Daughter of the Serpentine by E. E. Knight

Author:E. E. Knight [Knight, E. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781984804099
Google: zUrSDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1984804081
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2020-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

The announcement that the first of their group of novices would become apprentices, with all the privileges, duties, and honors encompassed by the title, caused a stir. “Just five,” was the general lament.

Speculation flew around at the news like birds greeting the dawn. Negotiations weren’t going well with the Galantines; they’d soon be fighting over the Scab again and they needed trained dragoneers to feed into a renewed war.

Others figured it to be Names putting pressure on Charge Deklamp. Quith was one of them.

“If it’s five a year I’ll have gray hair before I’m apprenticed,” Quith complained to her at one of her rare meals in the dining hall.

Ileth put a comforting hand on Quith. “I don’t think the rest of us are delayed. They’re just early.”

Ileth thought of telling her that she was heir to a dragon, inheritor of a couple of old grooming and dragonriding tools and some books in an archive in Asposis. She’d been carrying around the old mounting hook after giving it a good cleaning whenever she had to walk about at night, just in case Griff decided to follow Gorgantern’s example and sneak into the Serpentine. Rumor had it he’d departed downriver. Instead she spoke of the wingman with the sideburns Quith was so keen on. She’d seen him in the Beehive in a striking new uniform, talking to Santeel.

“Wouldn’t you know,” Quith said. “Santeel would be first up for apprenticeship. I’m sure letters arrive weekly: We’re counting on our beloved daughter making progress and getting the recognition she deserves. Like the Serpentine is the Queen’s Own Graces and Arts Academy for Dignified Females in Their Second Decade instead of a factory for dragon mlumm.”*

In the wake of the posted apprenticeship announcement, the first flight roster made no splash at all. For one, it was posted in the flight cave at the clerk’s desk and not the Great Hall. So the fact that Ileth was tacked on to the list of those due for their first dragonback training escaped notice save for whoever drew up the list and presumably the Master of Apprentices, who signed it, and the clerk in the flight cave, who stamped it—when dragons were found willing to take new fliers up and risk having to have vomit scrubbed off their scales.

Ileth couldn’t resist making excuses to go look at it anyway. More than once, in fact.

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