Avian (The Dragonrider Chronicles) by Nicole Conway Read Free Book Online Page B

you, boy. Maybe you can talk a king drake into rebelling against a rider he didn’t choose, but when a dragon picks its companion the way Mavrik picked you, there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s like fighting gravity.”
    Sile always had a way of teaching me things even when he didn’t mean to. I’d never questioned Mavrik’s attachment to me, much less tried to understand it. Hearing that Icarus, the most powerful drake in the world, had picked Beckah—that was amazing news.
    “She’s a dragonrider,” I whispered under my breath.
    He shot me the same punishing glare he’d given her earlier. “No. She’s a girl. Women are forbidden to join the brotherhood of dragonriders. You know that.”
    “But… I thought you said that being chosen automatically made someone a dragonrider, regardless of who they are,” I argued. “What if she wants to be one? How is it any different than when Mavrik chose me?”
    “Because there are some things women are not meant to see, let alone experience,” he snapped angrily. “You really want my daughter, my precious little girl, holding a sword and riding into a line of enemies that want to slaughter her? As her father, I am supposed to protect her. That is my duty as a man. It’s not something a boy can understand.”
    I bit my tongue. He was right. The idea of her doing something like that, something that would most likely get her killed, cut me right to the core. I didn’t want anything to happen to her. I wanted to protect her, too.
    “Things are the way they are for a reason, Jaevid,” he said. “They may not be fair, but we must choose our battles wisely. We have to do what we can to protect what matters most.”
    I got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about Icarus anymore. Everything Beckah had said to me about how he’d moved them here in secret started nagging at my brain again. “What are you protecting them from?” I asked. “Beckah said she thinks you’re hiding out here—that you’re afraid someone is looking for you.”
    He flicked me another irritated glance before he reached over to a table beside his chair and started filling a pipe with tobacco. “You know everything you need to know right now,” he answered coldly. “You should be less worried about my affairs and more concerned with the training that awaits you this year. The avian year at the academy is the most difficult, and it’s the year when the weak or stupid often die. Everything they do is to prepare you for what might happen when you step on the battlefield. They will beat you hard because war is going beat you even harder.”
    Felix had said something similar to me about what lay ahead in our avian year. He had mentioned that we’d have to endure interrogation training and how to survive in Luntharda if we found ourselves stranded behind enemy lines. That put a hard knot of anxiety in my chest as I sat there, staring down at the tops of my shoes.
    “I was hoping you’d have at least gained an inch or two, or a few more pounds of muscle. Maybe then you’d be less of an easy target for them during the interrogation portion.” Sile sighed, shaking his head some before he started to light his pipe and puff rings of gray smoke into the air. “They’re going to come for you, Jaevid. You’re the weakest link. You need to start asking yourself if you’re ready for that.”
    I clenched my hands into fists. “I’ve been the weakest link my whole life, sir. I can handle it.”
    He snorted, and I saw the corner of his mouth twitch at a smile. “That’s why I like you, boy. You’re brave to the point of insanity. You’d walk into the abyss without a second thought.”
    I wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult. It kind of sounded like both. “I just do what I think is right, sir.”
    Sile looked at me then, and there were a thousand thoughts in his eyes that I could sense, but I couldn’t understand any of them. Somehow, it made me feel very