The Dragon Exam

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

The door to the waiting room squeaks open, and the guard’s hand tightens on my shoulder as the court secretary beckons us. I swallow around a cotton ball that’s been lodged in my throat since I first opened Renoiri’s Treatise on Time and Space Magic.

Distant booming sounds as we cross the antechamber, and I crane my neck to see, but the high window only reveals a narrow strip of muted orange sky. No dragons sweep across the haze, but I know they are out there. Up until three days ago, life in the Valley was quiet and harmonious, and people could go about their lives without worrying about fire raining down on their heads. Or sulfur heaps piling up in their vegetable gardens.

All was blissfully boring until a student mage using restricted magic sneezed mid-incantation, accidentally opening a portal to another dimension. Apparently, dragons are opportunists because they swarmed through in hordes until the rift closed and have been terrorizing the Valley since. Not that I’ve been allowed to witness.

The secretary leads me into a vast, silent room. The five senior mages of the school council look down their noses at me as I walk the endless aisle to the front. Despite all of them being somewhere near a thousand years old, they don’t look a day over forty, except for the headmaster, who has crows’ feet stamped into the corners of his eyes, making him look like he’s constantly squinting. Now he turns his scowling gaze on me, and my stomach sinks from my knees to my toes.

Want to guess who the student mage is who fucked up?

Yep. Me.

“Danari Resu, we have deliberated on the seriousness of your crimes.” The headmaster’s voice booms around the oversized room, echoing off a hundred empty pews. “Accessing restricted magic material and performing unauthorized incantations, as well as bringing harm to your community, or—” headmaster Weiren clears his throat and scans me, “—or your realm, carries severe penalties for adult mages.”

He leans back in his chair, flexing his shoulders. “The difficulty in your case is your status as a minor. While we have tried to make allowances for your inherent nature as a nymph, prone to both curiosity and playfulness, there is only so much we can tolerate.”

He falls into silence for a moment, then pinches his nose as if a headache is forming. If I had to guess, I’d say the headache has been running rampant for three days. Maybe longer since this isn’t my first visit to the Discipline Committee. The whole ‘minor’ thing is a load of cow dung because I’d be considered an adult outside of the mage-training system. I’m nearly seventy years old, for crying out loud! But no, students have a whole bunch of extra requirements to become fully-fledged mages, and we are considered juniors until we pass our third-decade exams. I’ve been studying for just twelve years. I keep my lips pressed tight together so I don’t get myself in more trouble by complaining.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the north side of the room, I can see the opaque orange dome that now covers Omaris, the citadel of learning. A dark shadow glides past. I twitch when a loud clang sounds overhead as the winged beast smacks into the barrier and howls in rage, spouting fire that spreads and glimmers as it slides over the protective barrier. It took them forty-eight hours to figure out a shield big enough to cover the whole city.

I reckon I could have got it functioning in thirty.

But of course, students in trouble don’t get asked to help find the solution. No, we get locked in a basement with no windows and surrounded by anti-magic shielding.

“We don’t know what to do with you, Danari,” Weiren states, folding his long fingers together.

I sweep my tongue around my lips to moisten them, trying to watch the dragon from the corner of my eye. “If it’s any consolation, sir, I don’t know what to do with me, either.”

Madam Rini rubs at her mouth, trying to hide the faintest of smiles and her pointed ears twitch with the movement. She’s always been a bit more tolerant to my situation than the others.

The oversized lizard outside the window sweeps over the dome once more, exposing the emerald scales along its belly that fade to black over a ridged spine. I follow its passage across the glass; leathery wings angled into the wind, long neck snaked forward as it inspects the barrier.

So beautiful.

The truth is nobody knows what to do with me. I tug self-consciously at my dress split all the way up the thigh and open over my midriff, which felt so natural to put on three days ago but now seems not quite right for this formal setting. The whole room towers over me, the exposed beams overhead seeming to frown in disapproval as they hold up the ceiling, and the heavy wooden table my judges sit at blockades the front of the room, clearly dividing me from them. Always the eyes are watching me, ladened with that confused, disapproving look.

