Fireborne (THE AURELIAN CYCLE Book 1)
Fireborne: Chapter 7

LEE

The first class with Tyndale after the tournament, I find a note tucked into the homework he returns to me.

Cousin—

I gave him two letters; this is the one for if you made it.

Do you remember how the dreams of glory sang in our blood as we were children, when we pretended to wage war? They were the dreams that I remembered when I made Firstrider of New Pythos.

We have so many things to discuss, you and I. But before we do, I want you to know this: that I, your cousin, your blood, hope you make Firstrider as much as I hoped I would myself. Perhaps it’s madness to wish such a thing, with the future looming over us as it does. But the truth is that however it ends, I want you to taste it. My kin, my first friend—I want you to know what it’s like to feel the might of the world at your feet. Not in pretend: in earnest.

And then I hope you let yourself imagine how it could go from there. You and I, retaking what’s ours. Making those bastards pay for what they’ve done. Setting things right.

Our fathers may be dead, but their blood runs in our veins. We were born to this.

Give me the time and place for ]our next meeting.

The day I receive Julia’s letter, the Firstrider Tournament is a month away, set for a week before the Palace Day anniversary and two weeks after the Lycean Ball. I reread it even as I appreciate it for what it is: a temptation. Julia’s words awaken the old hunger and trace it to its starting point. To wanting Firstrider, for as long as I can remember, as any dragonlord’s son would, as my birthright. It’s easy to slip into such thinking.

It’s easy to yearn after thoughts of revenge.

We were born to this.

I can’t think of any answer that wouldn’t be a lie in its denial, so I don’t acknowledge the temptation at all. I propose a meeting at Wayfarer’s Arch, a dragon perch built on an island arch that’s midway between the karst pillars of New Pythos and the Callipolan northern shore. Midnight, on the next full moon, a week before the Lycean Ball.

I tell myself that I do it in Callipolis’s name, even if it’s without Callipolis’s knowledge. I tell myself that the more information I can gather about the Pythian fleet, the better.

And I tell myself that I will make Firstrider with a different set of principles.

ANNIE

The burns from the semifinal tournament have begun to itch, and the dressings still require changing and ointment several times a day. On the first patrol I run with Power after the tournament, I expect him to be taciturn and possibly even in the mood for retribution. I have my pike—sharpened for real combat rather than the blunt kind we train with—gripped loose and ready under my arm, Power sur Eater on the outside of it. But as we leave the city behind and steer the dragons toward the northern coast, Power reins Eater to chatting distance and pulls his helmet off his head.

“So what’s your plan?” he calls.

I raise my visor, too.

“What?”

The fields of the lowland plains roll out below us, emerald green from summer crops freshly burst from the earth; here and there, the spires of dragon perches, mounted with bells and unlit beacons, tower over toy-size villages.

“For beating Lee. In the final tournament. I could be your training partner.”

I laugh aloud. The last time we were in the air together, Eater’s talons pierced my shoulder and Aela’s side in an illegal charge that we’re still recovering from. The burns that they gave me itch badly enough that sitting still—in class, in the saddle—takes concentration.

“You think I’d train with you?”

Power slings his reins into one hand, twists a shoulder back to face me, and cocks an eyebrow. “I think you’d better. If you want to beat him. I could teach you spillovers; you’d be suited to them. We can start after the Lycean Ball. Our schedules will be clearer then.”

For graduating Gold students, the Lycean Ball marks their transition to contributing members of the elite; for the Guardians this year, it will serve as our debut to Gold society. Between now and then, many professors have been setting end-of-year assignments and final exams that the Guardians—expanded military and public obligations notwithstanding—are still expected to complete.

“You’re going to have to train for this tournament . . . He’s pretty good,” Power adds. An understatement, but the closest thing to a compliment he’s ever said about Lee. “You should have some sort of plan.”

Some sort of plan.

The problem is, I don’t. Making finalist and finding myself opposite Lee was like breaking the gray-white nothingness of stratus clouds and bursting into the sunlight above them: blinding. And I’m still dazed by it.

It’s strange how you can fight your way to a door, even through it, without thinking about what lies on the other side.

Fourth Order, finalist—titles I’ve clawed my way into and have found, upon seizing them, that I like how they settle. But Firstrider? Commander of the Callipolan Aerial Fleet?

Firstrider and Fleet Commander instead of Lee?

“You must really want Lee to lose,” I observe.

The North Sea approaches, a gray swath on the horizon, punctuated by cliffs. But Power is watching me, not the ground below, and flashes a sudden grin. “Maybe I want you to win. Because I think you’d do a better job than that self-satisfied ass. Because I think you’ve got the head and the guts for it and that you’d do a good job, period. That too hard to imagine, Annie? That somebody wants you to win?”

Even though he seems to intend it as a compliment, in tone it feels more like an insult. When he realizes I’m not going to answer, he keeps going. The disgust in his voice is apparent even when he’s lifting it over the wind.

“You probably don’t even want you to win. You’d rather be his Alterna than go for commandership—”

“You don’t know anything about me, Power.”

