"Some of them do," he explains. "But the rest of us, not so much. We're given the choice of coming here, or working in the mines. If you're ever given the option, never pick the mines." A shiver runs down his spine.
"They're worse than the Duels?"
He nods. "Much. Sometimes, people come back from there after finishing their sentence, but they're never the same again. It's like they've seen things that haunt them. I've never seen the same look from someone who has been in the Dragon Duels. Their pain comes from different places. It's hard to explain."
"What did you do to be made to come here?" I whisper, worried about what he's going to say. Did he kill someone? Or commit another horrendous crime?
He sighs. "I'm not supposed to tell you this."
"Are you supposed to have told me any of what you have?"
He considers for a moment. "Potentially not. But that's not stopped me yet."
"Thankfully. I don't think I'd be here if you hadn't explained how some of it works."
"You would have, you..."
"Killed a dragon. Yes, I know. But that's not what we're talking about now." I cross my arms over my chest and attempt to look stern, but I suspect my wild pale blue hair and oversized shirt detract from the image I'm going for.
"I disagreed with Father about the way he did something. He thought this would be a suitable punishment to teach me that it's not my place to have opinions."
"That's awful," I whisper.
He raises an eyebrow. "More awful than having your employer volunteer you?"
"They're both awful in different ways," I counter. "One being wrong doesn't make the other less wrong."
"I suppose." He glances away, not looking me in the eye.
"I'm sorry that he did that to you."
Cobalt shrugs. "It's done. Now I'll be living at the Dragon Defenders barracks with everyone else. I'll only have to see him when I go to family dinners. Honestly, it's a good thing in some ways. He'd never have let me move out otherwise."
My heart breaks for him. I can't believe he listened to me complain about how I came to be part of the Dragon Duels and never told me his own sad story.
"So, what happens now?" I prompt to try and take his mind off his family.
"We wait, and in a couple of days, they'll load us all up and take us to the barracks."
"How many people have won the Duels?" I'm not sure why I want to know, especially when it doesn't make a difference to anything.
"Fourteen. It's less than normal."
"But they didn't move up some of the people with fewer points?"
He shakes his head. "I don't think that's how it works."
"And the people who didn't win? Do we get to find out what happened to them?"
"I'm sorry, Raine. I have no idea. Maybe we'll find out once we're in the barracks with winners from previous years," he says.
Huh. I never considered that all the winners would be there.
"Are all the Dragon Defenders winners of the Dragon Duels?"
"As far as I know."
"I guess this really was a job interview," I mutter.
Cobalt snorts. "Not the kind I ever want to take again."
"Definitely not." I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes.
In a few days time, I’ll start the next chapter of my life as a Dragon Defender. And something tells me that’s going to be even more dangerous than the Duels.
Thank you for reading Stoking The Embers, I hope you enjoyed the first part of Raine's story. If you want to continue her adventures with Cobalt once they join the Dragon Defenders, you can in Igniting The Coals: http://books2read.com/ignitingthecoals
If you haven't picked up the free prequel to The Dragon Duels, which features the first-ever Duels (when they were still yearly!) then you can here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/fy4j08jq8w
Author Note
Thank you for reading Stoking The Embers, I hope you enjoyed the start to The Dragon Duels series. I've long been a fan of dystopian young adult as a genre (I'm the first to admit I'm a rather eclectic reader - I also love fluffy paranormal romance, urban fantasy, high fantasy, and Regency romance!) and I've always toyed with some dystopian ideas but not published them until City Of Blood last year (though that was only a dystopian city, the rest of the world was pretty normal!) The moment I saw the Stoking The Embers cover, I knew what I wanted the concept of the series to be, though it's gone through a bit of development since then.
This story has been a rollercoaster for me to write. Normally once I've plotted things out, it's reasonably straightforward to write, but with this one, that wasn't the case at all. I'm very grateful for the help of my partner on this one, who not only read the first draft (and pointed out what was completely wrong about it) but then read each chapter as I rewrote it into something different to reassure me that I was going in the right direction. I'm very lucky to have someone so supportive in my life to begin with, but without their help on this series, there's a good chance it would have never seen the light of day. My partner is also responsible for the name Moonslinger, as that's what they called the weapon on the cover when they first saw it - the name just stuck.
If you want to know if you'd survive the Dragon Duels? There's a fun quiz on my website you can take that will let you find out! Please feel free to tag me on social media if you share your results.
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