The Firedragon Read Free

coaches had all been put up in the Academy’s spare
dorm rooms and given access to classrooms and student lounges. Many
of the other students were awed by the international spotlight
being shone on their school, but all Aurelia could think about was
how annoying the visitors were. They were slow , and old , and insisted on clogging up the
hallways.
    She pulled up short behind a group of
middle-aged Enchanters and danced impatiently, wondering what
exactly would happen if she just went crashing through them. Before
she could decide, a voice rang out through the hallway, distracting
her.
    “ It’s
unacceptable!”
    She whirled around, her gaze searching for
the woman. It was Mrs. Miller, supervisor of the Secondstringers –
orphans under state guardianship, who attended the Academy on a
work-study program. She was scolding a sandy-haired boy, telling
him he had to work double shifts as punishment for the mess he’d
made.
    Sucker! Aurelia thought, holding back a
snigger.
    It wasn’t a nice thing to do, looking down
on the orphans, but she’d started off as one of them and gotten
herself promoted from Secondstringer to Cadet status less than six
months later. She’d not only climbed out of the low-class pit she’d
been born into, but had also taken her place among the elite. To be
a Cadet at the Academy of Supernatural Defense in the Triumvirate’s
capital, studying alongside the children of Enchanters … well, you
had to be the best of the best. And now, she had the attention of
the Triumvirate’s bigwigs. How many people could say that?
    Once she won the
International Challenge, she would also be a hero, and would be
remembered forever as the girl who’d proven that Norms could do
anything Enchanters could … and beat them at it. That was her
future.
    So it wasn’t arrogance for her to think she
was better than that sandy-haired Secondstringer boy, who’d
probably spend the rest of his life scrubbing walls. It was simply
the truth.
    Still, at least he was distracting Mrs.
Miller. Years had passed since Aurelia was under Mrs. Miller’s
supervision, but the old nag still lectured her whenever she
crossed her path – usually because of the messes she left behind
after her training sessions. But she had better things to do than
spend an hour sweeping up the spilled contents of the sand-filled
practice dummies she’d demolished. Besides, in the real world,
Defenders never had to deal with monster carcasses. That was what
cleanup crews were for.
    Managing to evade Mrs. Miller’s gaze – she
couldn’t afford to lose any more time – Aurelia slipped through a
gap in the group of older Enchanters and sprinted toward the
Scholar’s Library. Scholars were the children of the Enchanters,
their library closed to the non-magical Cadets. That never stopped
her, of course. She didn’t care about their super-secret magic
books anyway. She just needed to find Connor, the one Scholar who
wasn’t stuck up about his magic.
    Which was amazing, considering he was the
son of Gold Triumvir Salvator, one of the nation’s three powerful
rulers. She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up buddies with him.
She’d been a Secondstringer when they’d met – and an outcast at
that. She hadn’t exactly learned to play well with others, having
been brought up by merciless trainers. But whereas everyone else
had gone out of their way to avoid her, Connor had done his best to
reach out, and she’d eventually realized that he was one of those
rare people who was every bit as nice as he seemed.
    Which all led to her overwhelming need to
protect him, and right now, that meant warning him about what he’d
face in the arena. Those spheres may have been fake monsters, but
they were still dangerous. He was the only person in the world she
truly considered a friend, and she didn’t want anything to happen
to him.
    She zoomed around the corner and stopped
just short of crashing into another batch of slow-moving adults.
They were speaking