Page 28 of Tailwind

Tall, pale stone towers erupted into the sky, scattered against the coast. Below them clustered shorter buildings, forced together by the lack of land available in the exclusive cove. The ocean glittered beyond the impressive architecture, gently rocking the hundreds of boats moored in the harbour.

Eauveil was one of the more bizarre places to visit as an outsider. The average citizen had an income four times the continental average. There were more luxury vessels anchored in the harbour than there were fishing and trade boats. Where other cities exported goods, livestock and other tangible trades, Eauveil’s main export was lifestyle … and it was the richest city on the southern continent because of it.

‘Are you ready to scare the shit out of people with more money than sense?’

Gottyk rolled upright, tilting his head at me.

I grinned. ‘It’s a tight circuit, but that’s what makes it fun.’

The train glided over the tracks and swooped down into the city itself. At this slower speed I caught glimpses of preparations for the race. Banners hanging everywhere for all the different teams – the white and red of Mirendi taking centre stage. The telltale signs of augment work were there too, flashes of light shimmering in the air signalling the near-invisible race barrier. It would protect the residents of the city from the ten fire-breathing dragons going over one hundred miles an hour just feet away from their homes.

There would be no canyon to fly down, no caverns to weave through, no forests or mountains. In a few days we would be racing in the city streets of one of the oldest cities on the continent. Gottyk’s wingtips would brush past the open windows of the residential buildings. We would take the hairpin corner around the city bank, circling more wealth than any one person could fathom.

Eauveil wasn’t just the host for the race, it was the race.

As I let myself enjoy the excitement that was beginning to rise up within me, the train finally slowed, ready to stop. The carriage was cast into shadow as our final destination loomed above us: Mirendi Headquarters. The tallest building in the city, made from the old local stone at its core and expanded with a rail station made of metal and glass at its base.

The train pulled in, swapping the warm stone streets for a far more clinical and clean platform.

‘All right, bud.’ I turned to Gottyk. ‘Are you ready to show them what we’re made of?’

His big eyes blinked at me. Then he sneezed.

I couldn’t help but smile.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

‘It’s a bit much, right?’ I asked Gottyk as I stared through the floor-to-ceiling window at the side of his stall.

The aviary was on the upper floors of the tower. From the ground floor we had been lifted up, still inside his carriage, and deposited seamlessly so Gottyk’s cabin was now locked into the floor, walls and ceiling of the tower. It was only the beginning of the excess available in the city.

He didn’t reply. My dragon wasn’t really in a talking mood, he was too busy using the luxurious amenities of the Mirendi aviary. A giant roller brush was installed on a wall, which he was currently rubbing his neck against. There was also a sunken pool for him to relax in, one that made my skin tingle from the heat if I went too close. I wondered if Thorne had something similar at his spa.

The view though was something to envy. My dorm room was several floors down towards the interior of the tower, so my view was limited to stone walls and, amazingly, more stone walls. As architecturally significant as they supposedly were, I much preferred to look out over the ocean.

It was several streets away, but the height of the Mirendi Tower let me see almost the whole city and the water beyond. The harbour was teeming with people as the city prepared for the race. Many Volitant Chroma riders retired to this city, enjoying the expensive tastes it catered to. The harbour, full of horrendously expensive boats, was the most obvious place to see those tastes in action.

My stomach growled. I had my own tastes to look after too.

I bid farewell to Gottyk and was flatly ignored, so I felt no guilt as I found my way out of the aviary to the dorms. After a quick change of clothes and a couple of wrong turns I reached the pedestrian lifts. The augments that had brought the train carriages up into the tower clung to the outside like a giant steel spine. The centre of the tower had a smaller version, just for moving people up and down a few floors.

Some of the other crew from Volitant teams joined me in the glass and bronze cage. I took a place by the glass, wanting to watch the ground speed towards us. The others looked pale with maybe a hint of green as we plummeted back down to the ground floor in the human-sized augment. The lift we’d ascended in had cranked us up slowly, almost painfully so. This one was more my speed. My stomach made the familiar plunge as the floor dropped, taking us with it. I was quite happy to flatten my forehead against the window, watching the floors disappear upwards around us.

It was a shame that so many people who worked in Volitant never got to experience flying. Enough people had private wyverns to travel around on that they weren’t a rare sight, but since the cost of buying one, looking after it, learning to fly and getting a licence was more than an average person would see in a lifetime … Well, it was something only the upper classes could afford.

Only a few moments later I was out on the sun-bleached streets. I craned my neck upwards to wave to Gottyk, but from outside the large windows became mirrors, impossible to tell who was watching from the inside.

Despite not having him with me, I still found myself drawn to the circuit. Up until the day of the race the city was open for business as usual, meaning the streets that would become our racing route were crawling with people. I walked away from Mirendi Tower and joined the crowd.

After changing out of my Kiestral uniform it seemed I was the only one not in team colours. Here in Eauveil the fans were a different breed. Instead of the branded team merchandise – the dyed shirts, jackets and hats – they had on far more unique and fashionable outfits in muted versions of the team colours.

Sat outside a cafe on white wrought-iron chairs was a pair of ladies, one in a deep-green skin-tight dress with golden heeled shoes, the other in a white knitted jumper that hung off her shoulders and reached her thighs, with dark red boots. The class and wealth they exuded while sipping their drinks was palpable. The only thing bigger than their bank accounts was their hair – how they got it so large and yet so neat was beyond me, but I liked it.

I envied them. To be able to live a life of leisure would likely bore me out of my mind, but boredom would be an incredible problem to have.

As I rounded the end of the street block leading to the harbour, better known to me as ‘turns one and two’, I spotted the one restaurant I’d been to before: Luzzi’s. It was a fancy breakfast place two storeys up on the edge of turn two. A deep balcony wrapped around the building, catching the sun all morning.

Luzzi’s was how I knew I envied the rich. It had been my first literal taste of luxury. Before Theo had shown his true colours there had been benefits to being friends. He being stupidly wealthy and inviting me to join him for food was definitely near the top.