Firedragon Rising (2 page)

If that had actually been Gold Triumvir
Salvator, he’d be dead.

She slowed to a walk,
blood pounding in her ears. An arrow through the head was no less
than the real Salvator deserved. He and the other two Triumvirs had
trampled her people in their climb to power, dooming all Norms to
lives of oppression. And because she was a Norm, Aurelia could beat
any Scholar—children of Enchanters who attended the Academy along
with the Cadets—at combat, and
still
be considered beneath her
magic-wielding peers. Firedragon or not. What was more, the
Triumvirate had strangled freedom by jailing anyone who said a bad
word about them, so no one dared speak out against their
injustices.

She’d discovered most of this after the
International Challenge, and had spent the last three months
quietly seething, trying to decide what to do about it. But she’d
finally snapped yesterday, when she’d learned that Salvator himself
was the reason her mother was dead.

Aurelia clenched her fists as she marched
back to the bin of arrows. She’d never known who her parents were.
All she’d been told was that government social workers had found
her being cared for by an old woman of questionable sanity in a
rural village—one without magic protections from the supernatural
beasts lurking in the wild. Now, she knew how she’d ended up there.
And it wasn’t what she’d thought.

Her mother hadn’t been some vagabond who’d
abandoned her. No, she’d worked in the Gold Triumvir’s household as
a maid until the day she stood up to him and fought for her rights.
Disobeying Salvator was as horrendous a crime as killing someone,
apparently, and Salvator had ordered her arrested and executed.
She’d been pregnant with Aurelia when she fled, and somehow managed
to survive for months before ending up in that village. No one knew
how she’d trekked through miles of monster-filled wilderness on her
own, but it had taken its toll. She’d spent her last breath giving
birth to Aurelia.

A great swelling pressed against Aurelia’s
heart. All she knew about her mother was that her name had been
Bridget Sun, and that she’d been one tough lady. Aurelia liked to
think that she’d inherited that same doggedness and determination
to push on against all odds. But because of Salvator, she would
never get to know her mom. Maybe he didn’t kill Bridget Sun with
his own hands, but he might as well have. The government he
commanded, and acting on his orders, had forced her out of the
city, and the hardship had eventually killed her.

But at least she’d escaped
execution and, in a way, died on her own terms. Hundreds—no,
thousands
—of others
hadn’t been so lucky.

It isn’t right that saying
no to one guy can get you killed. And it isn’t right that the
government can get away with lying just because the truth doesn’t
fit their plans.
She dunked her hand into
the bin and seized three more arrows.
I’ve
gotta do something about it.

She ran forward again, the
arrows in her hand, and this time imagined that all three Triumvirs
were floating above her as targets. She fired once at each,
releasing the missiles in less than a second and, still needing to
vent more of her furious energy, dashed toward the heavy bag in the
corner, where she twisted and kicked her heel into the center. A
resounding
thud
reverberated through the room. Unsatisfied, she swept her
other foot in an arc, slamming the side of her shoe into the bag.
After a few more kicks, she spotted one of the arrows from her
previous shooting embedded in a low-hanging target. She ran toward
it, leaped, and yanked the arrow out. Before she hit the ground,
she took aim at a different target and fired. The sound of the
arrow’s impact coincided with the stomp of her feet returning to
the floor.

Suddenly a man’s smooth, arrogant voice
wafted toward her. “Our little Firedragon is a wonder to watch,
isn’t she?”

Whirling, Aurelia saw
Principal Everett, head of the Academy of Supernatural Defense,
standing outside the training room’s window. The faint shimmer of
an enchantment gave his pale face and white-blond hair a bluish
tint. She’d left the window open; he must have cast some kind of
shield spell to ensure that no stray arrows hit him.
Too bad
, she thought,
wrinkling her nose. Everett was part of the system that kept her
down, and a prime example of why the Triumvirate sucked. He used
the school to reinforce the divide between those with magic and
those without, and always looked down his nose at the Norm students
at the Academy, though he was supposed to be responsible for their
education.

