Page 11 of The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps

But not all wranglers were as lucky. Even a domesticated dragon needed to choose to enter into a riding bond of their own accord. Training with a dragon wasn’t the same as training other animals. Dragons were highly intelligent and there had to be mutual trust for the rider bond to develop. You couldn’t exactly force a creature with a bolder-crushing bite force to do something it didn’t want to do. And for whatever reason, Dalton’s assigned dragon had decided he wasn’t ready to wrangle.

But I understood his desire to bond. To be in the sky. Min yawned loudly, showing off rows of jagged teeth. Every time I reached for her, I was putting my life into the claws of a creature that could crush my bones to dust.

Some called me reckless. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“C’mon,” I said, turning back to Dalton. “I’ll give you a hand finishing up, and when Min wakes from her nap, we’ll take a ride through the valley.”

Dalton perked up, a smile stretching across his face. “Deal!”

He wasn’t supposed to be on dragonback until his preceptor determined he was ready, but I wasn’t going to say anything. As far as I was concerned, what happened in Ember Ridge stayed in Ember Ridge.

“I just have to organize the tack room and fill Min’s water trough.”

I held my hand out for the bucket. “I’ll do that.”

He passed it to me, and I strung it over my arm, turning for the well out behind the shed. I spotted the loose nail in the floorboard seconds before my leg shot out, but despite seeing it, my reaction was too slow.

I stumbled over the floorboard, the bucket soaring out of reach as my arms extended to brace myself against a post. I winced as the residual limb of my left leg slid from its brace. Min’s head jerked up, her scales shifting as she clocked the danger I might be in. I turned, hopping on one foot, hearing the clunk as my prosthesis tipped over.

“Stars,” I muttered, reaching for the prosthetic limb—a complicated bit of metal and wood.

“That’s looking rough,” Dalton said, coming over to offer me a steadying hand as I fitted the prosthesis back into place below my knee. “Can’t you get the blacksmith to look at it?”

I shook my head. “He’ll just want to bash the hell out of it with that hammer of his. I need to find someone with a gentler touch.” But that would probably require a visit to the capital, and that was closer to my father than I’d prefer. I took a tentative step forward, assessing the fit. “That should do it.”

I bent to retrieve the bucket. As I grabbed the handle, I flinched and hissed, the metal pressing against the raw injury on my hand.

“What is it?” Dalton asked.

“Nothing,” I murmured, knowing I’d disturbed the bandage. That damn burn nurse was going to give me hell tomorrow. I adjusted the bandage the best I could, grimacing at the pink stain.

“Should you get that looked at?”

“Trust me, the last place I want to be is back at the infirmary. At least until Gunther’s returned.”

“I didn’t know he was out.”

A loud snore cut through the shed. Dalton jumped, but I grinned at the sight of steam rising from Min’s perch. She needed her rest, and I was glad she had a safe place to do that. Now, all I had to do was figure out how to give her a safe place to retire.

Min might be the fastest dragon in Ember Ridge, perhaps one of the fastest in all of Cai’amar, but the day was coming when she’d no longer be able to take to the sky.

And it was coming sooner than I’d like.

4

EDEN

“Knock, knock!” a familiar voice called, rapping on my door. “Eden, are you in?”

I glanced up from my desk with a start. I’d been hunched over my sketchbook, using the last of the afternoon light to sharpen my drawing, and I hadn’t even heard the footsteps on the porch.

“Uh… who is it?” I already knew who it was.

“Nisse!”

“Coming, one second.” I scrambled to hide the drawing, closing my sketchbook and stuffing it under the pillow on the bed. Bramble Cottage was a homey little place, less than a three-minute walk down the path behind the infirmary. Aptly named, it was nestled in a thicket of brambles, ripe blackberries curling against the windows and on vines along the porch railing. A thicket of trees rose up on one side of the tiny building, and a meadow filled with the late-blooming violet aster and red-orange chrysanthemums bordered the other.

Inside, the furniture was sparse—a bed, desk and rocking chair, with a wood stove for cooking and heat—but the little touches of patterned quilts, soft rugs, and cute ceramic crockery made it warm and welcoming. As had the note that Gunther had left me that read Welcome home, my dear.