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A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.
This is what six months of intense physical training has given me—the ability to barely climb six flights of stairs with a thirty-pound pack. I’m so fucked.
I’ve had exactly six months.
kingdom of Poromiel and their gryphon riders.
“Damn it, Mom, she can’t even handle her rucksack,” Mira snaps, rushing to my side.
“She’s spent her whole life training to become a scribe. She wasn’t raised to be a rider.”
prohibited power of mind reading
She’s a rider through and through.
Too frail.
my traitorous body makes me embarrassingly vulnerable.
“It’s like that fever stole all your coloring along with your strength.”
I will not watch one of my children enter the Scribe Quadrant,
doubt he wants much these days.”
Mom has always respected her for it.
She’s already broken her arm this year, she sprains some joint every other week,
“Mira, Violet deals with more pain before lunch than you do in an entire week. If any of my children is capable of surviving the Riders Quadrant, it’s her.”
Are you that eager to bury another child?”
storm-wielding signet power
No one has dared to mention Brennan or his dragon in the five years since they died fighting the Tyrrish rebellion in the south.
Mom tolerates me and respects Mira, but she loved Brennan.
What I lack in strength, I make up for in speed.
Dad can’t save you. He tried.
Are you going to die a scribe? Or live as a rider?”
I look like a rider. I still feel like a scribe.
“I happen to know a rider whose powers can make big things very small.” A devious smile plays across her lips. “And smaller things…much, much bigger.”
fades out to silver
“A separatist’s kid?
General Melgren’s dragon did it to all of them when he executed their parents,
“Stay the hell away from Xaden Riorson.”
The air rushes from my lungs. That name… “That Xaden Riorson,” she confirms, fear lacing her gaze. “He’s a third-year, and he will kill you the second he finds out who you are.” “His father was the Great Betrayer. He led the rebellion,” I say quietly. “What is Xaden doing here?” “All the children of the leaders were conscripted as punishment for their parents’ crimes,”
don’t think that will stop him where you’re concerned.
I’ve heard that riders are allowed to marry sooner than the other quadrants,”
Blue dragons descend from the extraordinary Gormfaileas line. Known for their formidable size, they are the most ruthless, especially in the case of the rare Blue Daggertail, whose knifelike spikes at the tip of their tail can disembowel an enemy with one flick.
“I’m Dain Aetos, and I’m the leader for Second Squad, Flame Section, Second Wing.”
can throw in a few oh, Dain cries once we’re in your room just for believability,” I offer, and actually mean it.
I have to fix it so my kneecap stays where it’s supposed to. It’s not just my muscles that are weak. My ligaments that hold my joints together don’t work for shit, either.
“You’ve seen me in swimwear, tunics, and even ballgowns. Are you telling me it’s the leather that does it for you?”
You’ll break the first time they put you in the sparring ring, and that’s before the dragons sense that you’re…”
Xaden watches me with a cold, calculating look that feels like he’s plotting my death from where he stands as the wingleader for Fourth Wing.
There are three dragons in various shades of red, two shades of green—like Teine, Mira’s dragon—one brown like Mom’s, one orange, and the enormous navy one ahead of me.
But I will not run. I wouldn’t be standing here if I’d quit every time something seemed impossible to overcome.
Xaden points toward the navy dragon and leans forward slightly, like he’s letting us in on a secret as we lock eyes. “To them, you’re just the prey.”
“I can read a person’s recent memories,” Dain admits quietly. “Not like an inntinnsic reads minds or anything—I have to put my hands on the person, so I’m not a security risk.
Knowing I am in direct disagreement with General Melgren’s orders, I am officially objecting to the plan set forth in today’s briefing. It is not this general’s opinion that the children of the rebellion’s leaders should be forced to witness their parents’ executions. No child should watch their parent put to death. —The Tyrrish Rebellion, an official brief for King Tauri by General Lilith Sorrengail
Those greedy assholes are never content with the resources they have. They always want ours, too, and until they learn to be content with our trade agreements, we have no chance of ending conscription in Navarre. No chance of experiencing peace.
“Then they were already on their way,”
“They were looking for something,”
Which begs the question, what do we have that they want so badly?”
Something in her tone tells me it’s not just third-years who might be called into service this year, and a chill settles in my bones.
She’s chosen a leather vest, too, but hers cuts in above the collarbone and secures at her neck, leaving her shoulders bare for movement.