I shift from one foot to the other. A nymph is supposed to be sexy, fun and in touch with nature, leaving a trail of happy life in their path, nurturing all with a sprinkling of magic. They are not supposed to overflow with power, be relentlessly drawn to forbidden tomes of the great mages, nor dabble in complex magics requiring self-discipline usually reserved for silent elves or ifriti.

And they are definitely not supposed to sneeze whenever a strong wind gets in their noses.

I lift one hand to stroke the wrought-gold band on my upper arm, the only remnant I have of my mother. She always knew what she was doing, but it’s not such a complex task when you’re the Valley’s most famous fertility nymph. I don’t seem to take after her at all, since I found the fertility classes boring. The water magic classes were equally dull since I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about fish life cycles and the stability of mud banks and don’t get me started on soil types and cell growth.

Give me Andeful’s Treatise on Stars or Wortei’s Fundamentals of Golems, and I’m all there—except I’m not supposed to even know the names of those books for another, hmm, forty years.

I clasp my hands together behind my back so I stop fidgeting. I get that the dragons brought chaos, but last week they were only a legend passed down through the ages that no one was sure had any founding in ancient history.

Shouldn’t someone thank me for at least clearing up that question?

Although now there are another thousand questions to answer, like where they came from and how do we send them back? At least, those are the questions I heard the guards asking, but they seem like the wrong ones to me.

I’d rather know how intelligent the dragons are, and if they are capable of magic, like the legends say. Can they be reasoned with? No one is going to find out trapped under a bubble.

“. . . we cannot continue to nurture a student who disregards the rules.”

As headmaster Weiren’s words seep into my busy mind, I snap to attention. They want to expel me? Icy fingers creep up my spine. No! I can’t let that happen. Only as a student can I feed the relentless curiosity that invades my every waking moment. What would I ever do for a living if I can’t study? Grow sunflowers? I shudder. No, thank you!

A few misdemeanors shouldn’t—

A dragon howls outside, and I sigh. Yeah, I may have gone a bit far this time.

“. . . and so, sadly, we’ve come to the decision that—"

I shake my head and blurt out, “Let me find the solution.”

The headmaster blinks at me, his lips moving soundlessly like a beached fish. When he finds his voice, he asks, “Find what?”

Prickles of warmth wash through me, assuring me I’m on the right path. The masters wouldn’t let me help with the barrier, but surely, it’s right for the summoner to deal with the summoned? Although, technically, according to Wortei, I haven’t enacted a summoning. I square my shoulders. I’ll deal with semantics later.

“I admit I have brought calamity upon the Valley. Let me be responsible for reasoning with the dragons.”

Madam Rini, balancing a water goblet in her hand, flinches, crushing the carved wooden cup into fragments and splashing water across the desk and her lap. She waves off an attendant, her green eyes fixed on me like a predator.

“Is this one of your jokes, Danari?”

When I open my mouth to answer, another clanging thump shakes the dome, rattling the windowpanes and sending vibrations up my legs from the stone castle.

She holds up one finger, pointing to the roof. “You think there is any reasoning with these monsters?” Water runs off the front of the table to drip onto the floor, but we all ignore it. “We’ve been battling the dragons for days to keep them away from the citadel!”

A tremor runs through my hands, and I squeeze my fingers together. There’s no way of knowing what kind of reasoning dragons have, until I try. It can’t be worse than being expelled, right?

“It’s my right as the activating mage to balance this problem.”

“Except you’re not a mage,” one of the five says drily.

I tip my head back, drawing myself up. I’m sure now of what I must do. No more quivering. This is my problem, and I’ll do something about it.

“Make it my level exam.”

There, I initiated the sacred sequence for a student mage to jump to their end-of-decade exam. No turning back now. I cross my fingers behind my back and turn, exposing my better side and releasing that little nudge of suggestion all nymphs carry.

Madam Rini sputters and turns to the headmaster. “Impossible! She’s just a child!”

But headmaster Weiren holds up his hand for silence. My fate ticks through the sandglass on the side table impossibly slowly as he considers and then links his fingers together and leans his chin on them.

