I took the opportunity to return to human form, trusting the clothes that we'd been given to work as well as Leo had indicated they should. Thankfully, they did. They withstood the burst of steam that fled my body well, and it was easy to tighten the robe and skirt to keep them on as I transformed. The harness and saddle slipped right off as I shrank, collapsing into a pile of leather and cloth. As the process finished, I wrapped the cloth around the saddle just like Leo had demonstrated, bundling up the straps of the harness inside the pseudo-backpack.

I slung it over one shoulder as I stood and gulped down water from the bottle gourd. Arthur had also decided to turn back, so the courtyard was now filled with a dense cloud of artificial fog. Through the mist, Grace looked me up and down, a hand on her hip.

"I like the look," she said. "Especially with the fog. Makes you look mysterious."

I pulled the sleeves tighter against my arms. Just like how it had fit me as a dragon, the outfit didn't restrict my movement too much, but now a few parts were baggy enough that I could tell I'd need some practise to be able to do anything that needed a lot of agility, like fighting. I was confident that I could get the hang of it, though.

"Good," I said. "Because I don't know when I'll be able to wear anything else."

"I'm sure there'll be days you can spend sunrise to sunset as a human," said Grace. She put on a half grin and lightly tousled my hair. I pushed her arm away.

"Yeah, well, I don't know if I can do my job like that," I said. "No wings. No weapons. No armour. You know, I'm kind of useless this way."

"Hey!" Grace gave me a weak slap to the back of the head. "Don't be like that! There's plenty of things I bet you're still good at. And even if you don't do any dragoon things like this, you should still be able to take breaks every now and then. No one keeps this up all the time."

"Pssh," Ingo scoffed, and Rusty gave a rumbling growl of assent.

Grace shot him a dirty glare. "What's your problem?"

"I have no problems," said Ingo. "But you have a diligence problem."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Grace, her voice a low warning.

"Have you listened to anything they've said?" asked Ingo. It was phrased like a question, but he clearly wasn't expecting an answer. "This isn't something you can just 'take breaks' from, or 'quit'. This is your life now. Understand?"

Everyone except Rusty and Griffin had taken a couple steps back from Ingo, watching him warily. Griffin pawed at the ground. «Ingo, are you sure that this is the time to—»

"Quiet," Ingo ordered, and Griffin immediately went silent. "There's no better time. I want to have this talk now, before incompetence gets someone hurt on a mission. I won't be sacrificing any of this team for one person's inability to do their job when the time comes."

Grace sneered. "You think I don't know how to do a job? Really?" She sighed. "Seriously think about what I'm actually saying, please. I never said that I wouldn't—Belfry?"

I pushed her aside, marching towards Ingo. Heat had built up in my brain with every word he said, and then it felt like it was threatening to spill out of my head. "Don't you dare call her incompetent," I hissed.

Ingo turned his head down towards me, his brow furrowed in annoyance. I was already looking for weak spots. He was blind, so he probably couldn't block very well. I could probably get him off-centre with a chop to his side, and then knock the wind from him with a blow to his midsection. It shouldn't be too hard to knock him down, if it came to it.

"If that's what she wants, then she shouldn't show any incompetence," said Ingo. "This isn't a game, and like I said, I'm not of the mind to allow the rest of us to come to harm because a child wanted to play knight."

Every sound was a burning knife being driven into my thoughts, hot enough to keep me from focussing my mind at all. My fists balled up and I could smell the scent of smoke on my breath. "Shut your fucking mouth," I spat.

"Friends, please." It was Rosalie who pulled me away from Ingo. The anger simmered so close to the surface that I nearly threw a punch at her, but I was able to tamp down on it before I did anything that foolish. "We've only just been received by the corps, we should try not to be at each other's throats already. Ingo, I doubt that Grace intends to blow off work to rest, and Belfry, I understand you wanting to defend your sister, but please try not to force a fight in the process. Understand?"

I took a few deep breaths, pushing that anger down deep into quarantine in my mind. I hadn't expected to get so angry, but something about Ingo's stupid, aloof, deadpan voice insulting Grace had pushed every button I had.

"Fine," said Ingo. His indifferent face broke for a moment to show irritation just under the surface before he turned and stormed off.

Griffin looked after him, rubbing their arm. «I…I'll go talk to him,» they said, and quickly trotted off after Ingo.

