“What you will do today is no different from what you did before.”
Those were the words Belenus Kairon spoke to me before we reached the open gym.
And even before he opened his mouth, I knew they were lies.
I was wondering if there was any special reason. For him to leave me for last. For the gleeful glow I kept seeing in his eyes. The anticipation in his voice. And it turns out, every single instinct I had that was screaming at me had been right.
“Kids down there are also familiar with the Hearts and Tails, right?” The professor asked all so cheerfully.
While mounting in a two-legged dragon.
“…I know of it.”
Hearts and Tails.
A game of tag.
A game where one person was the Manticore, while all the others were Prey. The Manticore had to chase after the Preys and steal their “Hearts” and once that happened, Preys would become Soulless. Once Soulless, the Prey had a short amount of time to recover their “Heart” from the Manticore.
If a Prey failed to recover their “Heart”, they “died”.
“As a Soulless Prey, I think you need…ten minutes? To have a chance to catch up to the big, bad Manticore monster and retrieve your heart?” The way the professor’s lips curled in that poisoning smile, the mockery drenching his face like a sweetly innocent venom.
My hands gripped the reins tighter.
“Give me five.”
“You’ll have three. And not a second more.”
It was then that I saw. The darkness. The shadows creeping beneath his cold gaze and the mocking smile. The moment I realized how serious the man in front of me was.
Belenus Kairon had retired as a rider, and he never hid the reason why. The injury he got from a fall that never healed right, the muscle that never moved the same. However, that did not mean he couldn’t ride dragons anymore.
Much less did it mean he was not a monumental threat to me.
My only grace was how that was not Belenus' main dragon. I had never seen it, yet I did know it was not a two-legged. The beast in front of me was certainly majestic and strong, one of Ergos’ best. Yet I was certain, more than I was certain of my own name, that Belenus’ real mount would give me no chances at all to ever pass this exam.
The dragon in front of me had a solid and muscular build, eyes the color of red quartz. The scales that covered their body were a mesmerizing mix of orange hues and dark red, the fading sunlight reflecting them with a beautiful yellow-ish glow. The dragon had no horns. Instead, a long mane covered their neck, going almost to the middle of their back.
They are probably a mixed breed with a wingless…
It was not as common for two and four-legged dragons to have manes like that.
Their wings, however, were exquisite. They looked so…smooth, yet powerful. Delicate, yet mighty. A strength that came from their overwhelming presence, which conflicted with its graceful and soft features. Yet that conflict, it didn’t make the wings unsightly.
It made them even more ravishing.
Belenus threw me a red cloth, the fabric softer than I predicted.
“The exam will last twenty minutes. If you “die”, you fail. If you become Soulless and time is up before you get your “Heart” back, you fail. If you fall and hit the ground, you fail. That’s it. Keep your “Heart” wherever you like. Just make sure you will tie it nice and tight.”
Clenching my jaw, I tied the thing to my own wrist without ever breaking eye contact.
Without ever letting that man avert his gaze from me.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
The man’s smile grew. “Even if there was, I won’t say. This is an exam after all—it would be cheating.”
A dry laugh left my lips, my heart thumping hard against my chest.
I only noticed my hands were shaking when I adjusted my grip on the reins, a foul feeling trying to get a hold of me once again. Fear.
Hearts and Tails. A child’s game where kids ran after one another and played tag.
A game where a monster chases after its prey.
“…let’s do this. You and me,” I whispered to Styx, still trying to control my own trembling hands. “Let’s beat this bastard and show what we got.”
Where the weak fought to survive against the oppression and aggression of the strong.
A game I had to win.
I never heard the signal. Styx moved in a blink, roaring into the skies with fierceness and grit.
From the second we were in the air, Belenus was relentless. It took me almost no time to discover his dragon’s attribute, as beans of light kept shooting non-stop from the beast. I kept focusing on my hearing—the sounds. There was no time to keep relying too much on the mirrors on the sides. No, actually, the mirrors themselves were useless when it came to light.
I just need to make sure he won’t catch up to me.
Yet how someone like me, who was getting beaten by a metal training dragon made for children, could win against a professional racer?
A rider like Belenus Kairon, himself?
