Bloodlines: Dragon Rider Book 2

Chapter 10: Game of School

I shrug, lips pursing as I gaze to her two friends. "Bragging rights to the victor, right? Maybe next time, control your temper."

"Miss. Crimson." I perk up, trying to see the professor over the rows of tables and students in front of me. She stands at the front of the room, hands hidden behind her blue and brown robe. "Would you care to share your conversation with the class?"

With an innocent nod and casual tone, I say, "Vex is upset with me because I beat her in morning training yesterday. So I said that if she really wants to beat me, she needs to control her temper."

In the corner of my eye, Vex's eye twitches as some of the other students laugh. Though in most of these situations, I try to be the bigger person, Vex is like a tiny annoying gnat that I have to swat away or else she'll keep flying around my face.

You can't show weakness around the mages, I remind myself.

The professor's expression goes unchanging but her shoulders pullback in the slightest degree. "Perhaps if you spent less time training and more time studying you wouldn't have failed my exam."

Now it's my turn to be laughed at.

My lips purse and I sit. To my right, Vex still glowers at me but the glint of satisfaction she holds makes the urge to backhand her stronger. I turn to her and wink to hide my own embarrassment.

Suddenly the doors open and a student with bright red robes saunters to the professor. Students start up conversations while the teacher and student talk, whispering. I go back to my book to refamiliarize myself with different plants and their capabilities to be used in potions and elixirs. Vex's glare burns the side of my neck.

"May I have your attention." I look up at the professor, clasping her hands together. Her eyes scan over us as if she's doing a mental count of us. "The Headmaster has summoned a school meeting in auditorium one. You are all to head their now."

I grin, shoving all of my books and papers into my backpack to leave. Students flood out of the door and into the bustling hallway. Students migrate toward the center of the campus like migrating fish. Their voices boom with excited conversation, bouncing off the walls. My ears strain.

I push against the flow of students, worming through them and making my way to the field, opposite of the auditoriums. "Rima, guess what?"

"It's Thursday," she responds, her curiosity mixes with my jittery excitement. She wonders why so many students are heading towards the auditorium.

"Yes," I agree. "But we have a school meeting, guess what that means?"

"Cloud gazing?"

"Yes!" An earth mage shoves past me, grinning in the process. I push forward, slinging my backpack back over my shoulder.

"Are you sure?" Though Rima would love nothing more than for me to lay in the grass with her, she knows that calling ten thousand students is no easy task to accomplish. "Remember the last school assembly that told everyone about this 'plague?'"

"It was just a bunch of lies," I say dismissively. Fluffy, white clouds come to my mind and my heart yearns to be above them, to have the sun on my face, to feel the wind against me. I want to go home; either in the sky or on Khalier where I'm accepted, mostly. "This meeting isn't going to be any different."

"You should go," Rima encourages with a gentle nudge through the bond.

"But I don't want to. I'm tired of dealing with stupid mages, I want to go home. Do you think Riveta and Holland would ask questions if we just ditched and showed up today?"