Chapter 3 The Common Denominator

The heavy oak door of Barracks Room 412 opened with a prolonged, agonizing groan of rusted iron.

I dragged my heavy wooden trunk across the threshold, my boots clicking against the cold stone floor. The air inside the room was thick with the smell of damp wool, boot polish, and the faint, ever-present tang of woodsmoke. It was a space designed for utility, not comfort. Four narrow iron cots lined the walls, each flanked by a tall, battered locker and a single wooden stool. Three of those cots were already claimed.

As I stepped inside, the ambient noise of the room abruptly cut off. Three pairs of eyes locked onto me.

"Well, well. Look who finally decided to join the trenches," a voice drawled from the cot nearest the high, narrow window.

A young man with a lean build and a mop of unruly sandy hair sat up, idly tossing a small, blunt-edged dagger into the air and catching it by the hilt. His uniform tunic was already unbuttoned at the collar, revealing a relaxed, easy-going posture that seemed entirely out of place in a military crucible. "We were starting to think Senior Gideon had dragged you straight to the executioner's block after that little stunt you pulled in the courtyard."

I kept my face carefully impassive, settling my trunk at the foot of the only remaining vacant bed—the one furthest from the window, tucked into the dimmest corner of the room. I lowered my voice into Desi's cool, slightly arrogant register.

"It takes more than a few sharp words to break a Sterling," I replied smoothly, unbuckling the heavy leather straps of my pauldrons.

The sandy-haired boy let out a low whistle, sliding off his cot with fluid grace. "A Sterling. I knew I recognized those icy blue eyes. I'm Jax, of House Vance. My family breeds high-altitude scouts, so I’m just trying to survive our nineteenth year without breaking my neck."

He gestured with his chin toward the other two occupants of the room. "The giant currently trying to suffocate his pillow is Thorin, from the northern crags. Don't mind him; he doesn't speak unless he's angry."

A massive, broad-shouldered youth with a jaw like an anvil merely grunted from his bed, refusing to look up from the leather strap he was oiling. Like all of them here, he was nineteen, but looked like he was built by years of heavy labor and early military preparation.

"And the one buried under the mountain of textbooks," Jax continued, pointing to a pale, bespectacled boy who was practically hiding behind a stack of ancient, leather-bound grimoires, "is Quinn. He's a scholar-cadet. Mostly here because his father wants a tactician in the family, though I’m pretty sure a moderate breeze could knock him over."

Quinn offered a small, nervous nod from behind his books, his fingers twitching anxiously against the parchment.

I offered a stiff, polite nod in return. At nineteen, these boys were transitioning into soldiers, their bodies filling out, their instincts sharpening. Being assigned to a shared room with three young men was a logistical nightmare. There would be no privacy. No moments to let my guard down. Every morning would be a race to dress in the dark, every evening a calculated dance to ensure no one saw beneath my loose tunic.

"You've got balls, Sterling," Jax said, leaning against the wooden pillar of his bunk, his eyes tracking my movements as I began unpacking my basic academy gear. "Standing up to Aidan Gideon on day one? No first-year does that. The guy is only a senior, but he’s already a ghost in the sky and a tyrant on the ground. He's already got his sights set on you."

"Let him look," I murmured, keeping my back turned as I began stuffing my spare tunics into the locker. "I didn't come to DA to hide in the shadows."

"Maybe not," Jax chuckled, turning back to his own bed. "But you might want to look out for Prince Aleander. He’s nineteen too, but he acts like he owns the sky just because of his bloodline. He didn't look thrilled that a fresh cadet stole his spotlight during the arrival."

My hand paused for a fraction of a second inside my trunk before I closed the lid with a firm click. 'Let Aleander try,' I thought. 'He doesn't know me. He doesn't know what I'm capable of.'

By the time the heavy bronze bells of the academy tower chimed eight times, signaling the lock-in hour for first-year students, the room had settled into a tense, superficial quiet. Thorin was snoring softly, Quinn was still muttering over his tactical maps under a dim candlelight, and Jax had finally stopped talking.