“Yeah? I know what they say about you.”

“About me?”

“They say serfs are always happiest when they have a lord.”

I haul Aela to a halt midair so hard that I rock forward in the saddle and she hawks against the bit. Power has to circle round to face us. The northern coastline, Fort Aron and its harbor, stretch below, and the rising cliffs of the highlands spread west, green grass and violet heather both bleached silver under the cumulus-laden sky.

“I take it back,” Power says easily, spreading his hands in surrender.

Aela’s startled anger is quivering in time with my own like a sustained, high-pitched note.

“We’re done talking.”

“Sure, sure—”

“We’re done.”

His words eat at me in the silence that follows.

The day after our patrol, I receive a memo from the ministry, summoning me to the office of Miranda Hane. My walk to the Inner Palace is spent trying to calm an elevated heartrate. This is it. That memo I ignored before the Fourth Order, the morale visit lists my name has been absent from—this is when I face the person behind it. The Minister of Propaganda.

Still seething from Power’s insinuations, I’m almost relieved for this change. Here, at least, is something I can face.

“Antigone, hello. Thank you for coming.”

Miranda Hane has risen and, to my surprise, is smiling. The Ministry of Propaganda is the only ministry headed by a woman, and my first thought, meeting her, is of Skyfish ladies from the dragonborn tapestries. She has the same warm brown complexion, regal posture, and dark curls framing a clear gaze—although unlike the ladies of those tapestries, Hane wears trousers and her hair is cropped chin-length. Behind her, a floor-to-ceiling window overlooks the Firemouth, lined with potted plants that diffuse the sunlight.

There’s stiffness in my arms and fingers that have nothing to do with tournament injuries, and I find myself unsure where to place my hands—at my sides? in my pockets? Hane extends her own hand and I realize, belatedly, that she expects me to shake it. Like we’re adult males.

“Please sit.”

After I’ve taken a seat across from her—on the edge of it, because I can’t make my body relax—she studies me from under dark eyebrows. I remind myself to sit straighter; I realize that my arms are crossed; I unfold them and then clench my fingers in my lap. My burns twinge.

“Congratulations on making finalist. You flew very well.”

“Thank you.”

Sitting across from her, my courage is flagging like a sail on a dying breeze. For the first time, it occurs to me that I must have been mad—a stubborn, reckless fool—to take that note as a challenge. This woman helms one of the most powerful branches of government and I took it upon myself to defy her?

“I’ve been reviewing your file.”

My racing thoughts pause. Hane taps a folder in front of her, the only item on her otherwise clear leather-topped desk.

“You have nothing but the highest marks in all your classes, but your teachers routinely note that you don’t speak up enough. The exceptions are your new Dragontongue professor and the First Protector, who find your participation over the last few weeks more than satisfactory. Your only low marks are in oration, but your rhetoric professor observes that since making the Fourth Order you’ve been applying yourself with more— determination. Would you agree with these assessments?”

Mouth clamped shut, I nod.

“The Cloister directress Jillian Mortmane reports that you get along well with others and are not without friends. Your drillmaster, Wes Goran, describes your abilities in the air as dubious at best and your tendencies subservient, though I can only assume, given your performance in the last two tournaments I’ve observed, that his reporting has been . . . misleading.”

Power’s question returns to me, biting. Do you know what they say about you? I hesitate, then nod again.

A look of distaste passes over Hane’s face.

“Just with you, or all the girls? Or is it your birth—?”

I’ve never been asked about Goran like this before. I open my mouth, but no words come out. Hane speaks first, sounding tired.

“You don’t have to answer that.”

She looks me over with a twisting frown. Then exhales, slowly and audibly, through her nose. I will my face not to go blotchy, as I can feel it’s on the verge of doing.

“All right, Antigone.”

I think I must be imagining the tone of concession in her voice. She’s opened my file and begun flipping through it. Past reports from teachers, work samples, flight pattern analyses, test scores, medical history. She stops on the page titled “Bio” and glances it over; I watch her eyebrows rise, a line appear between them. She blinks, shakes her head a little like she’s clearing it, and looks up. She doesn’t comment on what she’s just read.

“I’m going to assign you a morale visit.”

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

The details of the process wash over my numb ears: My first morale visit will be to Holbin Hill, my home village; I’m to assist Lee’s morale visit to Cheapside first, to get an idea of what they’re looking for; I’m to draft a speech, if I so choose; and I’m to pick another Guardian as a visiting partner.

It will be the first time I’ve been back to Holbin in ten years.

“Do you have any questions?”

A single doubt is nagging; I hesitate. Hane prompts me with a motion of her hand.

“Do we have to bring dragons?” I ask.

Hane tilts her head at the question, like it perplexes her.

“Yes,” she says. “That is the point of these visits, Antigone. You’re appearing as a dragonrider. Which means showing the people your dragon.”

She’s looking at me expectantly, like she expects me to explain myself, but all I can feel is my fluttering stomach. Finally, finally I’ve been given a morale visit—a single morale visit, a chance to prove that I deserve it—against what must be this woman’s better judgment and certainly her first inclinations. And now I question her?

