Gryphon Rider Academy: Year 1 (A Young Adult Fantasy) by Elise Hennessy

Author:Elise Hennessy [Hennessy, Elise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flutterbye Trail Press
Published: 2022-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Ari’s Limits

For every two steps forward, there had to be at least one backward. Ari squawked in clear dismay when Davis announced our next maneuver to master: gryphons catching an unseated rider. “Flight Training is the only time you will have a net. It’s vital your beasts learn how to safely catch you should your saddle ever be cut or, gods forbid, your restraints break. Falling is the number one cause of death amongst gryphon riders.”

In the back of my head, I felt what it was like to have feathers and how Alamid’s weight leaving Ari’s back had felt so final. “No. No no no,” Ari chanted. He’d been blinded by the same spray of acid that’d ruined the saddle. Without his sight, my gryphon hadn’t been able to save his first rider.

My shoulders slumped with dismay. I had no doubt Ari would refuse to practice again. No special set of reins would help us here. If I ever fell from Ari’s back in combat, it would be the end, just like it was for Alamid.

“It’s okay. We figured everything else out. There has to be something that’ll help you with this too,” I told him.

“There’s one gryphon here that’s already been educated in the technique of catching his rider.” Davis’s hard gaze landed squarely on Ari and me. My gryphon shook his head preemptively. “Perhaps he’d like to demonstrate.”

“He wouldn’t, sir,” I answered a moment later.

“That’s yet another demerit for not being able to control your beast,” he said without missing a beat, adding the mark against me to his clipboard. I’m sure he had a special tally just for me. He pinned me with an irritated stare. “I don’t care what your gryphon says. This is a direct order from one of your commanding officers: demonstrate the technique.”

My back went rigid with his tone. He wasn’t going to let this go until Ari caught me in free fall. I peered over the edge of the platform to the net waiting far below. A jump from this height would break several bones, so I would need to be on Ari’s back somewhere in between the platform and net to land safely on it.

“Bite me,” I projected to Ari as I suppressed a sigh and turned to my gryphon. It was the only thing I could think of to get out of this without refusing a direct order.

I reached up to adjust Ari’s harness, and without a moment’s hesitation, he clamped his beak around my forearm. Shocked cadets shouted all around us…but it worked, and instead of greeting the net firsthand, I went to the infirmary.

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