Grace was at my side in only a moment. "Belfry!" she said. "What was that about?"

I gave her a baffled stare. "What do you mean 'what was that about'? He was trying to insinuate that you shouldn't be here."

"He can say whatever he wants," said Grace. "Please, please, don't get into fights like that on my behalf. I can defend myself. Okay?"

The anger I had contained tested its chains. What in the hell was she trying to say? Did she want me to feel bad for trying to help? What else was I supposed to do, just sit there and watch her get verbally attacked? Ingo had more than proved he deserved it right then and there, whatever it happened to be.

"Are you listening?" Grace snapped me back to reality. "Seriously, Belfry. Don't do that again."

I felt my eye twitch, and I took that as a sign to back away from this. "Whatever," I growled. "Next time, I'll just let people sling whatever awful things they want to say at you. Fine."

"Saints, Belfry, that's not what I—ugh." Rosalie put a hand on Grace's shoulder before she could follow me.

I ignored them. I could tell what was happening. I needed to get out of there before I made a choice I'd regret. That's how I wound up in jail for six months a few years back, and as much as the grocer's son had deserved it, I wasn't going to allow my own lack of self-control get Grace in any trouble with the corps. Once again, I had to focus on keeping her dream alive, and if her dragon partner immediately got expelled for hitting some self-righteous, cocksure oaf, I didn't know what would happen to her.

I jumped down into the trench paths and made my way to one of the enclosed gardens. It was a very nice space, a wonderful little spot of greenery in the cold mountainside fortress. Vines crept down from a lattice suspended above the space and clung to the pitted stone brick walls that surrounded it. Small pots and soil-filled holes in the floor sprouted with bushes just losing the last of their flowers for the year. Two low wooden chairs and a wide cushion on the floor provided seating. I picked the cushion, almost laying down on my front from instinct, but remembering that I wasn't a dragon anymore at the last second before I embarrassed myself and rolling over onto my back.

I focussed as best I could on the soothing herbal scent in the air, and on the sky behind the lattice above me. The tremendous storm that had rolled in to frustrate our travels here was nothing more than a memory now, and the clouds that danced through the sky in the jets of cold air that blew high above the ground were long and wispy cirrus, hopefully indicating that another storm like that would be a long time away.

I reached up to cup one end of a drooping vine into my hand. The smell of these plants was familiar, but I could only wonder where I had found it before. The faint outline of the memory was nice to look at, though; it must have been a better time in my life.

I let my hand flop down onto my chest. Seconds turned into minutes, and then on into an hour or more as I just laid there, watching the sky roll past and taking a sip from the bottle gourd every now and then. I was able to get my immediate thoughts under control, but no matter how long I laid there, no matter how much I tried to focus on that happy little scent, I could still feel the anger boiling away where I had blocked it off.

It wasn't even pointed anywhere specific anymore, just a directionless, cold-hearted loathing of anything and everything that had conspired to ruin my life. I wanted to hurt something. To get some kind of satisfaction for all the wrongs that had come down on my head, to punish anything that even thought about doing wrong to something like me.

It all made me profoundly uncomfortable to think about. These last few days, I felt like my thoughts had been infested. Accursed worms of jealousy and anger and cold contempt had crawled their way into my brain and refused to leave. I knew, logically, at the forefront of my mind, that I should feel bad about killing those mutant bandits. But I didn't. I shouldn't have enjoyed spilling the blood of those toarbecs so much. But I did. I should have been able to calm down from a moment of rage without having to see someone suffer for it. But I couldn't.

I put my hands on my face, covering my eyes before tears could leak out. It must have been the dragon's fault. Somehow, it must have been, because I knew that all of that didn't come from me. The human in me, at least. I'd experienced rage that got me into fights and forced myself into being able to rob traders on the roads without feeling bad about it afterwards. But those weren't this. This was something deeper.

Footsteps crunched against the stone floor. I pulled my hand off one eye to take a look down the trench at whoever was coming. I had expected Grace, wanting to say that we should get back to training, or maybe Rosalie telling me that it was time to have lunch. But it wasn't either of them. It was Ingo. The worst option. Griffin walked softly behind him, giving me a nervous look.

"Belfry?" Ingo called.

I was tempted to stay quiet and hope he didn't realise I was there, but I didn't. Right then, I wanted to prove to myself that I could overcome these foreign emotions that were clouding me, and fight through the anger to have a normal talk with Ingo.