Nevertheless the words blurt from my mouth.

“Mightn’t we make an exception—”

I close it abruptly, look down, feel the blotchiness starting up my neck. But Hane’s voice contains nothing but understanding.

“That was years ago, Annie. And this is you, one of theirs, weeks after Callipolis has been alerted to the threat of Pythian dragonfire. Whatever Holbin voted in the original referendum regarding dragons—they’ll know this is different.”

Over the next few days, I try to convince myself that Hane is right. And I try to find the words to tell Lee that I’ll be coming with him to Cheapside, but none come. In any case, speaking of any kind has become oddly weighted, since we both made finalist for Firstrider.

The morning of our visit, I find him in the armory, dressed as I am, in ceremonial uniform, looking unusually grim.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m coming, too. They’re . . . having me do a morale visit. But I’ve got to watch this one first.”

Lee raises a finger to the bridge of his nose and rubs it. Like he likes the idea of doing Cheapside together as little as I do.

“Annie, look, when I’m doing these, I—”

He breaks off. Shakes his head, drags his fingers through the side of his dark hair as he avoids my eyes. I understand abruptly.

“You put on the show they want.”

For a second, he looks miserable. “It . . . means something to them. That’s what I’ve realized. Even if it feels—hollow to us. It’s not, to them. You’ll see.”

We land with our dragons in the cordoned-off part of the main square of Cheapside, next to the rising spire of the neighborhood’s dragon perch. It’s the first time I’ve been back since Albans. While the representative from Propaganda makes introductions, I study the crowd gathering in front of us. It’s strange, years later, to notice the things that I didn’t as a child: Their clothes are worn, their bodies dirty, thin. Appearances I used to take for granted but now see as signs of poverty. The wristbands are nearly all iron. With a start, I see a face I recognize: To the edge of the square, a crowd of grubby, downtrodden-looking children are waiting next to our old orphanage master.

From the corner of my eye, I can see Lee watching me.

Gibbon finishes his introduction and gestures Lee forward, and Lee’s attention turns to the audience.

“Citizens of Callipolis,” he begins. “I come to you now in the wake of challenging news for our nation . . .”

I’ve watched Lee speak in class for eight years; he’s always been confident and well-spoken and poised. But this is the first time I’ve seen him address a crowd as a representative of the state. His shoulders are thrown back, the silver breast of his uniform gleaming in the sunlight, his black gold-trimmed mantle falling carelessly off one shoulder as he lifts a hand to invoke his audience. A dragon behind him, the crowd in front of him, Lee holds the square captivated like he owns it. The address probably began as a canned text provided by the Ministry of Propaganda, but it’s easy for me to detect Lee’s doctoring: We’ve proofread each other’s writing for too many years not to recognize the other’s style. The ministry’s trite phrases become heart-sure and meaningful as he breathes them into life. His speechmaking, like his flying, is beautiful.

Gibbon, who’s come to stand beside me, is smiling a little. “Every time, he’s like this,” he says.

Lee has them roaring by the end, in a kind of rising crescendo with his words, shrieking their approval as he says that we will never surrender this glorious revolution, this people’s revolution, and that we will defend Callipolis by land and by sea and by air.

I try to imagine myself standing where he’s standing, doing what he’s doing, and can’t.

They’re always happiest when they have a lord.

I push the thought away with revulsion.

When his speech is over, I stand beside Lee and watch as he receives each citizen in the greeting line. He puts them at ease, listens patiently, and focuses on each person with his whole attention. Nothing throws him off—not when they tell him their grievances or ask him to place his hand on their child or even weep with fear about the coming war.

“I just keep thinking, what if they spark before ours—what if they’ve already sparked—”

“We’re training for that very possibility every day.”

The mother’s voice goes strained, wild. “But how can we stand a chance if—”

Lee lets out a laugh—gentle—and takes the woman’s sun-burned hand. Her face is lined, her brown hair streaked with gray. At his touch, she looks up at him. “Have a little faith in your fleet, madam.”

She takes in his face like she’s looking into the light. For a moment I see Lee as she must see him: his kind smile, worn by old sorrows; the gray eyes that are both intelligent and full of concern; the dark hair, shining in the sunlight, blown back from his forehead by the breeze. The Guardians’ emblem of the circlets of silver and gold entwined on his breastplate, the filling shoulders of a boy in the prime of his youth and strength.

The face that is beginning to transform into a man’s.

The man’s face that grows, day by day, more familiar—

The woman raises his hand to her lips, kisses it, and breath leaves me like it’s been sucked from my lungs. Because it is unmistakably a politeness from before the Revolution. From a time when subjects showed their gratitude to dragonlords, in the ways they’d been taught.

Lee has gone rigid. And then, when he looks up, it’s at me, watching him. His face has drained of color.

There are conversations I wish we’d never had as children. Things I hope we’ll never say again. Realizations I wish I need never have had or have.

But the realization I most regret, the one I hate and resist most of all, is that while I’ve always known what he is, the worst thing is not what he is but who.

That even if I’ve never been told exactly who Leo was, I’ve begun to recognize his maturing face.

