Child of Ardor

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TEAGAN RIORSON

Today was the day.

It was the day I was going to leave everything behind to become a rider — a dragon rider.

A couple years ago I had absolutely no clue what quadrant I wanted to go in and what I wanted to do with my life. But then it didn't matter, because at that time I was free to do whatever I wanted. Not any more.

About four years ago my father, Fen Riorson or the "Great Betrayer" as some people call him, started a rebellion. He fought for what he believed in. He even managed to get 67 people to join him, making their a total of 68 "traitors" when the rebellion was put down. But this rebellion failed. He was caught and executed along with all 67 of his fellow rebels, making me and my older brother orphans with a lot of other children whose parents supported my fathers rebellion.

My older brother — Xaden — is the oldest of the 108 kids left behind from the separatists. He made a deal with General Sorrengail and General Melgren that in exchange for all of the kids surviving we would all go into the Riders Quadrant — where for three years kids learned to ride dragons so we could one day take them into battle and fight to possibly die for this fucked up empire.

Xaden did this by getting brutally whipped 108 times in the back. And all of the kids of separatists were marked with burns from a dragon (Codagh, General Melgren's dragon), called Rebellion Relics, so everyone knows where we come from and to not trust us. 

The only thing was; lots of people died in this quadrant. Hundreds of kids die, not to mention the amount that dies in battle after graduating. And General Sorrengail General Melgren and knew that — Xaden chose the possibility of death over the certainty of it.

So for the past three years all of the "marked ones" have been going into the Riders Quadrant to die or maybe survive if they were lucky.

Today was that day for me. But it was also the day I would be reunited with my brother — as all marked kids were never allowed to go home while in the quadrant — and lots of my friends that I had before the rebellion. After you complete your first year you are allowed to send letters home and even go home for a couple of weeks before second year, but the marked ones are forced to stay at the school. And because I haven't seen Xaden in four years, he couldn't send any letters to me. 

I walked all the way from my foster home to the massive tower that we took up to the parapet — our first challenge. The challenge was to walk across a bridge, almost, when the wind would whip you and try to knock you off so you would fall to your death. 

When I got to the large set of stairs I stoped and leaned up against a pillar, able to watch the people, but unable to be seen. That's how I liked it, I liked to just blend in and observe. Lots of kids were huddled along with their families, the parents weeping and whipping their cheeks as they didn't want their son or daughter to go where they will probably be dead in a couple of days. 

My family wasn't sending me away because no one cares — Neither my father nor my mother would have gotten the chance to send me off, even if they were allowed to survive. 

After all of the kids were marked it was almost like a shaming, no one wanted to be friends with us or even speak to us. This is a problem I've had the entire time I've bounced around different foster homes. I have made some really great friends — who are also kids of the rebellion — but we're never allowed to see each other or talk past when we get moved out of the same home. The only chance I get to have fun with friends would be at school, and even then the teachers don't like us hanging out.