It’s not like he’s so
great. He’s never faced a monster in his life!
But he was a member of the ruling Sentinel class, and that
mattered more to those in charge than the fact that he couldn’t
take on a mouse. Meanwhile, even if Aurelia became the world’s
greatest Defender—
pfft, I’m already
better
than the world’s
greatest Defender
—she’d still never land
such a cushy gig. She was only a Norm, after all.

The thought sent a spark of anger shooting
through her.

Professor Williams, a narrow, gray-haired
man, came into view beside Everett. “She’s a girl of rare talent.
I’ve never seen anyone so capable at combat.”

“
Any
Norm
, you mean.” Everett shot
Williams a glare.

“
Of course,” Williams
answered through clenched teeth. He met Aurelia’s gaze, and a
warning look crossed his lined face.

Realizing that she was grimacing at
Everett—a look that could be taken for insubordination—she turned
away. That she had to hide her true feelings about how much she
hated Everett and everything he represented, or risk being locked
up, made her blood boil. She didn’t know how Williams kept up his
guise as a loyal servant of the Triumvirate. He was an Enchanter
like Everett, but his views matched Aurelia’s. One didn’t have to
be a Norm to detest the system that bullied the majority of their
population.

And the Triumvirate wasn’t
all sunshine and rainbows for those with magic, either. A wrong
word could send the professor to jail as easily as it could
Aurelia. The Triumvirate demanded total and unquestioning obedience
from
all
its
citizens, whether they had magic or not. And if you resisted by,
say, claiming a Norm like Aurelia was the world’s best monster
fighter—even if it was true—then not even being a respected
Enchanter, as Williams was, would keep you from being locked
up.

He was the one who’d told her about the
underground rebellion against the Triumvirate—a movement called the
Rising that she yearned to join with every fiber of her being …
because the government crushed her kind and silenced anyone who
disagreed with them. Because by stealing her International
Challenge victory, they’d destroyed her chance to prove that Norms
deserved to be treated as equals to those with magic. And because
they were the reason her mother was dead.

If the Triumvirate hadn’t been keeping such
a close watch on her since the competition, to make sure she didn’t
go leaking the truth to anyone, she would have found the rebels
already. Williams, who was a secret member of the Rising and spied
on the Triumvirate for them, had promised that as soon as it was
safe, he’d take her to their secret base.

But she didn’t know if she could wait any
longer.

Gritting her teeth,
Aurelia returned to the bin for more arrows. And though she tried
to block out Everett’s nasty voice, her ears were too accustomed to
catching every snippet of sound she encountered. So it was
basically impossible
not
to hear what he was saying about her. However,
since she couldn’t let him or anyone else suspect that she was less
than loyal to the Triumvirate, she had to act like a good little
Cadet. Which meant she had to pretend to be deaf and keep training
as if he weren’t there.

She needed to lull them into thinking she
was obedient so they’d stop watching her so closely. The sooner
they backed off, the sooner Williams could get her out.

“
A fighter of Aurelia’s
caliber would be an asset to the Defender force.” Everett’s slimy
voice muddied the air. “Having her graduate early would benefit the
Triumvirate, even if she isn’t intelligent enough to pass the exit
exams.” He was talking about her as if she weren’t right in front
of him—a fellow human being who could hear everything he
said.

Because to him, I’m
not
. A practice knife glinted on one of
the shelves, and though its blade was duller than a real one, it
could still pierce most obstacles if wielded with the right
strength. Her fingers itched to seize it and hurl it in Everett’s
direction, just to remind him that she
wasn’t
a weapon he could control.
But then the big-talking coward would say she’d tried to kill him,
even though he had a magic barrier protecting him, and she’d be
lucky if the Triumvirate gave her anything less than a life
sentence for her crime.

