Read Chapter 7: The Rival's Surprise

The pages of the forbidden book were still warm under her palm when Cedric’s voice cut through the silence like a blade.

“Hiding in the dark, are we?”

Elara spun, slamming the volume shut. The thud echoed off the library’s stone arches. Cedric stood in the aisle between the shelves, arms crossed, his riding leathers immaculate despite the late hour. A single candle burned on a nearby table, casting his sharp features in amber and shadow.

“I’m not hiding,” she said, too fast, too defensive.

He took a step closer. “That book isn’t in the approved curriculum. I’d know. I’ve read everything in this library worth reading.” His eyes flicked to the volume she clutched against her chest. “Twice.”

Elara’s heart hammered. She had no lie ready, no excuse polished. All her careful study, all her late nights—one glimpse of the title page and she’d be branded a conspiracy theorist or worse, a thief.

But Cedric didn’t reach for the book. Instead, he tilted his head, studying her like one of his prized falcons. “You don’t even know what you’ve found, do you? You’re just stumbling through the dark, hoping to trip over the truth.”

“I know more than you think.”

“Do you?” He smiled—not the cruel grin she’d learned to expect, but something thinner, sharper. “Then prove it. Sparring yard. Tomorrow after the morning bell.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You want to play at being an investigator? Then learn to survive first. Because whatever you’re digging into will put you in harm’s way, and right now, you couldn’t defend yourself against a barn cat.” He turned on his heel, boots clicking on the stone floor. “Don’t be late. I hate waiting.”

He was gone before she could respond, swallowed by the shadows between the stacks.

Elara stood frozen, the book pressed to her ribs. The dragons were being lied to. Bond breakage was the real disease. And now the academy’s golden boy wanted to fight her in front of everyone? It had to be a trap—a public stage to humiliate her further, to prove once and for all that a stable hand had no place among riders.

But if she refused, he’d call her a coward. And cowards didn’t earn the trust of dragons. Or the right to ask questions.

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The sparring yard had no sand, no soft landing. Just packed earth that had been baked hard by the autumn sun. A ring of students gathered before the morning bell, drawn by rumor. Fiora stood at the edge, wringing her hands.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered as Elara approached. “I heard he broke a trainee’s wrist last month. On accident.”

“That was an accident,” Elara said, though she wasn’t sure she believed it.

Cedric waited in the center of the ring, a wooden practice sword resting on his shoulder. He hadn’t bothered to change. He wore his usual academy uniform, sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking for all the world like he expected this to take less than a minute.

He probably did.

“Rules are simple,” he announced, loud enough for the gathered crowd. “First to disarm or yield. No dragon assistance. No dirty tricks.” His gaze found hers. “Try to keep up.”

Elara accepted a practice blade from a younger student, testing its weight. It was heavier than the pitchfork she’d grown up with, but not by much. She’d spent years swinging hay bales and mucking stalls. She knew strength.

She just didn’t know how to use it.

Cedric moved first. Not a charge—a glide. His footwork was poetry, economical and precise. He feinted left, and when she raised her guard, swept low and caught her shin. She stumbled, barely keeping her feet.

The crowd murmured. Someone laughed.

“Too slow,” Cedric said, circling. “You’re reading my shoulders. You should be reading my hips.”

Elara gritted her teeth and attacked. She swung wide and hard, the way she’d swing a shovel, and it would have connected if Cedric hadn’t simply stepped aside. Her momentum carried her past him, off balance, and she felt the flat of his blade crack against her back.

She hit the dirt hard. Dust filled her mouth.

“Get up,” Cedric said. Not mocking. Flat. Impersonal, like an instructor correcting a cadet.

She pushed herself up. Pain lanced through her ribs. That hit was harder than necessary, but not brutal. Controlled. He could have broken something if he wanted to.

“Again,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow but nodded.