Lee, Leo, Leon—

The greeting line moves on, and the thought is pushed back to the silence where I prefer it. When those in the line want to speak to me, I do my best to imitate Lee, even though I feel self-conscious and tongue-tied. When it’s nearly over and I feel as drained as if we’ve been doing it for hours, I hear a familiar voice say our names.

“All right, Lee, Annie?”

The orphanage master uses a chummy voice, as if to make clear to those watching that he’s on a first-name basis with us.

He prods the first children forward. Lee guides them to Pallor, and I bring the next group of children to Aela. She huffs and, at my clucking and snapped fingers, lowers her head reluctantly to their height. The children reach out with trembling, tentative fingertips to brush her amber scales. It’s strange to realize that these children, who seem so tiny, are the same age we once were at Albans.

One of the girls in my group bursts into tears.

I go cold with panic. Why is she crying? What did I do? How do I make it stop? There are people watching—

“Trade?”

Lee has appeared at my side, nodding at his own group of children. None of them are crying. Leaving them with me, he approaches the crying girl from my group, scoops her up as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, and says, “Hey.”

Like he’s shed one skin and slipped into another, and this one, too, I recognize. Not the man growing visible under his ceremonial armor like a molting bird of prey, but the boy I knew in Albans. The boy who had no father, who reminded me of no one, who mattered to me only because in a world where we had no one, he was kind.

I lead the others back to the Albans section as snatches of Lee’s conversation with the girl come from behind me: I know, they can be scary, can’t they? But that one wasn’t going to hurt you, and then, after she says something else, too incoherent for me to understand, he adds: I’m sorry you miss your mum.

My eyes are beginning to burn with the memories. His words of comfort are gentle, practiced. Because of course, he has practiced them. When he passes me, and our glances catch for a brief moment, I realize that his eyes have reddened, too.

Back with the others, he sets the girl on her feet and tells her, a firmness entering his voice, that it’s time to stop crying.

And, to my surprise, she does. Steels herself, wipes her face, nods with determination.

Was that me?

And the worse thought, that has me sick with shame: Is that me still?

What would it be like to serve as Alterna to this boy, whom of all people I should refuse to serve? And what perversion of upbringing or nature makes that easier for me to envision than becoming his superior? A revolution was fought to undo these patterns, and yet here I am, unable to picture any future but one where I repeat them.

That won’t do. That can’t do. I won’t let it.

I will not let Power be right. Not about my people. Not about my desires. Not about me.

***

Three days before my morale visit to Holbin, Crissa finds me working at a table in the solarium after we’ve gotten out of training. Specialists in dragon biology have begun inspecting the fleet, offering suggestions for ways to trigger the dragons’ sparkfire. So far, none of their recommendations have had any effect. We’re left training with pikes and shields.

“What are you working on?”

Crissa’s smiling, using her most cheerful squadron-leader voice, the one that I now associate with clinging to Rock’s shoulders as we raced through the moonlit Palace, a flag around my shoulders and joy in my blood. She takes the seat across from me and nods at the paper in front of me as her fingers rake golden hair back from her face.

“My speech.”

“For your morale visit?”

I nod, remembering Lee in Cheapside. As far as I could tell, he didn’t even bother to write his down. The speech I’m staring at has taken me three hours of drafting and redrafting to compose.

“Do you want me to look it over?”

Crissa makes this offer so promptly that I realize it must be the real reason she’s taken a seat across from me. The problem is, the idea of having anyone read the thing makes me feel like throwing up. I assess this reaction and decide it’s probably a bad sign. Anyway, as far as my options go, Crissa’s aren’t a bad set of eyes. She gets good marks in oration, and even if we’re not best friends, I do trust her. I push the paper across the table, defying my roiling stomach.

When she finishes, she has to clear her throat before speaking, and I realize that her eyes are a little bright.

“It’s really good, Annie.”

I unfold my arms, which I realize have twisted together as I watched her read. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Have you practiced it, at all? Saying it?”

I shake my head. Crissa looks down at the speech and then back at me, her forehead wrinkling.

“You probably should. It’s going to be important that you stay composed. Nobody likes watching girls cry—it makes them too uncomfortable. And saying this aloud would probably make me cry.”

That’s been my worry, too.

“Maybe I shouldn’t do it.”

Crissa shakes her head. “No. You absolutely should do it. But you should practice the hell out of it first. In front of someone.”

“Did you . . . practice? When you first started doing morale visits?”

She’s been doing visits as frequently as any of the higher-ranked boys, and far from surprising me, it fits the pattern I’ve observed from afar for years: Crissa’s charm and confidence give her a success within the system that slips past most unnoticed, but that I’ve always regarded as a kind of miracle.

Crissa nods. “Of course I practiced.”

She seems to sense my surprise and adds, with a roll of her eyes and a flick of hair from her shoulder: “I mean, I’m no cult leader, I’m not Lee. But when I put in the work, I like to think I get the job done.”

