Once in a Dragon Moon - Ophelia Bell Page 0,3

in agreement, and they all approached the still-closed heavy metal door that severed them from the rest of the world.

“We’ll have to keep our secret,” Dmitri said.

They all nodded.

“We decided to say we’re from a rural tribe,” Myron said. “And we won’t shift unless we know it’s safe.”

“Centuries have passed. We could be in the clear,” Santer added optimistically.

“Let’s go,” Ksenia growled. “There will be plenty of time to chat while we’re hiking through gods know how much sand for hours, if not days.”

Dmitri smirked and took hold of the lever beside him. Santer joined him, and together they pulled the rusty handle down.

The ground shook, the cavern creaked, and the door opened outward. Yellow sand drifted in, piling at their feet.

They stepped out. An urgency hummed through Ksenia’s bones, and she wondered if they all felt it. The twin suns, hanging high in the blush pink sky, called to her dragon.

A heavy creak sounded behind them, and within seconds the door had crashed shut. Sand quickly piled around it, part of the design that helped camouflage the entrance and kept them hidden.

Ksenia looked around, one hand shielding her eyes. “Guys? What’s that over there?”

They all stared with her.

Dmitri growled.

Demyan swore.

“I think it’s a sandstorm,” Myron shouted as a flurry rose at their feet. “Brace yourselves!”

1

Ksenia

The unfamiliar beeps and whirs of some alien machinery roused Ksenia from unconsciousness. She struggled to open her sand-encrusted eyelids, managing to crack them once before bright light sent pain slicing through to the center of her skull. A blurry figure stood over her, though—she was sure of it.

“Fuck. Where am I?” she rasped, followed by a coughing fit that kept her in spasms for a good minute straight.

A gentle hand gripped her shoulder, patted her on the back, and brushed her loose hair off her cheek. When the body-wracking coughs finally subsided, a warm, damp cloth came to rest against her face, that gentle hand wiping away the grit.

“You’re at the Arena League Medical Center. It was the clinic closest to where they found you. I swear, if I had a coin for every time a champion tried to train in the middle of a sandstorm, I’d be rich.”

The voice was feminine and exasperated. And had it just said champion?

The cloth disappeared, and Ksenia slowly opened her eyes again. A pretty, dark-haired woman in a white coat stood beside her bed, smiling down at her.

“Who are you? Who found me? Where are the others?”

“My name is Dr. Simina Taji. I’m chief of medicine at the Arena League Medical Center’s western facility. Our radar picked up your signal late last night after the sandstorm passed. I keep telling them the scanner offers a safety net that just encourages brazen behavior like yours. You guys know we’ll look, so you pull idiotic stunts again and again.” She shook her head.

Ksenia frowned. “You found me? What about the others? I lost track of them not long after the storm overtook us.” She couldn’t be sure how long she’d walked before passing out from exhaustion. She’d assumed their bracelets would allow them to stay close to one another, but evidently, she’d been wrong.

“It was just you. But if there were others within the scanner’s range, I’m sure they got picked up too. Now, how are you feeling? The fact that you’re up and talking is a good sign. We didn’t find any identification on you, though. If you give me your name, I can pull up your League record.”

“Ksenia San—” She stopped short, remembering that they’d agreed to keep their true identities a secret. “Ksenia San Velka,” she finished. It was her mother’s given name, as old as the stones and hopefully not too strange to a surface-dweller.

Dr. Taji tapped on a tablet in her hand and frowned. “That’s odd. You’re not listed in the League medical database.”

“Yeah, about that—you’re not going to find me in any database, because I’m not a member of the League. Not yet, anyway.”

“Are you a trainee? Your trainers should have submitted your paperwork if you completed tryouts and signed up with one.”

Ksenia bit her lip. “I’m hoping to get one of those soon. A trainer, I mean.”

The doctor gave her a knowing smirk. “Trust me, you aren’t the first aspiring champion who’s jumped the gun. But time is running out. If you plan to enter tryouts to catch the eye of a trainer, you need to do it soon. You won’t be eligible to enter any of the tournaments until you send