She tried to remember what he’d said. Hips, not shoulders. Watch the center. She adjusted her stance, lowering her weight, and when he feinted again, she didn’t bite. She waited. He frowned, the first crack in his composure, and committed to a true strike—

She parried. The wood clacked sharply, shock racing up her arm. She didn’t press the advantage fast enough; he spun away, but she’d made him move.

“Interesting,” Cedric murmured. “You do listen.”

But listening wasn’t enough. He came at her with real speed then, a flurry of strikes that drove her back across the ring. She blocked two, three, but the fourth slipped past her guard and rapped her wrist. Her hand went numb. The practice sword clattered to the ground.

Silence.

She stood there, empty-handed, chest heaving. Her wrist throbbed. Blood trickled from a split on her lip she hadn’t noticed.

Cedric lowered his blade. The crowd waited for his triumphant speech, for the cruel joke that would cement her place at the bottom of the academy hierarchy.

Instead, he walked forward and bent to retrieve her practice sword. He held it out to her, hilt first.

“You lost,” he said quietly. “But you kept getting up. I’ve seen bigger riders quit after one hit like that.”

She stared at the offered weapon. “What’s the trick?”

“No trick.” He dropped the sword in her hands and stepped back, raising his voice to the crowd. “All right, show’s over. Get to your classes before I make you run laps.”

The students dispersed slowly, grumbling, robbed of their entertainment. Fiora lingered, her eyes wide, but Elara waved her off. She needed to understand what was happening.

“Why?” she asked when they were alone. The yard felt enormous without the crowd. “You’ve done nothing but mock me since I arrived. I’ve been scratching my name into the mud just to earn the right to train. Why would you help me?”

Cedric’s jaw tightened. For a moment, he looked almost uncomfortable—an expression she’d never seen on his arrogant face.

“Because you’re the only one asking questions,” he said. “Everyone else here is too afraid or too privileged to care about what’s happening. They think that if they keep their heads down, the dragons will heal themselves. Or that if they pretend hard enough, the problem will just go away.” He met her eyes. “It won’t.”

Elara’s breath caught. “You know about the evacuation.”

“I know my father’s dragon has been gone for three days. They told me he was moved for his health.” His voice dropped. “He was the healthiest dragon in the academy.”

She thought of Lady Voss’s hushed orders, the empty stalls, the anonymous book tucked between her history texts. Cedric had lost his dragon too. Whatever he knew, whatever he suspected—he was as isolated as she was.

“Why not investigate yourself?” she asked. “You have influence. You have a name.”

“Because nobody tells me anything,” he said bitterly. “I’m the commander’s son. They protect me from the truth. They think I can’t handle it.” He gestured at her rumpled uniform, her scraped hands. “But you? You’re nobody. You’re invisible. You can go where I can’t, ask questions I can’t ask, without anyone thinking twice.”

He wanted to use her.

She should have been angry. She was angry—the heat of it burned in her stomach, angry at his calculation, at his assumption that she’d fall in line like one of his father’s soldiers.

But he was also right.

And she was desperate.

“You spared me,” she said slowly. “In front of the entire academy. What do you want in return?”

“Training,” he said. “Real training. Three mornings a week. I’ll teach you to fight—properly, not like a farmer swinging a plank. And in return, you tell me what you find. Everything you find.”

The sun broke over the yard’s eastern wall, spilling gold across the packed earth. Somewhere beyond the keep, Ignis was waiting for her. The dragon had been silent since her discovery in the library, but she felt his presence like a second heartbeat, warm and watchful.

She thought of Kael, whose friendship she’d traded away for nothing. She thought of Sir Aldric, the vanished rider who’d asked too many questions. She thought of the emaciated dragons in the mews, their scales dull, their eyes empty—waiting for a truth that might save them.

She held out her hand.

Cedric took it. His grip was firm, almost respectful.

“You’re still an arrogant fool,” she said.

“And you’re still beneath me academically,” he replied. But there was no venom in it. “We’ll work on that too.”