I let out a startled laugh. After brooding for so many days on what I saw at Cheapside, it’s strange to hear Lee’s charisma joked about so unceremoniously. For the first time since I stood next to him during his morale visit, I feel the knot in my chest loosen a fraction.

Crissa does this. People who aren’t Lee do this.

She gets to her feet.

“Come on,” she says, tugging my arm.

“What?”

“I’m going to coach you.”

***

Over the next three days I move from training to class to patrols to rounds in a haze of anticipation: sometimes excitement; sometimes foreboding. I push away the unimaginable thought of Aela at Holbin and focus on the speech, which I go over and over with Crissa until I know it cold. I think of the Mackys, how they embraced me and brought me highland flowers the day of the Fourth Order tournament and their letter to me before my match with Power. I tell myself that the pit of doubt and shame left in the wake of Power’s insinuations will soon have its answer. Whatever uncertainty I’ve had about ascending to Firstrider in place of Lee—surely it will be cured by the sight of home, the faces of those for whom it would mean so much if I succeeded. Surely Holbin will give me the strength to prove Power wrong. For the first time in years, I allow myself to remember everything I miss about it. The jagged rocks protruding from impossibly green fields, the wind off the North Sea rippling the grass like waves.

I choose Duck as my visiting partner; the ministry’s reply suggests a preference, in not so subtle terms, that I take Lee instead, and I ignore it.

No. Absolutely not. I know enough to know that Leo has no place in Holbin.

“Don’t be nervous,” Duck tells me, in the armory, the morning of. “You’ll do great.”

“Duck, it’s . . . not going to be as easy as it was for your and Cor’s neighborhood.”

“I know.”

It’s a half-hour flight to Holbin, and on the way, as we ride in silence, I can feel all the nerves I’ve been suppressing for the last few days take over. When we land, Duck says simply, “It’s beautiful.”

Holbin Hill is in the lower ranges of the western highlands, on the base of the mountains. As I dismount, I inhale air that’s cleaner than anything I’ve breathed in months. The light this high on the mountain is tinged with silver, and the wind smells of cold rocks and heather. We’re on a stony clearing a little south of the village, awaited by the Macky family, whom I haven’t seen since the first tournament; and Miranda Hane herself, who made the journey on horseback, alongside a small contingent of ministry officials.

“I decided I would see to this visit personally,” Hane tells me, smiling.

I feel a flutter of a different kind of nerves at the sight of her. How much is her presence meant to be a support, and how much is it a test?

“Annie, you remember Don Macky?” Hane goes on, still smiling at me. “He’s the village leader who helped organize this visit. He said his family came to see you at your first tournament?”

I nod, and Macky smiles. “Hello again, Annie.”

His eyes flick past me toward Aela and Certa, their folded wings rippling in the wind, then return to my face with determination.

“There they are,” says Macky’s son.

A trail of people are trickling down the path from the collection of buildings that make up the village. Their buildings look new and well-made: Atreus took special care in the years after the Revolution to fund reconstruction of villages destroyed by dragonfire. Flocks of sheep, visible as ambling spots of white on the surrounding hillside, have multiplied since I was last here, evidence of Atreus’s incentives to grow textile exports and wean Callipolis off reliance on subsistence farming.

My heart’s begun to race, my palms to sweat. Eventually, they’re all standing level with us, but they keep to the far side of the clearing, farther back than even Macky.

“Please, come closer,” Hane says.

People glance at each other like they’re trying to decide if this is an order, and what might happen if they don’t comply. Some take a few steps closer. I recognize almost everyone, though I’ve forgotten a lot of names. I search the villagers’ expressions for any sign of welcome, and though there are a few smiles, most have their eyes on the dragons and look wary.

Hane steps forward, introduces us, and then invites me to begin.

My stomach, which has been lurching, goes still at her cue. I remember how easily Lee stepped into this moment, as naturally as a dragon kicking off the ground. But there’s no point comparing it with that. Stand straight, Crissa told me on the arena ramparts where we stood ten meters apart to practice, hold your head up, remember that you fly a dragon and try to look like it.

I begin. I describe the first attack on Holbin, then the second. I can tell it’s surprising them that I’m talking about it at all, and whispering breaks out, but I’m in no place to stop or second-guess myself, so I keep going. Describing the attacks is the hardest part, but my voice is steady and clear, just like it was on the ramparts with Crissa. Then I describe the Revolution, how Holbin took part in the overthrow of the old regime. I describe the changes that Atreus has made, in and out of the city. I describe the education I’m receiving, thanks to a merit-based test. I describe a government where dragons abide by laws rather than create them.

I tell them that the Pythians have declared their intentions to retake Callipolis. I tell them that I’ve seen the Pythians and their dragons myself. I tell them that the Revolution was not the end of it after all; that it seems it was only the beginning of a whole new war. A war we must, at all costs, win.

“As a Guardian and dragonrider, I’ve sworn to defend this island. As a finalist for Firstrider, I’m contending for more than that. I am contending to lead the Callipolan aerial fleet.”

Though I’ve said it over and over in rehearsal, it is only now, in front of the villagers of Holbin, that the shiver goes down my spine at the words. The realization, all over again, of the sheer miracle of it. Me. A serf, a Holbiner. Contending for Firstrider.

