Page 137 of Black Wing and Shadows
One by one, fliers landed back in the field. I felt like my teeth rattled from the drastic landing Esme did. I was pretty sure she wanted me to puke.
“Today’s lesson,” Professor Hildegard barked, pacing the flight line with his arms behind his back, “is survival. Every Rider falls. Whether you live through it depends on your flier—and on you trusting them to catch you.”
My stomach dropped. Where was he going with this?
“Since all of you are out here, each wing will be doing different maneuvers. I have asked for some aid, just in case you and your flier have ill timing. Given our current status of losing cadets left and right, we have been ordered to reduce training deaths. There are twelve Drusearon cadets and twelve Riders still on campus who are joining us. Some of them are perched in the towers, some are flying around, and some will be down here.There are also some of the professors who are Riders or Drusearons that will be assisting us.”
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Thora spouted out.
I looked around, trying to find Zane.“Where are you?”I finally said down the bond.
“I am in tower one, sitting on the ledge, your favorite thing to do. Watching you look like you’re facing death. Trust your dragon first and then know I’ll be there before you can blink.”
“You will be fine. They are here to catch you if your flier doesn’t. Dragon Wing will be doing spiral maneuvers. Eagle Wing will be doing sharp banks and practicing dropping and raising in the sky. Which leaves the little drunken rebels, doing my favorite part. Your fliers will be turning upside down, you will drop, and then they will fly below you to catch you. You will probably not land on the saddle the first couple times, and your flier may end up grabbing you with their talons and throwing you back up there. We will rotate when you have mostly mastered your task.”
A groan rippled through Featherwing, half misery, half terror.
Micah sputtered, gripping Sera’s pommel tighter. “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think I should be making life-or-death choices while still drunk.”
“Excellent,” Hildegard said without missing a beat. “Then maybe you’ll learn faster.”
Sadie snorted. Akira muttered something in Orix’s ear that sounded a lot like a prayer. Lorenzo actually went pale, which was impressive considering how flushed he still was from last night.
“First up!” Hildegard bellowed, pointing at Micah. “Since you volunteered.”
Micah’s face went slack. “That was not volunteering!” But Sera was already launching into the sky with the kind of speed that made my stomach lurch just watching. Micah’s voice echoed across the field. “This is a bad ideaaaaaaaaa!”
From above, she spun upside down, and he let go. For a split second, he flailed wildly, arms and legs pinwheeling as the wind yanked himdownward. Then Sera tucked her wings and dove, flames streaming from her tail, and snatched him midair with terrifying precision, throwing him onto his saddle.
Micah’s scream of terror turned into something closer to hysterical laughter. “I’m alive!”
The rest of us groaned.
Sadie was next, and she slid off Korra with infuriating grace, arms tucked to her sides as she plummeted like she’d done this a hundred times. Korra swooped and caught her so smoothly that she was laughing by the time she landed in the saddle perfectly.
“You’re insane,” Akira muttered.
“Thank you,” Sadie called back sweetly.
One by one we went. Lorenzo clung until Hildegard shouted at him to let go, then dropped, screaming curses the entire way until Syth snapped him up, leaving him green in the face and retching. Akira fell gracefully, Orix caught her with her landing right behind the saddle, and she moved into the saddle with ease.
Then it was my turn.
“This is insane,” I told her.
“So is flying,”she said, and then tipped her body hard.
The world dropped out from under me. For one terrifying heartbeat I was free-falling, air tearing at my braid, ground rushing up far too fast. My scream ripped free before I could stop it.
Then Esme’s shadow engulfed me. Her claws closed with terrifying gentleness around my waist, and she flung me back into the saddle like I weighed nothing. I collapsed forward against her neck, panting, my heart hammering loud enough to drown out everything else.
“See?”she purred.“Perfect trust.”
“Perfect heart attack,” I muttered, gripping the pommel with white knuckles.
Professor Hildegard didn’t look impressed. If anything, he looked bored, like watching us scream our lungs out was the most predictable thing in the world.
“Pathetic,” he declared once Lorenzo finished dry-heaving over Syth’s wing. “You’ll never survive if you can’t fall without looking like hatchlings shoved from a nest.” His gaze swept the line of us, sharp as a blade. “Now, you all will fall together instead of one by one.”
