Page 35 of Flameborne: Chosen (Emberquell Academy #1)

I almost did it. I opened my mouth to tell them that I didn’t want to hear about their conquests, and that even if a woman enjoyed the joining, maybe she smiled to keep them happy rather than because she wanted them?

But with the words on the tip of my tongue, the shaking low in my belly suddenly solidified into outright fear.

Furyknights.

A whole team of them. With free hours on their hands.

And their minds on women.

I did not want their attention turned to me.

“I’m fine,” I said tightly. “Just tired.”

Gill sighed and several of the others looked at me like they didn’t believe me, but I ignored them.

None of them spoke any more until we reached the dining hall. It was a quiet, tense walk and it made my skin crawl.

I wasn’t hungry and they obviously wanted to talk about their women. I wished Gil would take his hand off my shoulder. But when I turned my head to look up and try to ask to be allowed to go, he didn’t even take his eyes from the building ahead.

“Get a plate,” he muttered. “You must feed your body to strengthen.” Then he steered me across the courtyard outside the second Academy building without another word.

Two sets of double doors led into the large, open hall with dozens of tables, a line of women and servants at the back serving food from wide, long tables that spread the length of the hall and separated the dining area from the kitchen.

The noise from hundreds of Furyknights eating, talking, and being served was overwhelming. It echoed in the large space and panic flickered in my chest. Strangely, Gil’s hand on my shoulder felt grounding—perhaps because he was pressing down on me like he thought I might flee.

But we made it through the line together, men at the tables calling out to my brothers as we crossed towards the food line.

I was used to the eyes on me in here by now. The first night had been awful and I’d almost left. But now, even though the men tended to watch me from the corners of their eyes, and I could sometimes feel gazes on my back, overall, they were coming to expect my presence with my squad.

That should have been comforting.

Instead, I took the food the cooks gave me, thanked Gil for making me eat, muttered a farewell to my squad, then left, carrying the steaming plate and knife and fork in a trot across the courtyard towards the stables.

Once I was out from under all those eyes, the humiliating and wearying awareness of failure made my steps drag and my chest heavy .

‘Don’t weep, Little Flame,’ Akhane sent as I hurried down the main aisle of the stables. ‘Your brothers may not always be correct, but they have good hearts. Trust them.’

A minute later I stepped into the stable, relieved to see the dark form of Kgosi wasn’t back from his duties yet.

But as I turned to Akhane with my first real smile of the day, I froze.

She was strapped up again.

I blinked thinking maybe I was seeing things. But, no.

“Akhane, how—”

‘It is a trial, Bren. Don’t worry. We’ll get through it.’

I almost threw the plate to the floor of the stable—only knowing it would be dangerous for the dragons to have broken crockery here among the straw held me back.

“Why?” I whispered. “Why would they do this?!”

Three days. And I hadn’t successfully harnessed, mounted, or unharnessed alone. And now they just left me here with a harnessed dragon?

“Are they coming back to make fun of me?!” I asked Akhane with a gasp.

‘No! Bren, your brothers don’t know of this. Only your Wing Captain.’

Ronen? Ronen had been the most patient! Why would he—

Then Akhane’s words clicked and I remembered that warning from the very first day.

There will be trials, and you must choose to meet them.

But standing there, gaping, with a plate in my hand and my dragon harnessed—my patient, humble dragon, who no doubt wished to be as free of the weight and restriction of the harness as I wished she was—I was ashamed to discover that I didn’t want to meet this challenge. I didn’t want to prove them wrong.

I wanted to give up.

‘Little Flame… no.’

“Of course not,” I murmured to Akhane, swallowing and breaking out of my freeze. “I’ll… I’ll figure it out, Akhane. I’ll get you out of there.”

I trotted to my room to place the plate and cutlery on my drawers top, then took a deep breath, bracing myself before walking back out to the stable to look at my dragon.

Akhane stood at its center, wings tucked and head turned towards me. Her eyes were so bright, and I could feel the wash of encouragement and belief she had for me through the bond.