“I am also a farmer’s daughter, a villager of Holbin Hill, an orphan. I know how it feels to be hungry. I’ve seen dragonfire take everything I cared about away. I am one of you. So are every single one of my fellow dragonriders. We’re here to protect you, as the old dragonriders did not. Even if you can’t believe the words, please remember the facts: My family died at the hands of the old regime. And I would sooner die than see its crimes repeated.”

I’m finished. There’s just silence.

I look over at Hane and she gives me a small nod. As far as she’s concerned, I did it right. She steps forward and begins to introduce the next stage of the visit. I permit myself to close my eyes, reach out, and place a hand on Aela’s neck, taking in a calming breath.

“If you’d like to come forward, Antigone—Annie—and Dorian will receive you. I’m sure you must be glad to see Annie again after so many years and want to wish her good luck in the final tournament.”

I look up from Aela.

No one has moved.

Macky and Hane look at each other. Macky says, “Now then, don’t be shy. Boris, you and Helga want to start us off?” And quietly to me, he adds: “Annie, take a few steps forward from that dragon of yours, there’s a good girl . . .”

A trickling line of villagers begins to form, moving toward us with unmistakable reluctance across the rocky clearing. When Boris and Helga, with their three children, arrive within speaking distance, I see Boris’s knees soften at the same time Hane does.

“Please remain standing,” Hane says sharply.

I feel the back of my neck ignite with heat, flowing into my face.

“Thank you for coming,” I say.

It occurs to me, for the first time, how I must sound to them: the highland accent gone, the clipped vowels and flat tones of Palace-standard speech. Austere and sterile, like a ministry official.

Boris and Helga look at each other. Their children are gathered at their heels, the youngest peering at our dragons from between his mother’s legs. They incline their heads, without a word, and turn away.

It goes on like this, the silence and the stiffness, until I’m greeted by a woman whom I remember was widowed in the second Holbin attack. Now, ten years older, her face lined with care, her graying hair bound with a faded black scarf, she approaches me, glares, and says:

“Your father would be ashamed of you, girl.”

And then she spits. She is taller than me; the wind and gravity carry it easily across the short distance between us, onto my face.

For a moment the shock of it leaves me frozen. And then, behind me, Aela lets out a low whine. I clench my fists to prevent a spillover, willing my head clear, willing Aela to calm. But then I hear other noises: growling, hissing, another dragon’s wings snapping open. Duck has spilled over; Certa feels his outrage. Hane steps forward on one side of me, Macky on the other, their eyes wide and panicked. And all the while the widow still stands before me, glaring and defiant, like she’s daring me to prove her right.

I look behind me. Duck’s pupils are dilated; one of his hands has reached up to seize Certa’s reins, the other is a balled fist at his side. I tell him, “If you cannot control Certa, please remove her.”

And then I turn back to the widow, wipe my face, and force the words out.

“Summer’s blessings on your house.”

The next villager spits, too.

LEE

On the day of my second meeting with Julia it’s difficult to focus on anything but what I’ll say when we see each other. Her letter, its vision, has a way of twisting and reshaping whenever I try to grasp at what is wrong with it. But when I’m summoned from class and sent to Atreus’s office, all thought of Julia slides from my mind. I remember, with foreboding, that Annie’s visit to Holbin was scheduled for today as well.

Inside Atreus’s office, Annie is perched on one of the dark-stained chairs facing Atreus, making a report in a quiet voice. Duck sits beside her, head in his hands. Miranda Hane is standing to the side, her arms folded, her expression stony, but it softens when she sees me.

“Lee, please, come in,” she says, beckoning.

I have the impression she intends my presence and name to offer some comfort to Annie. She looks surprised when Annie cringes instead. She doesn’t turn her head, doesn’t look at me. I realize, as I come closer, that tears are coursing silently and steadily down her cheeks while she speaks. A handkerchief is clutched in one hand, forgotten.

And then I hear what she’s describing.

“And you used only words of courtesy and kept Aela calm to the end?” Atreus asks quietly, when she seems to have nothing left to say.

Annie nods. This high in the Inner Palace, sunlight is still able to pour long swaths across the room from the windows looking out of the Firemouth, and it glows on the red-brown hair of her downturned head and trembling shoulders. Atreus and Hane exchange a look that Annie doesn’t notice. After years of straining for the rare demonstrations of Atreus’s approval, I see the signs of it now, though only the faintest lifted eyebrow betrays it.

But Annie does not seem be in a state to appreciate the approval of anyone.

“Was it the speech?” she asks in a whisper, clutching her knees with whitening fingers.

Hane’s eyes are full. “Oh, Annie, no,” she says. “You delivered your speech beautifully. It was my mistake for thinking it would be enough. There are just some wounds that run too deep for words to heal.”

Atreus adds, heavily: “And the anger of the people can be often cruel and ill-placed. Today you paid the price for wrongs you didn’t commit.”

Wrongs you didn’t commit.