The man was a legend. One of the youngest riders in his generation to reach the top ranking of the nation, and reach the top charts on the entire empire. Whenever his name came up in a race, tickets would get sold out on the same day. There had been lines of sponsors and noble houses trying to reach out to him, begging for a chance to speak with the man.
That was my professor—that was how talented Belenus Kairon was.
And I could tell. I knew. He was out of shape. It had been years since he had last participated in an official race, and who knew how long since he had actually ridden a dragon. But even then, when anyone who had seen the man race before could tell he was not at all as good as he once was, that he was lacking behind his prime years…
Even then, I was struggling while desperately trying to win what felt like a losing battle.
It was as if he could read my mind. Whenever I planned a course, Belenus was ten steps ahead of me, pushing me to the edge, taunting me by blocking the path I was about to take, or having his dragon shoot his beams to make me panic.
Slow me down.
I gritted my teeth, fumbling in my pocket as Styx made a violent dive to the right. The air behind me moved as I felt claws brushing against my head, ruffling my hair. A shiver went down my spine, Belenus’ laughter echoing through the air like a death toll.
He is playing with me.
As I glanced at the clock, my stomach turned. There were still thirteen minutes left.
I’m here giving everything I have, and he is toying with me.
Tears burned in my eyes. Tears born from anger—frustration. I shouldn’t expect anything less. I was lacking. I was falling behind.
Doesn’t mean I will sit back and let him have his fun.
I steered Styx toward the metal rings. There were a lot of them, more than the last time I had been here. And I had just spent the past few hours flying around them. To my surprise, the strategy worked. As I kept practicing for hours and hours the same commands and movements, maneuvering through the rings was easier. The synchrony between Styx and me was stronger, better.
Not only that, but Styx was fast.
Whenever Belenus got too close, he would use the bursts of air to boost our way through the rings. The most challenging part was to maneuver our turns whenever Styx used his boosts, yet as long as Belenus couldn’t reach us, I didn’t care how hard I had to pull and hold those reins.
Then I heard a click.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
I recalled the way Professor Bel’s eyes glistened with my question.
“What you will do today is no different from what you did before.”
I recalled the smugness in his voice when he said those words to me.
And as I watched from the corner of my eyes the turrets hum to life, all I wanted to do was shout my curses to the skies. To punch that blasted professor and send him to the ground.
Shots of lightning. Blasts of wind. Arrows of ice. Shots of fire.
Everywhere.
So rapidly.
Sweat kept dripping from my face, my skin cold as my grip on the reins got tighter and more desperate. Every maneuver, every frantic turn, every angle I steered in order to duck and avoid the turrets kept gnawing on me. A pressure that kept building up, a sense of dread and desperation that kept growing as more and more I saw myself with no way out.
I knew I could do a decent job in the exam had it been only turrets.
I was almost confident I had a small chance of beating Belenus in a game of Hearts and Tails. At least, I knew I could try my best.
But this? This was a fucking insanity.
Just like a real race…
I glanced at the timer, something caught in my throat. Tightening around my heart.
Eight minutes left.
In some ways, this exam was harder than the one we took in the entrance exam. Back then, we had space. Competitors. Styx had a lot of room to fly and dodge, to use others as bait, to avoid attacks. But here? More and more, the limited area we were permitted to fly on got smaller. As if it was shrinking away, trying to imprison us.
Not only that, but there was only one rider Belenus could focus on.
Only one prey, to an overpowering monster.
And my first failure, it didn’t happen due to the turrets. It didn’t come due to Belenus' greatness.
It happened because it had been planned since the very beginning.
Something red flew right across my eyes. In that moment, everything around me slowed down—faded away. Sounds. Sensations. All I could see was the vibrant red cloth, my “Heart”, dancing in the air. Bidding me goodbye as it went straight to that man’s hands.
As if it was answering to a calling.
And in that moment, Belenus’ eyes pierced my own. Eyes as ruthless as they were mocking, an amusing glow filling them as they reflected my terror-stricken gaze.
The professor opened his mouth, the words falling down his lips and dripping into my ears like acid and thorns.
“I told you. Tie it nice and tight.”
It took me six seconds to recover from the shock. To recompose myself in the midst of all those shots. To start chasing Belenus instead of being the one running away.
Which was when I realized how my chances, which had once been small, became something almost non-existent. Because it was one thing to have Belenus Kairon chasing after you.
And another thing entirely having to catch up to him, yourself.