Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

I’d already lost one child keeping our borders safe, and I wasn’t willing to lose another. Why did you think I forced you into the Riders Quadrant?” “Because you think less of the scribes,” I answer. “Bullshit. The love of my life was a scribe.” Steadily, we climb, twisting along the staircase. “I put you into the Riders Quadrant so you’d have a shot at surviving, and then I called in the favor Riorson owed me for putting the marked ones into the quadrant.” I stop as the door at the Archives level comes into view. “You did what?” She didn’t just say what I think she did. She tilts her head to look me in the eye. “It was a simple transaction. He wanted the marked ones to have a chance. I gave him the quadrant—as long as he took responsibility for them—in return for a favor to be named at a later date. You were that favor. If you survived Parapet on your own, all he had to do was see that no one killed you outside of challenges or your own naivete your first year, which he did. Quite a miracle, considering what Colonel Aetos put you through during War Games.”