Sora sighed, her shoulders slumping, dread pooling in her gut as she continued to stare intently at the stone. She watched as it turned a myriad of colours, some of them being brown, much to her own satisfaction, a few even reaching yellow magic. But they had yet to see a colour higher on the entire magic spectrum than red.

That was only to be expected.

In a town like theirs, with only a few people who'd once been mages in Central City, magic wasn't expected to be all that powerful... and the small groups behind the three people on the other side of the hall only proved that.

Prodigies tended to come from those born into mage or rider families, none of which lived in the Eastern Sector. Those kinds of people were lucky enough to live in one of the big cities... where the colours of red and yellow were average scores. Red magic wasn't all that powerful. Not when Sora compared it to someone who wielded white magic. But even then, a White was still a far cry away from those who stood at the very top – the Big Three.

Black, silver and gold.

Thankfully for her, not too many people could wield the scary gold magic which was rumoured to be able to wipe out an entire continent. Most of them lived in the North Sector too, in the city of dragon riders, a safe distance away from her. She'd been terrified of the top three classes of dragon riders ever since that day.

Her shudders didn't last for long, the sound of her name being called making her snap to attention, her heart thudding frantically in her chest as she forced her feet to move.

"Sora Williams."

She walked up the steps, eyeing the glassy stone warily. It was time.

"Put your hand on the stone." Ethan sighed. "We haven't got all day..." he trailed off, glaring at the small group still waiting for their names to be called. "And the rest of you lot can shut the hell up," he called, having heard the sniggers and hushed whispers as Sora walked closer.

Gingerly, she placed her fingertips against the cool surface.

No reaction.

Crimson tinted her cheeks.

"I said put your hand on it. Not just your fingertips, silly," Ethan said.

"OK," she mumbled, knowing it wasn't going to matter either way, but the sudden swirl of light that formed inside the clear stone shattered that thought.

She wasn't colourless.

She had a colour.

Which was apparently unable to make up its mind on what it wanted to be, because glowing back at her from the egg-shaped stone was a rainbow.