The dragon’s weakest rider

3

The insult stabbed deep into him as the room fell into deep silence.

Eryx slowly reached for the envelope and read through it, his name, age and all information about him had already been filled out, all that was left was his signature.

“You already completed it,” he said, dismay clearly rooted in his voice.

“Of course I did,” Caleb smiled flatly. “I wasn’t going to trust you with something as important as this. You could fuck it up as always.”

That earned a chuckle out of Leo.

Eryx inhaled sharply, glancing from one brother to another.

Conscription day was a rite every family feared because most times it will always lead to the death of their sons or daughters.

It happened once every few years, with application letters carried from house to house by district officials. Whenever it arrived, some mothers cried themselves to sleep, fathers drank themselves into silence while their sons left home to impending doom.

Some returned bonded to dragons.

Most never returned at all.

Which was why families dreaded it and made sure their children became apprentices or workers at factories just escape that fate but his own family was pushing this his way.

“I’m not signing it.”

“You really think you have a choice?” Leo asked with a mocking snort.

“You will sign it little brother, whether you like or not.”

“I said…” Eryx swallowed, forcing the words past the knot in his throat. “…I am not signing it.”

Caleb’s smile quickly faded away. He pushed himself off the wall and walked towards Eryx, each step measured and bringing out a raggard breath out of him.

“Look at me!”

Eryx didn’t, he kept his gaze fixed on the application which made Caleb grab his chim, forcing his head up.

“I said…” His voice was calm enough to make Eryx’s stomach tighten. “Look at me.”

Their eyes met.

“You’ve spent sixteen years eating food you didn’t earn. Sleeping under a roof you didn’t pay for. Wearing clothes someone else bought.”

He tapped the conscription form with a finger.

“This is the first chance you’ve ever had to be worth something!”

Eryx stared at him with disbelief written boldy across his face.

“Worth something?” His voice shook. “By dying?”

Caleb let out a humorless laugh.

“Dying?” He shrugged. “Maybe… maybe not.”

He leaned in closer until Eryx could smell the sweat and iron dust clinging to his clothes.

“But whether you come or not doesn’t change the fact that the academy pays every family whose child answers the call.”

Eryx’s heart skipped a beat as realization set in quickly. He glanced around the room from his brother to his mother.

“You just want the compensation,” he said to no one in particular.

“Now, you are finally using your head,” Leo replied, grinning from the table. “It will be more money than you have ever brought into this house.”

Eryx’s lips drew into a small, sad smile. So, that was it? They weren’t doing this because they believed he had a chance at survival and bonding to a dragon. If at all, they had already decided he was as good as dead.

“The payment will keep this family alive through winter,” his mother said.

Eryx slowly turned toward her, a brow raised. He pointed at himself as he spoke.

“You… you want me to die?”

Clara narrowed her eyes on her son. “When a family is drowning, sometimes you have to let go of the weight pulling everyone else under.”

Eryx searched their faces, desperately hoping to find even the slightest trace of hesitation in their eyes. However, there was none, it was like they had already made their minds about his fate.

“You were born defective,” Caleb began. “You can’t work, you can’t even awaken your core, you can’t circulate enough mana to operate factory equipment.”

He jabbed a finger into Eryx’s chest with every sentence.

“So tell me…” he continued, his eyes narrowing. “What exactly are we supposed to do with you, Eryx?”

Eryx staggered back half a step. “But I tried.”

“Oh, don’t start that bullshit again!”

“But I did!” The words burst from him before he could even stop them. A wave of sadness and tiredness running through him.

“I tried every factory in the district. I begged them to let me carry crates for half the wage. I offered to sweep floors! I offered to even clean the furnaces but they wouldn’t even let me inside!”

“And whose fault is that?” Leo asked, furrowing his brow. “If you had been born normal, none of this would have happened, would it?”

“But it’s not my fault I was born this way,” Eryx responded, his voice breaking as he said each word.

No one answered.

“The academy’s compensation could keep this family fed for months. It could repair the roof, pay father’s debts and even buy medicine when Mother gets sick. You will be doing us the service you could never do all these while,” Caleb said.

“Besides, what do you even bring into this house with your presence?” He asked, his gaze hardening. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing!”

Caleb’s words echoed right deeply in Eryx’s soul. To his family, he was barely a burden, a defect they should have gotten rid of a long time ago!

His fingers slowly tightened around the conscription form until the parchment crumpled. His jaw clenched tightly.

He can’t do it.

He can’t.

The dragons will set him ablaze and even rip him to shreds if he were to ever step into the academy. They could smell a weak prey like him from miles away.

“I am still not going to sign it. I will find job somewhere but I won’t sign this.”

The atmosphere in the room immediately changed. They all stared at him in disbelief.

He wants to try to look for job somewhere?! No one would accept him, this was the best they could do for him! His brothers felt that they were doing him a more greater favor than he had ever done for them.

“Wrong answer,” Caleb said in a husky voice, closing the distance between them both.