"I'm here," I said. My voice was croaky with tiredness.

Griffin lightly brushed Ingo's back with their wing, and he flinched away, walking forward until he was standing right over me. I sat up, then slowly got to my feet.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

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I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Why are you here? You clearly have no enthusiasm for the corps. You don't seem happy being a dragon, and you don't have the spine for the kind of intensive training that it takes. So why?"

"Because my sister wants to be here," I said. "She needs a partner. And I want to know how this happened to me. Wouldn't you?"

"You seem sensitive for someone looking for answers," Ingo grumbled.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I snapped. The fire was rising. I stamped the flames down.

"You turned back. Immediately." Ingo leaned closer. "You see Griffin? They understand their place. We all have one. Yours is the bonded dragon of a dragoon knight. You backed out instantly."

Griffin shifted uncomfortably, taking a step into the garden. «Ingo, I don't think it's helpful—»

"Quiet," Ingo ordered, and again Griffin went silent. His barely-suppressed glare never left my face. "I don't know much about you. I don't know why or how you have this weird power of transformation. But you signed on as a dragon. You can't abandon that when you feel 'tired'."

"Is this really still about the 'taking breaks' thing? Are you really that insane to try and say that we shouldn't ever stop working? Ever?"

"What did you hear Leo say?" demanded Ingo. "Time is so critical to your responsibilities that just being able to put a harness on fast is a necessity. How would you say you should respond if your 'break time' gets interrupted by an emergency? You can't fly your partner to or from danger, you and even on the off chance the danger is presenting itself right where you are, you won't be able to fight as you should. What then? Is your ability to lounge more valuable even then? Answer."

"You are bringing this so far out of reality," I said through gritted teeth. I was even starting to taste smoke now under the weight of Ingo's assault. I glanced back at Griffin for support, but all they were doing was morosely dragging one claw through a crack in the floor over and over.

"You're just making up situations to get mad at," I continued, relying on the bastion of logic to overcome the intensifying emotion. "Stop doing that. Is there someone you're trying to prove yourself to by always being vigilant or whatever? You can't always be ready to jump into action at any second, that isn't a healthy way to—"

I had thought that I would be the one to escalate this to violence as I fought to keep the simmering rage in check, but it was Ingo. Midway through my sentence, his cane came up, swinging at my chest. In the garden, backed against the corner, I had no room to dodge; the best I could do was bring one hand down to try and catch the weapon before it broke my ribs. It felt like it almost broke my hand instead, slamming with such immense force that all the muscles in my fingers reported only a brief moment of shock before they went fully numb. The cane had looked like it was mostly painted wood from a distance, but it was now clear that it was all metal, effectively a steel staff as well as a mobility tool.

I threw my arm down, forcing the cane down low enough that I could stomp on it and wrench it from Ingo's grasp, though that only barely worked against his iron grip. I dug my fingers into one of the walls in the corner, accepting that I would need to bleed for this, and pulled up and pushed off at once, jumping for the adjacent wall. I grabbed the top with my fingers, thankful that the trench path was only about six feet deep, and summoned all my experiences of getting into places I wasn't allowed to quickly pull myself up and onto my side, rolling away onto one of the empty courtyards.

I jumped to my feet and ran from the trench, settling into a loose stance on the other side of the courtyard. Moments later, Ingo hauled himself up and began stomping his way towards me, followed shortly by Griffin.

«Ingo—!» Griffin called out. «This is a bad idea! You'll be disciplined for this!»

"Call it training, or a test," Ingo said, his voice deadly calm. "If you're going to argue with an expert, then you better back it up, Belfry." He swung his cane over his shoulder, letting it slide into a loop in a strap across his back and got into a fighting stance himself, standing low with his arms out wide.

I didn't know what he expected from me, but I had no intention of fighting fair. I kept my mouth shut and crept towards him, keeping every step light so that all the sound there was was the near-silent crunching of the grass. Griffin stared at me as I approached Ingo, and I shot them a warning glare. I wouldn't be able to tell if they were feeding Ingo information, but I hoped that they would be neutral enough in this fight to know better than that.

Ingo kept turning his head back and forth as I drew nearer, scanning the whole courtyard. I had no idea what he was looking for. He was blind, wasn't he?