“She’s of age to request an exam.” He presses his lips together once. “Very well, Danari. Your task is to either make peace with the dragons or rid our lands of them. You have six months. If you succeed, you will rise two mage levels, and if not, you will be immortalized as the Bringer of Destruction and expelled from the school.”

My heart leaps in my chest. Two whole magic levels? What restricted books and magic classes might I be able to access as a level three mage? No nymph in the history of magic has ever been initiated as a level three!

“Madness! You’re sending her to her death!” Madam Rini rises, shaking a long, elven finger at the headmaster. It’s kind of funny that the name Silent Elf doesn’t mean they aren’t outspoken, only that they are capable of intense concentration—not something we nymphs are well known for.

The headmaster eyeballs me, intensity in every line of his body. “You have six months, Danari. I suggest you use it wisely.”

I bow jerkily. Turning, I find the guard in my way, but he steps clear, offering me my freedom. It takes all my effort to walk sedately from the council room, but once the heavy oak doors swing shut behind me, I take off, pounding through the hallway and up the stairs to the observation deck on the roof. The door rebounds as I throw it open, clipping my arm, but I ignore the sting of pain, my gaze fixed on the open skies.

The chill of ancient stone seeps into my bare feet and the faintest of breezes stirs my dress as I stand on top of the school, staring up. The barrier's orange film tints my view, but I can clearly see the dragons lording over the skies.

I count five of the huge beasts, none of them ever crossing paths with the others, as if by silent agreement to keep their distance. Or not so silent, since their howls and screeches continue to ring over the city. Tendrils of smoke drift up from charred patches in the Valley where there used to be farmlets and forests, and my nose tickles, even though the bitter scent can’t possibly reach me under the dome.

A familiar voice chases up the stairs behind me as I cover a sneeze. “What happened, Dan?”

I don’t take my eyes off the giant lizards zipping through the clouds as my best friend Rijo thumps to my side.

I shrug. “It’s my job to reason with the dragons, or send them back.” I wipe dampness from my itching nose.

A high-pitched groan slips from his throat. He claps me on the shoulder. “Nice knowing you. Leave me your collection of candles in your last rites, will you? Oh, and the book on nymph magic, that’s a fun read.”

I snort, ignoring the tingles that run from my toes to my scalp. I don’t want to die—there’s too much left to learn.

The light fades as a giant form sweeps overhead, less than ten feet away. The view from the council room window didn’t do justice to the dragon's size as it slides through the air. I crane my head back to watch it sail, smooth as a boat in the river of the skies, green belly fading to brown in the glow of the barrier. I turn, watching it barrel-roll and sweep back until it hovers in the air to face me.

This close, I can see the ridges of the thick black plates covering its massive, reptilian head and the glow from red-brown eyes set behind a long, flared snout. Horns several feet long spike out the back of its head, protecting it from attacks from behind. It fills the sky, ferocious, snarling, and utterly transcendent.

Mine.

My problem, my exam, my dragon.

I tremble all over as the beast opens its huge mouth, revealing rows of fangs longer than my arm. Blazing, white-hot fire spews out, curving around the top of the city dome. Without the barrier between us, I would be consumed. Warmth fills my body as if mirroring the fire splashing everywhere across my vision.

A loud clatter sounds behind me as Rijo falls over. “You’ve gone too far this time, Dan. This is suicide! Even the five together have barely been able to battle them, and you think you’re, what, going to tame one? Talk to it?”

The dragon screams as the fire dies away, sending rippling shivers through the magic of the dome, and for a split second, it feels like there’s something more in its cry. A tension that simmers a lot like grief. His glowing brown eye fixes on me, begging with a message I can’t interpret and sending quivers through my core.

What does a dragon feel? What does it need? My chest vibrates with a powerful assurance that there must be something in that bright eye beyond hunger and destruction. Isn’t that what my teachers have been saying for years, every living thing has needs and a role of belonging?

I’m transfixed in place as the dark, armored body tenses, then shoots straight up into the cloud banks. As it disappear from view, I suck in a deep breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and turn for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Rijo demands, hauling himself upright.

Where else does one equip themselves for battle with a ferocious monster dropped straight out of ancient legends? A smile plays on my lips.

“To the library.”