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being ignored is the best possible scenario for me.
Every Navarrian officer, whether they choose to be schooled as healers, scribes, infantry, or riders, is molded within these cruel walls over three years, honed into weapons to secure our mountainous borders from the violent invasion attempts of the kingdom of Poromiel and their gryphon riders. The weak don’t survive here, especially not in the Riders Quadrant. The dragons make sure of that.
I don’t want this. I don’t want any part of this Riders Quadrant shit. It’s not like I have a death wish.
“She’s spent her whole life training to become a scribe. She wasn’t raised to be a rider.”
I don’t need the prohibited power of mind reading to know exactly what she sees.
At twenty-six years old, Mira’s a younger version of our mother. She’s tall, with strong, powerful muscles toned from years of sparring and hundreds of hours spent on the back of her dragon. Her skin practically glows with health, and her golden-brown hair is sheared short for combat in the same style as Mom’s.
But more than looks, she carries the same arrogance, the unwavering conviction that she belongs in the sky. Sh...
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“I love that library,” I counter. It’s been more than a year since his heart finally failed, and the Archives are still the only place that feels like home in this giant fortress, the only place where I still feel my father’s presence.
and I see it—the woman she was while Dad was alive. Softer. Kinder…at least for her family.
“I loved your father, but he’s dead,” Mom says, as if giving the weather report. “I doubt he wants much these days.”
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.”
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.
“Too heavy. I’m pretty quick with daggers, though.” Really damned quick. Lightning quick. What I lack in strength, I make up for in speed.
“Because that’s all you’ll be. Another tombstone. Another name scorched in stone. Ditch the books.”
Are you going to die a scribe? Or live as a rider?”
I look like a rider. I still feel like a scribe.
“You’re the smartest woman I know. Don’t forget that. Your brain is your best weapon. Outsmart them, Violet. Do you hear me?”
“You’re a Sorrengail,” she responds, as if that’s answer enough. “Fuck what they say.”
There’s only survival and death.”
“Neither was I.” A wry smile lifts a corner of her mouth. “And I’d spent my life training for it.”
Don’t become another name on the death roll.”
I’ve missed the way he looks at me, like I’m someone worth noticing. I’ve just missed…him.
Cross the parapet before the terror owns you.”
Sadness fills the older man’s eyes. “Pity. You had so much promise.”
“Don’t die, Violet. I’d hate to be an only child.”
“Or because we tend to die sooner than the other quadrants,”
“She said it would be bad luck to propose before I left, so we’re waiting until graduation.”
I keep my sigh to myself, though that might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.
And as for the death rate? I guess every other rider thinks the risk is worth the glory—or has the arrogance to think they won’t fall.
His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect,
like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth.
He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen. And living in the war college means...
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Suddenly, I can’t remember exactly why Mira told me not to fuck around outside my year group.
and my heart thunders for all the wrong reasons.
He will kill you the second he finds out who you are. Mira’s words bounce around my skull, and fear knots in my throat. He’s going to throw me over the edge.
I’ll die being exactly what my mother’s always danced around calling me—weak.
Mira isn’t going to lose both her siblings.
I will not die today. The words become my mantra, repeating in my head as Rhiannon gives her name to the rider keeping tally at the opening to the parapet.
and even the rain pelting my skin with each gust of wind doesn’t ease the heat—or the shiver of dread that jolts down my spine.
ambitious candidates who would rather chance their lives with the riders than choose the security of any other quadrant.
“I’ll wait for you on the other side,” she shouts over the storm. The fear in her eyes mirrors my own.
I’ve always loved the nights where storms beat against the fortress window, both illuminating and throwing shadows over the books I curled up with, though this downpour might just cost me my life.
It’s the last time Dylan’s name will be written anywhere but his stone.
bruh stop
Or they’ll take one look at me, realize I’m nothing like the three of them, and declare open season.
I panic, I’ll die. If I slip, I’ll die. If I… Oh, fuck it. There’s nothing more I can do to prepare for this.
“Some Sorrengail, with that kind of balance. I pity whatever wing you end up in.”
Even his voice reeks of arrogance.
There’s nowhere as calming as the archives, so that’s what I think of. Facts. Logic. History.
Your mind already knows the answer, so just calm down and let it remember. That’s what Dad always told me.
Each word calms my breathing and steadies my heart rate, lessening the dizziness.
