Flamefall (The Aurelian Cycle, #2)

by Rosaria Munda

“The rider,” I tell her. “The one who brought the body, from Callipolis. You’d never believe it, Agga. She was Firstrider, like Julia. But she was a peasant, like us.” Agga gives a watery laugh of awed delight. “She told you?” “She looked Ixion in the eye and told him.”

Dreams are deadliest for the dreamers.

In the old days, the five clans chose a king ourselves, and Clan Thornrose was no greater than the other four. The ha’Aurelians offered them favored status, positions on the citadel staff and in their guard, to turn them traitors against the rest of us. Leary’s face, dyed blue with woad in the sign of his clan-karst, is a ceremonial mockery of kingship that I don’t let my eyes linger on.

It’s supposed to find what you’re good at. What you’re meant for. As reflected in the four test results: Gold, for philosophical, of highest value to the operations of the state; Silver, for spirited, the military class; Bronze, for skilled labor, and Iron, for unskilled. And, in a few very exceptional cases: spirited and philosophical together, the Guardian class. Wristbands of silver entwined with gold, which, tested blindly, even a serf’s daughter like me could rise to become.

There is something violent, almost ugly, in the satisfying of a craving you’ve buried so deep in yourself you forgot it was there.

I slide off Pallor’s back, help Annie down, and make arrangements with the porter with a barely suppressed sense of satisfaction because this—the carriages rolling in at dusk, the glittering gowns beneath mantles, the laughter from steaming breath—is a world I remember watching from child-height, but tonight with a dragon at my side and Annie on my arm, I understand at last the brilliance of my father’s smile when the night was young.

A leader should judge with an unbiased eye. Lee’s strengths don’t have to threaten me anymore. They’re an asset. The realization leaves me with a rush of exhilaration like I’m on dragonback leaving the ground.

Once, years ago, we walked hand in hand through a door. Into a Choosing Ceremony that I did not think I wanted, into a room where Aela found me, and Pallor found Lee, and our new lives began. Tonight, we walk hand in hand through a doorway again.

I note the ways he has padded this moment—in front of my family, but in a language they won’t understand—so that I feel compelled to confess needs that pride would otherwise keep silent.

Atreus’s life isn’t what he values. He values power, popularity, and control.

And I don’t deny that it was easy.

“The point isn’t how it feels. The point is that it had to happen or worse things would.”

She’s agile, precise, vicious. And she doesn’t have a damned muzzle on her dragon’s jaw. She will end him.

I’ve never in my life felt such a clench of love for a stranger as I feel in this moment for this miracle of a girl.

The skyfish feels it. She lets out a shriek that sends pain straight to my bones even as the hair on my neck goes on end. At the sound of the skyfish’s widow-cry, Antigone’s pleas fall silent.

The only atonement I can offer for my crimes, the only thanks I can give for her mercy. Let me answer her honor with honor, where they think we have none. The true gift of freedom is to act with this civility.

We are all of us Revolutionaries. I suddenly feel that the words of Atreus Athanatos are more powerful than he is. Dragonfire that can’t be contained. Because he is right, in more ways than he knows. I still believe those vows, even if I don’t believe in the man.

“The reason I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this is that Griff’s not just passing me information. I’m helping him plan something there, too.” She seems stiff saying it, as if telling me makes her nervous. Even though, as far as I can tell, it would be the obvious strategy. “An uprising?” Annie nods. She closes her eyes and presses her thumb between them. “We were thinking of using drachthanasia.” Suddenly I understand her reticence. Annie’s planning another Widowing. The kind of uprising where you render your rulers helpless and then massacre them. The obvious strategy.

“Do you want to know what it felt like, to watch?” Megara’s eyes are so round as she stares at me, the whites are visible. I reach behind my head and grip my own hair. “I was held, like this. The first thing you hear is screaming, but it goes quiet as they begin to suffocate—” Megara’s launch from her seat is so sudden the chair rocks backward. The guard takes two strides and catches her across the chest as she throws herself across the table at me. “You’re an animal. You’re a foul, horrible, heartless bitch—” “Yes. I am.”

“Because it’s a power grab,” Lo Teiran says, nodding at Tyndale. “She’ll be next in line for succession if we’re attempting to force Athanatos’s resignation.” “She didn’t stay at the Palace as a power grab,” I scoff. The idea is so ludicrous I don’t know how to begin explaining. Even if I didn’t fully understand why she stayed with Atreus, I know as I breathe that it wasn’t for any reason as crude as ambition.

I don’t need Power’s encouragement to be strong. I don’t need anyone’s encouragement to be strong. Strength isn’t the problem. It’s what you do with it.

Some things you don’t have to see the proof of. Some things you just know.