My heart sank further.

How the fuck was I going to do this?

I knew what to do. But in three days I’d never managed it, and now I was already tired and bleeding and… God, I was a mess.

Swallowing back the pinch in my throat, I strode up to her and took a deep breath, grasping that strap and doing my level best to throw myself high enough up its length that I wouldn’t have to climb as far, but I didn’t even make it past her elbow before my grip gave and I cried out as I slid back down to the straw floor, my hands stinging, and fresh smears of blood and ooze on my palms.

“God, this is impossible!” I wailed. “They’re hurting you Akhane, and that’s so wrong! It’s not your fault that I’m not strong enough to do this! This feels like they’re kicking me when I’m already down—and hitting you instead!”

She crooned and hummed, then her voice bloomed in my head again. ‘I can lay down, then you won’t have to—’

“But that’s not the point. They want me to do this as we’d have to do it in battle, right?”

‘Yes. It is a risk for us to lay flat when we may be attacked—it pins our wings and makes it longer before we can lift into flight.’

I bit my lip and stared at her, simultaneously raging and despairing.

My poor dragon.

It was the first time I felt the handicap I was placing on her. “Akhane,” I whispered. “Why did you Choose me?”

Akhane sighed audibly, and turned her head to lay the flat of her snout against my chest, blowing hot breath down my legs. ‘Because you are mine, Little Flame. And I will tear out the throat of any male who would say otherwise.’

God, she was amazing. I’d never felt love from any person like I felt from my dragon. It moved me.

“I’ll figure it out,” I whispered, rubbing her nose and reaching up to scratch behind her eye-ridges. “I’ll find a way.”

But even as I determined to make it true, I was at a loss.

An hour later, I had eaten at Akhane’s insistence that sustenance would help my failing strength, and I was once again attempting to climb up to her back, but my hands were slick with fluid from my blisters, and my knees shook.

The only saving grace was that the thick straw on the floor of the stable was cushioning to a fall, as I’d discovered several times already.

I lay there, stunned, having just falling again, and threw my fists down onto the ground with an angry shout of frustration.

“I can’t do this!” I cried and covered my face in my weeping hands. “This is… I just can’t!”

Even if I somehow managed to crawl up her side and get to her back to release that all-important buckle at the top, all that would happen was that once I had it all undone, her extremely heavy harness would fall to the stable floor.

I didn’t have long enough arms, or enough strength to truly carry the thing.

Even with my brothers lifting and spreading the harness for me so I could get the proper grip on it, I hadn’t been able to lift it higher than Akhane’s knee. Let alone throw the damn thing.

I wanted to give up. I wanted to admit defeat. But Akhane crooned again and nudged my side, so I stood again with a sigh and leaned on her leg .

‘Tell me, Little Flame. Tell me what’s on your mind?’

‘It’s impossible. I’m not strong enough—and I’m not weak, Akhane!

I’ve been harnessing our horse on the farm since I was five or six years old.

I carry hay and work hard. I’m strong! But this is too much.

There’s a limit to what any one body can lift and throw, and this is too heavy for me.

Even if I somehow manage to get it off you, how do I get the harness back to the tack room?

How will I harness you tomorrow? If they require me to do this now, I’m going to fail. I don’t want to fail!’

‘You’ll find your way,’ my dragon sent kindly. ‘You’re strong, Bren. I know you can do this. Is there a way to unbuckle so there is less of the harness to carry? Could you make it lighter that way?’

I shook my head. “Even if I took it apart on you—I have to get up to release that neck strap and then I have to get all those long straps curled together without tangling them—and it’s so heavy. God, Akhane, I’m failing you. I’m so sorry. But I’m failing you.”

As my dragon crooned and tried to reassure me, I put my face in my hands and wept. But even that didn’t help.

Swallowing back the tears that were still sliding down my face, I tried once again to find a way to loosen the straps and remove the harness without releasing that top buckle.

But it was no damn use.

Soon I cursed that awful harness and every man who’d ever decided that I could even fathom being a Furyknight.

What a joke.