***
Asher followed the others out onto the flat, hard-packed grounds behind the Academy building. They crossed over many of the stone circles until they reached the outer perimeter.
There he realized three large standing stones had been erected at some point in the past few hours. Each was at least three feet by five feet wide.
“Today,” Rhynne said to the three cadets, as they’d begun to think of themselves. “We’re going to work on your breath weapons.”
He stood up a little straighter. The strength, coordination, and aerial skills they’d been practicing for the past week had been helping immensely. He was already a better flyer, and was improving every day. Even his nightly sojourns out to see Quinn hadn’t slowed him down too much. Asher thought he might have been slightly ahead of his fellow classmates Zeke and Dominick if he hadn’t been, but it still would have been close. Now they were generally considered to be progressing equally.
Yet despite all that, each time he learned a lesson, or thought he improved, the instructors showed him just how far he had to come. Today though, was the first time they were learning something entirely new. Asher knew no matter how pathetic he might seem today, it wouldn’t matter. Because this was what every dragon dreamed of. It was the skill that set them completely apart from any other shifter species out there. To master one’s breath was the ultimate sign of skill.
“So, before we begin, have any of you managed to master this on your own?”
Asher looked to either side of him at Zeke and then Dom, both shaking their heads like he was.
“I’ve tried,” Zeke said. “But master it? No.”
“Very well then,” Rhynne said. She raised a hand, and snapped her fingers. Sparks appeared as she did, and they grew to envelop her in smoke and flame until it dissipated, leaving her ruby-colored dragon there in her place.
Asher still couldn’t help but be awed with how easy it was for her to shift, and how she could make the flames appear from her fingertips. That was for show, he knew, but the fact that she could do it at all was amazing. He wondered if he could do the same: create an icicle on command as he shifted.
“This is closely guarded knowledge, so I would have been surprised if any of you could.”
She inhaled sharply, turned to an empty patch of ground to the left of the standing stones, and unleashed hell. Red-orange flames erupted from her mouth in a concentrated stream of intense fire that blasted across the ground. Heat washed back over the recruits with such fury that Asher and Dominick were forced to throw up an arm over their faces. Zeke, as a fire dragon himself, wasn’t bothered by it.
Abruptly the cone of flame ceased. The earth was seared, scorched black from the heat.
“So, you see now why learning this is necessary for any graduate of Top Scale, yes?” Rhynne said, bits of smoke emerging from her snout.
The three nodded.
“Now let me show you what you will truly learn.”
She sucked in another breath and aimed at the same patch.
Asher went scrambling backward as blue-white flame snapped out and across the ground, the hotter flame burning so brightly he had to shield his eyes as he backed away, Dominick at his side. As a Frost Dragon, intense heat was something he was not designed for. The sun’s light was one thing, but something like Dragonfire was not nice.
After several moments Rhynne stopped, and Asher stood up. The entire area she had been blasting was melted into a liquid that cooled rapidly.
“She turned it into glass,” Dominick said a little unsteadily from his side. “I don’t believe it. I didn’t know that was even possible!”
“Can all fire dragons do that?” Zeke asked as the others crept closer, still partially shielding themselves from the heat that reflected up from the ground. “Or is the intense heat something that only you can do?”
Rhynne, still in dragon form, looked at him. “All fire dragons can do it. It simply requires training and concentration.”
The three cadets stared in amazement. The knowledge of a dragon’s breath was so heavily guarded that they had never heard of such a thing before. Asher wondered if his Frost Dragons could do something similar. Could all colors of dragons perform a feat like that with their respective weapons?
“Okay, let’s see what you’ve got. Pick a stone,” Rhynne said, gesturing with a talon to the three standing stones. “Asher, you can go first.”
He slumped slightly as he walked toward his chosen stone, the farthest from the glassy sand. Great. Another chance to embarrass himself first.
Reaching an appropriate distance, he closed his eyes and pulled his dragon out. To his left Dominick threw up a hand to ward off the crystalline shards they had all come to expect with his transformation.
“Okay Asher, hit the target with whatever you have.”
He looked at her skeptically, then inhaled. At the back of his throat he felt the icy tingle that he knew had something to do with his breath. He tried to flex it at the same time he exhaled the stored air in his lungs. A white mist emerged from his mouth, forming a cloud several feet in diameter before dissipating.
The other recruits laughed as he hung his head in shame. It was right there; he could feel it. But Asher had no idea how to control it.
“Okay Dominick, your turn,” Rhynne snapped, and the other dragon shut up immediately, his jaw closing fast enough to click audibly.
Asher watched from his position as the young Electro Dragon went through his change. Instead of flying icicles, small bolts of electricity skittered through a cloud of dark gray that enveloped him and spread out across the stones underneath. One reached far enough to hit Asher in a claw and he yanked it back, shaking it at the slight tingle it left.
Dominick shrugged apologetically, and then proceeded to fail as miserably as Asher. He managed to create electricity that did nothing but run back and forth between his teeth, irritating the blue dragon.
Zeke didn’t fare any better, prompting Blaine and Zander to join the group, the three instructors berating their charges as they tried to educate them on how to use their breath properly.
Asher, paired with Blaine, felt he got the brunt of it.
“My granny’s farts had more ice in them than your coughs, Owens!” he said disparagingly, just another in a long line of comments.
Asher snarled and tried again, but nothing different happened.
Blaine sighed in exasperation. “Okay, let’s try something different here. When you inhale, you feel it at the back of your throat? It would be an icy, tingling feeling for you.”
“Yes,” he said angrily. Most of the ire was directed at himself. He hated feeling feeble.
“When you exhale, you want to force that out at the same time. Mix it with the air to create your Frostfire.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do,” he griped. “I push on it, and push on it, and nothing happens.”
Blaine stared at him. “Owens, are you really that stupid, or is this all just some act? Am I on a secret TV show? Listen to what I said, you feeble-brained moron! Push it out. Not push on it.”
Asher reared back at the tirade of insults, but through them all, he realized what Blaine was trying to tell him.
Sucking in a huge breath, he felt the tingle, and as he exhaled he tried to force the tingling with it. Closing his eyes, he focused on it intently.
A glob of ice spat from his mouth. He felt it happen!
“I did it!” he cried, opening his eyes. “Did you see that?”
Asher sobered immediately. Standing there in front of him, Blaine was quickly becoming ensconced in a cloud of green mist. It eclipsed him, but not before Asher saw a chunk of rapidly melting ice drip from his face.
Asher looked frantically around. He had turned to face his stone. Hadn’t he?
“Owens!” a massive green dragon bellowed.
Uh-oh. This is going to hurt.
It did.