The air rushed out of her lungs. Her shoddy shield dropped.

“Oh gods.”

She coughed and coughed, worried that she was going to vomit up breakfast. Her eyes were blurry at the edges. Tieran sank back down onto the ground and huffed in her direction.

“Shove it,” she ground out.

But they were actually the best of the lot. Kerrigan had had a lot of time with dragons in her life. She’d been flying since she’d been left at the House of Dragons. She had a distinct advantage with it as the others had never really been around dragons. Not for an extended period of time at least.

Audria was better at the flipping with her acrobatic training. Noda had perfect balance from sailing. Roake was sturdy and strong in his movements. Fordham executed everything with military precision, and his shields were top-notch. But they all still fell over and over again. Most of them hadn’t even managed to get onto their dragon.

Again, Tieran said.

“I can barely breathe.”

We have to work twice as hard.

Kerrigan waved a hand at him and rolled over to her knees. Her vision dipped. She closed her eyes until it passed and then got back up to her feet.

“Ready,” she told Tieran.

She let loose again, running at top speed. She felt like she was flying before Tieran ever swooped in and picked her up. She forced her eyes open this time as she rotated backward over Tieran’s body. Her eyes focused in on where she wanted to land, and she dropped into place on her knees on Tieran’s back.

She gasped. She’d done it! She certainly hadn’t done it with a sword in her hand or anything, but she’d done it.

“Shield!” Alura cried again.

“Oh, right,” she said sheepishly, pulling a shield around them. Not perfect, but she’d done it.

She whooped loudly and fell backward on Tieran’s back as he soared above the arena. He trailed back down to the arena edge.

Alura nodded her head as Kerrigan slid down Tieran’s leg and dropped into a crouch. “Good. Now, do it again.”

Kerrigan beamed at her. “Yes, sir.”

She couldn’t help it; she threw her arms around her dragon in celebration.

He snorted. You’re embarrassing us.

Kerrigan laughed. “We did it.”

So far.

“See, it wasn’t too bad.”

Tieran shot her an exasperated look. We’ll see.

“That’s enough for today,” Alura called as Roake landed in the sand heavily. “We’re going to be working on these mounting and dismounting maneuvers until you have them down seamlessly and then as a group. So, if you don’t have them today, it’ll take some time to get used to, and that’s normal.”