Atreus can’t know how those words implicate me, though it’s clear that Annie does. Her shuddering shoulders shift on his last words, her back twisting, as if to turn herself from me completely. Though no one else notices, I perceive the movement as if she had shouted get out.

I begin to back toward the door.

“You behaved in every way befitting a Guardian, Antigone,” says Atreus. “Thank you.”

Annie’s shaking shoulders go up to her ears.

“Is there anything else you require, Protector?”

“No. You and Dorian may go. And, Antigone? Please take any time you need before returning to class. Your superiors will be notified.”

Annie and Duck rise. Annie passes me in the doorway as if she can’t see me at all.

When they’re gone, Atreus shifts his gaze to me.

“So. You’ve heard the problem. If you were the administrator, what would you do?”

I realize, at last, why I’m here: to play pretend. Atreus has done this with me before. Though this time, it’s with a village whose particular history I have pondered for the last eight years.

“I would call off further morale visits to the highlands,” I tell him, “and leave Holbin alone.”

“Good,” says Atreus, nodding slowly, as if we’re in class. “Why?”

“Because the coming war will teach them what we can’t.”

***

Pallor and I arrive at Wayfarer’s Arch early. We wait for Julia among the moonlit crags in the stone clearing of the ancient dragon perch, mounted atop an arch of karst that rises so far above the moonlit North Sea that the waves look, from this height, like still water. Pallor throws himself onto the stones at the ledge like a cat curling into its bed and lowers his head onto his crossed forelegs to wait. I sit beside him, looking out over the dark, karst-studded sea, scratching under the joint of his membranous silver wing, where it often itches. He ruffles his wings and shifts his weight closer, uttering a snort of contentment.

“You like it up here, don’t you?” I murmur.

I like it up here, too. It’s easier, looking out over a view like this, to revisit the welcome Annie received in Holbin. The sight of her stricken, tearstained face, and the exhaustion that set in afterward. I’ve watched Callipolis transform year by year into a better place than the one the old regime left—and still, the old wounds are so easily reopened. The wounds the dragonborn left behind.

The wounds my father left behind.

How does the thought still have the power to make me light-headed, this many years later?

Pallor nuzzles the back of my head, which I’ve lowered into my knees, and I reach out to notch my fingers between his horns and hold. Like I’m on the deck of a swaying ship and he’s the rail.

I lift my head at the whisper of wings overhead. A passing shadow across the stars makes Pallor and me lurch to our feet. His wings cock half opened, tensing as another dragon circles in descent.

Julia’s stormscourge is midsize for an adolescent, unusually slender, her wingspan exceptionally long. It’s impossible to make out, in the night, how she handles, though I find myself irrepressibly curious. When they land on the opposite side of the perch, Julia slides off her back with fluid comfort and the stormscourge eyes Pallor curiously, her horned tail lifting. Pallor paws the ground, shifting weight from side to side, as if to compensate for the fact that she is almost half again his size.

“Easy,” Julia and I both say at once, though Julia says it in Dragontongue. “Erinys, meet—”

“Pallor.”

“Pallor,” Julia repeats, testing it.

We watch Pallor and Erinys approach each other like skeptical but curious dogs, sniffing and sidestepping.

Julia muses, her mouth twisting: “Pallor, the aurelian who Chose a Stormscourge.”

I wonder what she makes of that. The virtues of the old houses and their dragons are shorthands we’ve grown up knowing: Skyfish House, known for their moderation and mercy; Stormscourge, for their discipline and strength; Aurelian, for their judiciousness and learning. She must look at Pallor and wonder what was lacking in me, and what found, that I was passed by the stormscourge and Chosen by an aurelian when I was presented to dragons.

When Pallor and Erinys have circled each other and parted again to stare from a distance in what seems to be a mutually agreed upon ceasefire, Julia turns to me.

“Hello again, cousin,” she says in Dragontongue.

As she approaches me on this moonlit night, it’s easy to see what a tavern booth concealed. The seabirds’ detritus of broken shells crunches and cracks beneath her boots at each step, her cloak streaming behind her on the salt-spray wind. Julia walks with the unmistakable air of a Stormscourge: confident, poised, with a lingering note of danger that persists even when weapons are laid down. A brooch of highland heather, the symbol of Stormscourge House, clasps her cloak at the breast.

Everything about her that should be intimidating makes me feel at home.

“Did you like my letter?” she asks, when we stand feet apart.

Our fathers may be dead, but their blood runs in our veins. We were born to this.

“Yes. It was beautiful. Like something out of the old poetry.”

Julia smiles thinly at my choice of words.

“You didn’t find it compelling?”

I look at our two dragons, eyeing each other at a distance as their wings, ever so slowly, ease back into resting position. I think of the fantasies that have danced across my vision since I read her letter, of Julia and I, side by side, on dragonback, taking back what is ours. The kind of narratives we explored in play as children, but now, we should be old enough to know better. For us, dragons may have meant glory; but for most everyone else, they were what Annie experienced today. Something to be feared, hated, and at the soonest opportunity, spat upon.

“I find reality compelling.”