I sat on the edge of my narrow cot, my boots off but my tunic still firmly buttoned to my throat. I closed my eyes, trying to mentally prepare for my first full day of classes the following morning. The curriculum at Drakonys Academy was brutal: six hours of physical conditioning, four hours of draconic theory, and three hours of combat tactics.

But I wouldn't get to rest tonight.

A sharp, synchronized rapping on the door made everyone in the room flinch. The door swung open, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered senior student wearing the distinctive dark silver armband of Aidan Gideon's elite flight team. His expression was hard, carrying the secondary authority of a lieutenant enforcing his captain's absolute will.

"Cadet Sterling," the senior student barked, his eyes scanning the dim room until they locked onto me. "Gideon's orders. You’re on the first evening stable rotation. Report to the Lower Wyrm Pens immediately. Move it."

Jax let out a sympathetic wince from his bunk. "Oof. Evening shift in the pens? Gideon really wastes no time, and his flight team loves to enforce his dirty work. Watch your fingers down there, Sterling. The night-dragons are always hungry."

I didn't answer. I forced my tired muscles to move, sliding my feet back into my heavy leather boots and tying the laces tight. I grabbed my heavy utility belt, checking that Desi's dagger was secure, and stepped out into the freezing, torch-lit corridor.

The journey to the Lower Wyrm Pens was a descent into the subterranean depths of the cliffside. The air grew progressively warmer, thicker, and heavily saturated with the suffocating stench of ammonia, raw meat, and brimstone. Deep, rhythmic thuds echoed through the stone tunnels—the sound of massive tails striking heavy iron bars.

When I finally stepped into the main cavern of the pens, I was breathless. The space was colossal, an underground hive of iron-bar enclosures carved directly into the mountain rock. Massive chains hung from the ceiling, used to restrain the larger war beasts during their feeding frenzies.

The absolute restriction down here was a necessity. The beasts kept in these subterranean depths were completely wild—monsters that had yet to be tamed, claimed, or bonded by any rider. They were volatile, unpredictable, and prone to killing anything that entered their perimeter. The actual bonded dragons—the proud, regal beasts claimed by the upperclassmen and lords—were taken care of far above, on the sprawling mountain plateau near the apex of the school. Up there, riders lived and breathed alongside their claimed partners in luxury, high above the muck.

But a fortress of riders could not function without supplies. The elite upperclassmen at the top of the mountain needed their storage vaults, armories, and provisions constantly filled, and it was the miserable duty of the first-year cadets to maintain the logistics from below, hauling supplies and prepping the raw materials that kept the upper plateau running.

"You're late, cadet."

The voice—smooth, icy, and instantly recognizable—drifted from the shadows of the nearest enclosure.

Aidan Gideon stepped into the flickering light of a brass oil lantern. He had discarded his heavy fur cloak and his silver-trimmed pauldrons, wearing only a tight, sleeveless black leather riding vest over a dark tunic. The lack of armor emphasized the dense, powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders, crisscrossed by thin, silver scars—the unmistakable marks of a man who spent his life wrestling monsters. He possessed a lethal maturity that commanded absolute respect from everyone in the fortress.

His dark eyes locked onto me, tracking my movement with an intensity that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"I don't tolerate tardiness in my wing, Sterling," Aidan said, walking slowly toward me, his boots making no sound against the grimy stone. He stopped bare inches away, his towering frame completely blocking the exit. He tilted his head slightly, his dark gaze dropping to the slight, elegant line of my jaw before snapping back to my icy blue eyes. "You've got three hours before midnight. You will muck out the enclosures for the first-year training drakes at the far end of the pavilion. And Sterling?"

He leaned down, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly whisper that sent an involuntary shiver straight down my spine. "If I see a single speck of ash left in those pens when I inspect them, you’ll spend your first full day of academic classes scrubbing the entire arena floor with your bare hands. Do I make myself clear?"

I swallowed the sharp retort rising in my throat, lifting my chin to meet his gaze with unyielding defiance. "Perfectly clear, Senior."

Aidan stared at me for a long, agonizing second, his nostrils flaring slightly as if he were trying to catch that same elusive, confusing scent from the courtyard. Finally, he stepped aside, throwing a heavy wooden shovel and an iron bucket at my feet.

"Then get to work," he commanded coldly.