Abruptly deciding that she was tired of
arrows, she put down the bow and grabbed the knife instead. Still
targets were getting boring too; she needed a challenge. A rack of
gray rubber balls, used as moving targets in training, sat against
the wall, and she grabbed one, then strode across the room.

“
While we’re on the
subject of students, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask
you,” Everett said. “Do you think they’d be more forthcoming if
they knew what an interrogator was looking for, or if the
interrogator used subtler methods and gleaned information from
their general behavior?”

“
Excuse me?” Williams
sounded puzzled.

Yeah, what?
Aurelia snuck a glance over her
shoulder.

“
As you know, a group of
rebels recently robbed a Triumvirate warehouse and stole several
valuable enchanted objects.” Everett twirled his dark blue wand
between his fingers. “They were able to achieve this because they
had an insider among the staff. I’ve heard rumors that there may be
rebel sympathizers within our very own student body. I find it …
necessary to weed them out, to prevent that sort of thing from
happening here.”

Aurelia planted the ball on the floor, her
heart racing at the words. Weed them out… If anyone knew what she’d
been thinking earlier when she pictured the Triumvirs on the
practice targets, if they figured out that she sided with the
rebels and wanted to join them, she could be thrown in jail—or
worse.

“
That’s ridiculous.”
Williams sounded indignant. “They’re
children
, Everett. How could any of
them be revolutionaries?”

“
It doesn’t matter if
they’re directly involved or not.” Everett’s voice was cold. “If
they believe as the insurgents do, they pose a threat.”

“
So you’d punish them for
thinking?”

“
I’ll punish them for
being threats to our nation!” Everett’s voice rose.

Aurelia swallowed hard. She was just the
type of person he was after.

“
Now I’m not worried about
the Scholars, of course.” Everett ran one hand through his
white-blond hair. “No child of an Enchanter would hold such
treasonous opinions. Nor am I concerned about the Secondstringers.
Whatever their opinions, they are of little consequence. They’re
entirely dependent on the Triumvirate for their survival, and must
therefore be content with their lot.”

Indignation shot through Aurelia. She’d
never cared much about the Secondstringers—orphans sent to the
Academy to work in exchange for a basic education. She’d started
out as one of them, but been promoted to Cadet shortly after, and
had hardly noticed them since. But she hated that Everett talked
about them as if they weren’t even people.

“
It’s the Cadets I want
questioned.” Everett’s head was only about as big as a fingernail
from her present distance, but Aurelia could still feel his gaze
sliding over her.

She glared back. She was sick of pretending
she didn’t hear him; that his words didn’t make her want to wring
his scrawny old neck.

“
I don’t care what methods
we have to use.” Everett’s tone carried a warning, and Aurelia’s
heart clenched again. “Spells, trickery, potions—I will use
whatever is necessary to determine the true affiliation of
each.”

He knows.
Aurelia’s pulse pounded as the realization hit
her.
Somehow, he knows I want to join the
Rising, but he has no proof. He’s trying to flush me out.
But he’d just been talking about graduating her
early—why had he brought that up if he was after her?
Is he trying to scare me into being
loyal?

She could never be the brainless
monster-killing machine Everett wanted, no matter how he tried to
bully her. But she could hear his ultimatum as if her interrogation
had already come, and she’d already been discovered: Obey the
Triumvirate, or be arrested for treason. She couldn’t stand the
thought of spending the rest of her life serving people she hated,
terrified that one wrong move would get her locked in a cell, sent
to a labor camp for the rest of her life … or executed.

She
had
to get out, now more than ever.
Not only because she couldn’t stand the Triumvirate’s evil ways
anymore, but because staying would mean capture … and possibly
death. Her whole body burned with fury. She’d done nothing but obey
the Triumvirate her whole life, and yet they wanted to kill
her—again. They’d already tried once with the competition, just to
prove a point, but she’d survived. Now it appeared that they were
looking for an excuse to murder her and call it “getting rid of a
threat” if she didn’t bow down to their wishes.