Julia scoffs. “Fine. Let’s discuss reality. Our fleet will attack soon. We intend to make this a war, and we intend to win it. We will not be sparing.”

The girl from the Drowned Dragon, familiar and full of sad understanding, has vanished. The new Julia is fierce, her businesslike tone enough to make my blood chill.

I hear my own voice take on coldness and issue the conclusion that is really a question.

“Your fleet hasn’t sparked yet. This is an idle threat.”

For a second we just stare at each other, and then she tosses her head back, lets out a laugh of abandon, and breathes a word.

It takes me a moment to understand that it’s a command, and it’s for Erinys.

Erinys lifts her head like a wolf to the moon and fires.

For a brief, blinding moment, sparked dragonfire warms the night like a beacon.

Pallor rears, reverses, and for an instant I feel his intimidation twist in time with my own sinking heart. Erinys lowers her head and watches his retreat, cool and confident, her tail flicking idly back and forth across the stones. At a distance of ten meters Pallor bares his teeth and growls. The acrid smell of dragonfire lingers sharp on the air.

“It’s all right, Pallor.” I turn to Julia. “How long?”

Julia shrugs. “A week or so?”

“Congratulations.”

She is smirking, an eyebrow lifted. “Thank you, cousin.”

“Just Erinys?”

Erinys is likely to have been the first; sparking tends to spread hierarchically among fleets, from higher-ranked dragons to lower ones.

Julia only smiles at that question, as if to say: Do you really think I’m going to answer that?

“Are we really such an idle threat, cousin?” she asks. “Even if it were just Erinys. One sparked dragon is enough to level a town. What do you have right now? Pikes and shields?”

Her words wash over my rising incredulity. Level a town? Does she hear herself?

“Julia, this is madness.” The coldness has been stripped from my voice as the desperation hits. “Thousands of innocent people will die. You quote the old poetry? You must see that these are the kinds of mistakes that brought down the Aurelians, that finished the dragonlords—”

“You can stop it.”

This stops me short.

“If you turn, and help us bring this usurping regime down from the inside, none of those deaths need to happen. If you keep rising—to Firstrider, maybe to Protector—you can hand it over like a plucked fruit.”

I take a step back from her, and shells crunch beneath my boot. To turn was a request I’d expected—but to betray from the inside is a step baser than I’d even considered.

“You balk,” she observes. “Why?”

As if of my own accord, my arms open, my palms spread. She studies me with cool gray eyes.

“They’ve raised you,” she surmises.

“More than that.”

“You believe in their vision,” she realizes. Her voice is cold with disgust. “You believe they’re better. Even after everything they’ve done. You’d be loyal to the man who betrayed us.”

I lift my shoulders, lower them. “I think there’s more to this than questions of vengeance and birthright.”

A strange, bitter smile twists Julia’s face. The moonlight glints silver on her dark hair, on her cloaked shoulders.

“I was warned that you might feel this way. What exactly about Atreus’s vision do you find so appealing? His generous but ill-implemented meritocratic process, his efforts to rewrite the past with his censors? Do you think it’s noble that he lets peasants vie for Firstrider? She rides well, I grant, our little highland serf.”

Julia’s disdain drips on her words like acid, and I recoil from it. Our rings in my ears, the casual possessive of Stormscourges discussing land holdings.

“The other finalist is not our anything.”

Julia’s voice lashes her response. “And you are not naïve. Wake up. You think his regime is better because it calls serfs by another name and teaches them to read? Maybe it is. For now. In a time of plenty, without pressure or strain. But watch and see how that vision splinters when we exert pressure. Then we can revisit whether you think it’s noble. Whether you have the stomach for more.”

Exert pressure. The possibilities for interpretation there are open, but the purport is clear. Pressure will come in the form of violence.

For a moment there’s no sound but the gulls crying sleepily from the edges of the karst.

“When?” I ask.

Julia tilts her head back, rakes her hair back from her face, and smirks at me. “Don’t look so worried, cousin. The first time will be just a taste.”

Her tone is playful. A mockery of the tone she used to adopt in the garden, when she was teasing. What does a taste mean, for someone who speaks so casually of leveling a town? I look out over the edge of the karst, at the flattened sea blurring a reflection of the stars, and reach for words out of a sudden feeling of emptiness. With nothing but the ocean to bound it, the dome of the dark night feels infinite.

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It seems I’m not the only one who’s troubled by the distance. Julia speaks first, her voice softening to a murmur as she changes the subject.

“Do you want Firstrider so much you can taste it?”

The moonlit karst comes back into focus, and with it the silver outline of my cousin with her streaming hair and riding cloak, her feet planted on the rock beneath them like she owns it, as she waits for my answer.

Do I want to breathe? Do I want to eat? This has been a dream in the fabric of my longing for as long as I can remember. Less a desire than a need. I’ve lost everything else from the old life, but this I can keep. This, I’m still allowed to want.

“Yes. Of course.”

Julia nods, relieved by the strip of common ground that we still share.

“That’s how it was for me, too. That’s how I won. Good luck in the final tournament, Leo. I pray to the long-dead gods that it brings sense to you.”

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