Something flickered across his face, and then he suddenly, and silently, lunged towards me just as I was a few steps away from being close enough to strike. His arms went wide to each side in a sweeping grabbing motion, and I didn't dodge fast enough, instead spurred by reflexes to throw an upward punch at his chest in a vain attempt to stun him before he hit me. It was like punching a brick wall. All I succeeded in doing was hurting my knuckles and earning a controlled "Hrah!" from Ingo.

He caught me easily, one hand clasped around my back and crushing one of my arms up against my chest and the other pulling back for a strike. I struggled as he lifted me up and squeezed hard enough that I felt something pop at my side. Fire roiled in my head as the anger fought to break loose.

His grip shifted so that one hand held my shoulder as he raised the other back, his fingers outstretched and hooked like they were claws rather than tucked into a fist. I would never struggle out of his grip, so I had to throw off his aim. I stomped down hard on his foot and hurled my right fist up into his jaw at the same time. The impacts were powerful, but Ingo just let out a guttural grunt of pain. His hand still slammed into the right side of my chest. His spread fingers turned one broad point of pain into five concentrated ones as the momentum carried me to the ground out of his hand.

My head was spinning and I failed to get my hands under me. Blood roared in my ears. I should have had him three times over, but he must have been made of metal, because no matter how hard I had hit him, all he did was take it and hit me back. I felt his hand on my shoulder again, and he picked me up off the ground, turning me to face him as he raised his leg for a full force kick.

I took advantage of his relatively slow movements. I grabbed onto his arm and used it as an anchor to pull up my legs and plant both my feet into Ingo's chest. With one leg off the ground, he was finally off-balance enough that the force of the strike pulled me out of his grip and sent him falling backwards onto the grass.

I landed on my side. My lungs were burning, and I could already feel bruises beginning to manifest on my chest. I should have been a dragon for this, I told myself with fiery vitriol. His one trick is being able to eat a punch. He wouldn't be so smug if I was three times his size. But then, that would have just proved his point, wouldn't it?

I pushed myself up and onto my hands just in time to see Ingo sprinting towards me. I rolled over, letting his kick whiff by miles to my side. He got himself under control fast, cautiously feeling the ground in front of him with one of his feet before turning around. I took notice of the motion, and realised very quickly that if one of us got thrown into the trench, we could easily break our necks or skulls against the stony ground.

"Come on…" Ingo growled. "Is that all the spirit you can show me?"

I wiped spittle from the side of my mouth as I slowly stood. I needed to surprise him, but how? He caught me sneaking across the yard, so he either actually did have some vision, or Griffin was giving him directions silently, and I wasn't sure which.

The first option was easier to gamble on, I decided. I stood behind him, slowly moving forward until I was just close enough to act. I leaped towards him, trying to get my arms around his throat. He didn't flail around confused like I hoped he might if I struck him suddenly, but I was able to get into position, holding his throat in my elbow and squeezing while I pushed against his legs with my feet to try and knock him over backwards.

I wasn't entirely thinking straight right then. If I was, I probably would have thought about the ways this manoeuvre could easily go wrong, like if he fell over willingly and crushed me under the weight of his body, or if I accidentally collapsed his windpipe and killed him. But what actually went wrong was so much simpler. His neck tensed, and he grabbed my arms, using enough sheer brute force to pull my arm far enough away from his throat that he could swing his head backwards, slamming into my forehead.

My vision went white, then black, then speckled for just a few moments as I fell to the ground once again. My back was sore from each time I'd hit the dirt, and my lungs felt paralysed. So I didn't have anywhere near enough speed to dodge out of the way this time when Ingo spun on his heel and planted a kick stronger than a horse's into my ribs. One of them definitely broke as I was sent flying several feet away, rolling over several times until I settled on my back again.

My muscles screamed in pain. I couldn't feel my extremities except for faint, painful tingling whenever I tried to move them. I felt something leaking from the corner of my mouth, and this time when I wiped it off, it was blood rather than saliva. The toarbec's blood had tasted sweet, but as mine filled my mouth, it was absolutely vile.

My head felt like it was going to explode from pressure that had built up inside. All I could do was watch Ingo slowly walk towards me until he brushed against my side with his foot and stopped. Just that was enough to send a thread of pain through my body, and a pathetic groan escaped from my throat. Somewhere far away, I heard a door slam, loud and sudden enough I thought he had kicked me in the ear.

