Page 3 of Tailwind

If I won though, I’d still lose. He was washed up now, but twelve years ago he’d earned the most points of all riders that season, making him a champion. It didn’t matter that ever since he’d come back to the sport he’d been underperforming. He’d missed briefings, been rude to the press and didn’t live up to his own legacy, but nostalgia kept the sponsors around.

A dragonkeeper, a woman dragonkeeper, kicking the crap out of a moneymaker wouldn’t go down well. If he ever tired of making me miserable all he had to do was complain to our boss and I’d be gone.

He continued to stare at me with his hollow eyes. His ego was waiting. I wanted to do it. I’d spent ten years competing, fighting and rising to every challenge I’d faced. I’d met each one and revelled in it. All but one.

I closed the locker door, slung my bag over my shoulder and walked away. ‘See you tomorrow.’

My biggest failure five years ago had been the most important one. I’d trusted my instincts and lost my career because of it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake and lose the scraps I was lucky to have.

‘Dumb bitch.’

The words hit me in the back as I walked away. It was all I could do to not flinch. To not spin around and hit back with fists.

Instead, the heavy double doors of the aviary banged shut behind me. I walked down the quiet tunnels, not seeing where I was going. I was far away in my mind, back to the sky where I’d been happy. Not to earlier that evening, but to five years before. Back when I’d been the one racing. Before I’d lost my one opportunity to make it.

My journey home from work was buried under bittersweet dreams of what could have been. Not just taking Gottyk out for a warm-up, but racing him.

I wove through the throng of people at the train station, the copper rails smooth under the floating carriages as I boarded, but in my mind I could see his horned head bobbing ahead of me as we danced through the canyon circuit.

The conductor checked my ticket. The crowd roared for us as we flew past, their cries gone in a second as we shot by.

I walked along the streets of the suburbs, passing squat homes made from the same golden sandstone as the cliffs. I finished in first place, lifting the trophy over my head.

By the time I reached the cobbled lane that led to my sister’s house, I’d nearly won the Volitant Chroma Championship.

The houses here had been painted white, their thatched roofs and ivy-coated walls quaint and unassuming. Voices floated down the street, overflowing from the open windows of my home and over the hedge of the small garden.

I paused, sighing as I left my fantasy behind. I had to make a choice – whether to sneak in through the front or back. The weather was nice, so most people would be in the garden until way past the arcanite lanterns coming on. The front though opened into the kitchen. The centre of the home. Also full of people.

I tightened the straps of my bag, jogged the last leg of the lane and jumped at the trellis that framed the front door. The weather-worn wood groaned in protest and the ivy clogged my hands as I hauled myself up.

My bedroom window was ajar, left on the latch to let some air through the tiny house on a stifling summer day. Perfect for removing the breaking from breaking and entering. I unhooked the latch, swung the window open and scrambled inside.

After some impressive squatting and twisting I got my boots firmly on to the chest of drawers by my window. I grinned, I’d managed to avoid everyone.

‘I heard you running down the street.’

I toppled backwards and thudded to the floor, my elbow singing its complaints. I used to be able to fall safely on instinct – it had been too long since I’d trained that reflex.

Cam was lying on my bed to my right, feet propped up on the footboard and tossing one of my Victrolia dragon replicas up into the air. Despite us being in our twenties, and despite her being more of a mother to me than any actual parent had been, she still managed to fulfil her role as annoying older sister.

‘Then I saw you climbing up the wall from the kitchen window,’ she continued, ‘and wondered if you were having a heart attack from all the heavy breathing.’

I scowled at her. ‘Liar. I’m not that bad.’

She tossed the dragon replica at me. I snatched it out of the air. It was a scale model of Ascil, a green dragon that had flown for Victrolia, the best team in both Chroma and Forge racing series. Not only a championship winner, but from a Decennial year and flown by the greatest rider of all time.

‘Maybe not, but there’s always room for improvement.’ Cam dragged me back from my mind’s favourite place to wander. ‘You could do with more training.’

I rolled my eyes and sat up cross-legged. She knew I’d kept up strength and reaction practice as much as I could. The scuff marks on my bedroom walls attested to that.

Most big sisters nagged their siblings over normal things like … I wasn’t even sure, but it definitely wasn’t over training, stealth or concealing wyvern eggs in quaint coastal cottages.

Still, she was the only example of a sibling I had.

‘What’s bugging you?’ asked Cam, watching me from her lounging position. Even as the height of summer approached she wore long dark trousers and thick boots. She conceded to short sleeves, but I was pretty sure that was to remind everyone how much her right hook would hurt. She was a taller, bulkier, grumpier version of me.

‘Nothing.’