Rise of the Dragons. Morgan Rice

      Chapter One

      Kyra stood atop the grassy knoll, the frozen ground hard beneath her boots, snow falling around her, and tried to ignore the biting cold as she raised her bow and focused on her target. She narrowed her eyes, shutting out the rest of the world – a gale of wind, the sound of a distant crow – and forced herself to see only the skinny birch tree, far-off, stark-white, standing out amidst the landscape of purple pine trees. At forty yards, this was just the sort of shot her brothers couldn’t make, that even her father’s men couldn’t make – and that made her all the more determined – she being the youngest of the bunch, and the only girl amongst them.

      Kyra had never fit in. A part of her wanted to, of course, wanted to do what was expected of her and spend time with the other girls, as was her place, attending to domestic affairs; but deep down, it was not who she was. She was her father’s daughter, had a warrior’s spirit, like he, and she would not be contained to the stone walls of their stronghold, would not succumb to a life beside a hearth. She was a better shot than these men – indeed, she could already outshoot her father’s finest archers – and she would do whatever she had to to prove to them all – most of all, her father – that she deserved to be taken seriously. Her father loved her, she knew, but he refused to see her for who she was.

      Kyra did her best training far from the fort, out here on the plains of Volis, alone – which suited her well, since she, the only girl in a fort of warriors, had learned to be alone. She had taken to retreating here every day, her favorite spot, high atop the plateau overlooking the fort’s rambling stone walls, where she could find good trees, skinny trees hard to hit. The thwack of her arrows had become an ever-present sound echoing over the village; not a tree up here had been spared from her arrows, their trunks scarred, some trees already leaning.

      Most of her father’s archers, Kyra knew, took aim at the mice that covered the plains; when she had first started, she had tried that herself, and had found she could kill them quite easily. But that had sickened her. She was fearless, but sensitive, too, and killing a living thing with no purpose displeased her. She had vowed then that she would never take aim at a living thing again – unless it were dangerous, or attacking her, like the Wolfbats that emerged at night and flew too close to her father’s fort. She had no qualms about dropping them, especially after her younger brother, Aidan, suffered a Wolfbat bite that left him ill for half a moon. Besides, they were the fastest moving creatures out there, and she knew that if she could hit one, especially at night, then she could hit anything. She had once spent an entire night by a full moon firing away from her father’s tower, and had run out eagerly at sunrise, thrilled to see scores of Wolfbats littering the ground, her arrows still in them, villagers crowding around and looking with amazed faces.

      Kyra forced herself to focus. She played through the shot in her mind’s eye, seeing herself raising her bow, pulling it back quickly to her chin and releasing without hesitation. The real shooting, she knew, happened before the shot. She had witnessed too many archers her age, on their fourteenth year, draw their strings and waver – and she knew then that their shots were lost. She took a deep breath, raised her bow, and in one decisive motion, pulled back and released. She did not even need to look to know she had hit the tree.

      A moment later she heard its thwack – but she had already turned away, already looking for another target, one further off.

      Kyra heard a whining at her feet and she looked down at Leo, her wolf, walking beside her as he always did, rubbing against her leg. A full-grown wolf, nearly up to her waist, Leo was as protective of Kyra as Kyra was of him, the two of them an inseparable sight in her father’s fort. Kyra could not go anywhere without Leo hurrying to catch up. And all that time he clung to her side – unless a squirrel or rabbit crossed his path, in which case he could disappear for hours.

      “I didn’t forget you, boy,” Kyra said, reaching into her pocket and handing Leo the leftover bone from the day’s feast. Leo snatched it, trotting happily beside her.

      As Kyra walked, her breath emerging in mist before her, she draped her bow over her shoulder and breathed into her hands, raw and cold. She crossed the wide, flat plateau and looked out. From this vantage point she could see the entire countryside, the rolling hills of Volis, usually green but now blanketed in snow, the province of her father’s stronghold, nestled in the northeastern corner of the kingdom of Escalon. From up here Kyra had a bird’s-eye view of all the goings-on in her father’s fort, the comings and goings of the village folk and warriors, another reason she liked it up here. She liked to study the ancient, stone contours of her father’s fort, the shapes of its battlements and towers stretching impressively through the hills, seeming to sprawl forever. Volis was the tallest structure in the countryside, some of its buildings rising four stories and framed by impressive layers of battlements. It was completed by a circular tower on its far side, a chapel for the folk, but for her, a place to climb and look out at the countryside and be alone. The stone complex was ringed by a moat, spanned by a wide main road and an arched stone bridge; this, in turn, was ringed by layers of impressive outer embankments, hills, ditches, walls – a place befitting one of the King’s most important warriors – her father.

      Though Volis, the final stronghold before The Flames, was several days’ ride from Andros, Escalon’s capital, it was still home to many of the former King’s famed warriors. It had also become a beacon, a place that had become home to the hundreds of villagers and farmers that lived in or near its walls, under its protection.

      Kyra looked down at the dozens of small clay cottages nestled in the hills on the outskirts of the fort, smoke rising from chimneys, farmers hurrying to and fro as they prepared for winter, and for the night’s festival. The fact that villagers felt safe enough to live outside the main walls, Kyra knew, was a sign of great respect for her father’s might, and a sight unseen elsewhere in Escalon. After all, they were a mere horn sounding away from protection, from the instant rallying of all her father’s men.

      Kyra looked down at the drawbridge, always packed with throngs of people – farmers, cobblers, butchers, blacksmiths, along with, of course, warriors – all rushing from fort to countryside and back again. For within the fort’s walls was not only a place to live and train, but also an endless array of cobblestone courtyards which had become a gathering place for merchants. Every day their stalls were lined up, people selling their wares, bartering, showing off the day’s hunt or catch, or some exotic cloth or spice or candy traded from across the sea. The courtyards of the fort were always filled with some exotic smell, be it of a strange tea, or a cooking stew; she could get lost in them for hours. And just beyond the walls, in the distance, her heart quickened to see the circular training ground for her father’s men, Fighter’s Gate, and the low stone wall surrounding it, and she watched with excitement as his men charged in neat lines with their horses, trying to lance targets – shields hanging from trees. She ached to train with them.

      Kyra suddenly heard a voice cry out, one as familiar to her as her own, coming from the direction of the gatehouse, and she turned, immediately on alert. There was a commotion in the crowd, and she watched as through the bustle, spilling out of the throng and out onto the main road, there emerged her younger brother, Aidan, led by her two older brothers, Brandon and Braxton. Kyra tensed, on guard. She could tell from the sound of distress in her baby brother’s voice that their older brothers were up to no good.

      Kyra’s eyes narrowed as she watched her older brothers, feeling a familiar anger rise up within her and