"I'm a man from Clan Helmont," Ingo seethed. "I proved my worth in a hundred battles before I was twenty. You clearly haven't even bothered to learn the first thing about real fighting before you came here. What would your father say if he saw how you failed here?"

That was it. The chains snapped. Searing, white hot rage flooded through my head, drowning out all thoughts before them, so loud that I couldn't even see or hear. Everything I thought I knew about myself, my personality, the way I was supposed to be, evaporated in the face of overwhelming fury. All that remained was one single desire, one need so deep that it drove me mad not to have. To hurt him. Hurt him. Hurt him. Hurt him. Hurt him. HURT HIM. HURT HIM.

Something impacted my shoulder and forced me onto the ground again. It was a human, holding a spear in its hands pressed against my chest and pinning me down. I snarled and tried to push the spear away. The thing babbled something incoherent. Then its hand came down, slapping me across my face.

The shock allowed a sound to get a foot in the door in my mind, shoving the rage to the side. It was a voice.

«Belfry!»

The fires were doused like they had been buried beneath the sea. A presence brushed up against my mind, and I felt a flood of resolve strong enough to force the anger away, strong enough to let me gain control again and shove that emotion back into its little chained up box where it belonged.

My senses came back to me. It was Grace that was pinning me down. Her face was contorted in shock, fear, and anger of her own.

"Belfry!" she said again, verbally this time. "What the fuck is wrong with you!? What did you do!?"

It took effort to retake control of my muscles again, but I manage to do it and strained to turn my head over and look to the side, where a bunch of people had gathered. It was the rest of Ninth Flight, plus Leo and Cynthia. They were standing around Ingo, laying flat on his back on the grass, surrounded by spots of blood.

For a brief, horrifying moment, I thought that he was dead. Then Yura held out his hand and helped Ingo get to his feet. His face was swollen and bloody, and he had a gash across his throat that thankfully didn't seem deep enough to be lethal. But he was alive.

"What kind of demon did you bring here?" he growled.

"Enough!" shouted Cynthia. "Yura, Leo. Take him to the infirmary."

The two nodded, and Yura draped one of Ingo's hands over his shoulder as they led him away towards the keep.

"Belfry, please answer me." Grace's plea was mixed with tears that fell onto my face, stinging wherever they met with the raw cuts that I was beginning to feel.

"What happened…?" I mumbled. Tears began to form in my eyes, too. "What did I do?"

"What did you do, indeed." Cynthia stood over me, looking down with controlled anger. Despite that, I could see some hint of curiosity in her eyes. "Grace, let her up."

Grace glanced up at our superior, then down at me. "But…" she protested.

"Do it."

Grace reluctantly lifted her spear, keeping it ready as she got off my back and stood next to Cynthia. The look in her eyes was the same one she had got when I first transformed in the monastery. Cold mistrust and fear. It being directed at me made me sick to my stomach.

I sat up, and immediately, blood began to roll down my face. My injuries remained, and I hissed loudly at the reminder that my rib was still broken. No position of my face kept it from feeling like I'd had all my skin peeled off.

Then I looked down in my hands. Most of the skin on the backs of them, all the way up to my elbows, was covered by brown scales, and my fingernails had all turned back into hard, sharp claws. They were soaked in blood that freely dripped to the ground. My palms were at least mostly still human, but they were rougher than they should have been.

"No," I whispered under my breath. "No, no, no, no, no. Please, no."

I tried to turn them back, but the sea of my mind was whipped up into a frenzy. Nothing happened.

"No, no, please," I continued, finally breaking into open weeping. I looked up at Grace plaintively. "What did I do? What happened? Please…."

Grace just stared with a complicated storm of emotions I couldn't fully parse through the cloud of my own, but Cynthia offered a hand to help me to my feet. I gripped where my broken rib was, trying to minimise the pain as best I could.

"We'll get to that," Cynthia said, her voice much softer and gentler than a moment before. "Grace. Come with us. She needs to get to the infirmary, too."

Grace bit her lip before giving a slow, cautious nod. She put my arm over her shoulder, and Cynthia did the same as they began guiding me away from the bloody mess I had somehow made. I couldn't bear to look at the others as we passed by. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, praying that this was some wicked dream I was having after Ingo knocked me out, all the way until we made it into the keep.

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