“I hope you mean go to the tavern with your friends,” the headmaster called to Javan’s retreating back.
The prince clutched the letter to him as he exited the building and turned toward the dormitory. Moments later, he was inside his room and sliding a slim dagger across the envelope’s edge, leaving the royal purple wax seal with its Kadar family crest intact as he always did.
There was a single piece of parchment inside, and Javan tried to quell the sting of disappointment at how few lines were written on it. The first letter his father had sent him, three months after he’d arrived at Milisatria, had been two full pages detailing the comings and goings of Uncle Fariq, who loved to travel, the antics of Javan’s pet leopard Malik, and the growth of the jasmine he’d planted on the queen’s grave. Until five summers ago, his letters had contained a wealth of details that kept Akram alive in Javan’s mind and strengthened the connection he felt with his father.
But then the letters had begun to change. Less description. Less interest in Javan’s life. When the letters began arriving every six to eight months instead of every three months, and Javan found entire paragraphs that didn’t quite make sense, the prince had finally sent a letter of his own to his uncle asking after his father. His uncle had assured him that King Samaal was simply busy—distracted by the heavy burden of ruling Akram.
Javan had absorbed both the hurt and the comfort in his uncle’s reply and had redoubled his efforts to prove to his father that he too was worthy of the burden of ruling Akram. Turning to the latest letter from his father, Javan’s eyes devoured the two short paragraphs greedily, lingering on the last sentence.
I am sure you will do your duty.
Slowly, he placed the letter in the box that contained the rest of the correspondence from his father. A band of pressure wrapped around Javan’s chest as he slid the box back under his bed.
Javan’s duty wasn’t to Kellan or the rest of his friends, no matter how much he might wish to spend an afternoon with them at the tavern.
His duty was to fulfill his mother’s wish, earn his father’s respect, and return to Akram ready to rule his people with strength and honor when the time came for him to take his father’s place. Nothing less would do.
And to do that, he had to earn first place in the final exam.
Without hesitation, he sat at his desk, pulled out a sheaf of parchment and a quill, and began to plan.
TWO
THE DAY OF the final exam dawned cold and damp, and Javan woke with a prayer on his lips and a coiled tension in his chest. A heavy mist clung to the rocky hilltops and belly crawled over the fields as the ten students who’d earned the honor of taking the test filed out of the dormitory and headed toward the stables for the first of the five tasks.
The headmaster met them at the mouth of the stables, while behind him grooms saddled horses and assembled armor and lances.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning, Headmaster,” the students answered.
“A brief reminder of the rules,” he said. “Each task is a test of your strength, your skills, and your strategy. You must remain at that task until you have earned enough points to move on. Jousting requires ten points. You receive one point per touch, two points for hitting the center of someone’s chest, and three points for unseating your opponent. Once you’ve reached ten points, you may leave for the next task. I will wait for you on the final field where you will try to gain the sash by using your combat training to defeat any challengers who arrive at the field with you. A touch from the weapons will count as an injury.” His eyes narrowed. “Any actual injury caused to a fellow student will result in your immediate disqualification. Good luck.”
Javan’s stomach felt as though he’d swallowed rocks, and his mouth was dry as he wished Kellan and the other students luck and then quickly moved into the stable and chose a mount.
He was decent at jousting. Maybe not as skilled as Cora or as fast as Eljin, but he could keep his seat and put points on the board in quick order, and that was all that mattered. He simply had to hold his own in the first three tasks and not fall behind. The fourth task was where he planned to take the lead. Pulling a hauberk over his head, he reached for a helmet and mounted the horse.
It was time to fulfill his mother’s dying wish and make his father proud.
Two hours later, Javan was in serious danger of the one thing all of his planning hadn’t accounted for: being eaten by a dragon.
The beast crouched at the edge of the precipice above Javan, its talons digging into the rugged stone cliff, its wings casting a shadow as wide as seven men lying end to end, and its dark eyes locked on the prince. The morning sunlight glanced off the dragon’s dull gray scales and disappeared in the shadow of the beast’s black underbelly. A long, jagged scar ran the length of the dragon’s chest, from the base of its neck to its stomach. Javan swallowed as the creature’s lips peeled back from a row of knife-sharp teeth, smoke pouring from its nostrils.
Fear was lightning spiking through Javan’s veins, threatening to send his carefully crafted plan into chaos as images of being snapped up in the dragon’s immense jaws filled his head.
He was trapped. A dragon in front of him. A treacherous climb through slippery, shale-covered hills behind him. And no one he could call for help.
He’d been certain of his strategy. He’d walked the academy’s vast grounds long after he should have been asleep, memorizing the craggy landscape—the green hollows that dipped into pools of shadow, the gray-blue rivers that reflected the stars, and the rocky peaks that pierced the sky like a smithy’s nails, looking for an advantage over his fellow students.
He’d found the trail that sliced through a cluster of steep, rocky hills two nights ago. By his calculations, using this trail to get to the final task instead of staying on the main path that neatly dissected the academy’s enormous estate into tidy quadrants would save him valuable time.
The rest of his strategy had worked beautifully. He’d held his own in jousting, trapped his opponent in a game of kingdoms at war within twelve moves, and completed the obstacle course with only two students ahead of him. He’d banked his success on the fourth task. Archery had always been one of his best sports. Arriving at the grounds for the fourth task in a tie with three other students, including Kellan, he’d grabbed a bow, nocked an arrow, and then sent it flying dead center into the target. Two more quickly followed, and then he’d tossed the weapon to the grass and left the archery grounds at a dead run while the others were still reaching for their second arrows. Veering left at the tumble of rotting tree trunks that marked the intersection between the north quadrant and the east, he’d ducked behind a rocky outcrop and hurried toward the shortcut.