“So good to have you home for a night, darling. We’ve been worried about you these past few weeks.”
Duck’s Damian is rusty, mumbled. “It’s good to be home, Mum.”
Before she turns away, as easily as if she’s always done it, Mrs. Sutter kisses me on the forehead, too.
There’s silence after she leaves us, except for the crackling fire: Merina’s weight against me on one side, her breathing soft as she sleeps; Duck’s body wrapped around me beneath the quilt; the children’s book open and heavy on my lap; the feeling of a mother’s kiss tingling on my forehead.
Duck speaks first.
“It’s funny,” he murmurs, “when you remember the vows mean we can’t ever have any of this.”
The Guardian vows forswearing marriage and family.
I replay the sentence, and my mind fixes on the ambiguity of a single pronoun: When Duck says we, does he mean the Guardians in general? Or just—?
I’ve looked up at him; our faces are inches apart. His hazel eyes widen as if he, too, realized the ambiguity of what he just said.
And then, suddenly, I feel panicked.
“I meant—”
“The Guardians in general—?”
“Yeah—”
Another feeling, wrong: relief. As if he can read it, Duck untwines his fingers from mine beneath the blanket. I nearly release my breath.
“I’m glad you came, Annie,” he says abruptly.
“I’m glad I came, too.”
And that’s true. I’ve loved every bit of this visit, every unchecked burst of laughter and moment of unfiltered happiness—
Then why this panic?
“Do you think you’ll stay tomorrow, or—”
I hesitate, and though I should be thinking only of Duck in this moment, of the faint lines that have appeared between his eyebrows as he studies me, I realize that I’m thinking about Lee instead.
Lee, who told me, on the arena ramparts, that he would stay, against every reason he had to leave; and whom I’ve now gone and left.
I say, “I’ll probably head back to the Cloister tomorrow morning. I just—”
I have no words to explain the rest of it. But Duck seems to understand from how I swallow.
“I’m glad we could have you for this long, at least,” he says simply.
LEE
I wake in the Cloister dorm disoriented. Slowly, the surroundings resolve themselves: the same long row of beds as always, but the sunlight slanting in at the unfamiliar angle of late morning. It takes me a moment to distinguish the feeling of splintering joy and sorrow and loss that’s mingled with the physical sensation of a headache. Fragmented memories of the conversation with Julia, of the parting that seemed too soon even though it happened hours later, of a dazed walk through the silent predawn city back to the Palace return to me slowly.
“Morning.”
I raise my head, focusing slowly on the small figure perched on the bed next to mine.
“Annie?”
It is the first time she’s sought my company since the Pythian fleet was sighted.
She holds out a muffin.
“From Duck’s mum.”
I sit up and wince, raising my hand to rub my forehead.
“I should be on patrol,” I realize.
“Don’t worry about it. Cor came back early, too; he’s out with Crissa. They decided to let you sleep it off.”
Sleep off having met with one of the riders whom Cor and Crissa are now patrolling our skies to guard against. I feel the weight of guilt, the greater for its delay, settling over me. Except, fresh off of a night spent in the company of Julia, it’s hard to know what I feel most guilty about: that I just had drinks with a cousin who wants to kill my friends; or that my friends want to kill my cousins.
This is why you shouldn’t have met with her.
When I look up at Annie, I see guilt in her expression, too.
“You’re hungover,” she says.
“I went to a Midsummer dinner at the War College. With Crissa.”
“Oh.” Relief, mingled with something else, battles across Annie’s face. “Good,” she says. “I’m glad you did.”
I take the muffin from her and take a bite. It is the most satisfying thing I’ve ever tasted.
“How was Midsummer with the Sutters?”
It sounds like a bad poem. Annie fiddles with auburn wisps of her hair, averting her face slightly. “It was nice.”
“You’re back early,” I observe.
She hesitates. It feels like she’s teetering on the edge of saying something that will embarrass us both. I can’t decide if I want her to. But then, instead, she just says: “We need to train. The tournament’s in a week.” She curls fists in her lap as she adds: “I want to make finalist. And I—really want to beat Power.”
I look at her in surprise. Both at the desires she’s admitting, and what she’s proposing.
“You came back so we could spar?”
Annie, looking just a little bashful, nods. Her braid is freshly done, ready to tuck under a helmet.
The mere thought of taking Pallor out on a morning like this is enough to start clearing my head; and then the thought of sparring with Annie, of feeling the blood-singing clarity of reflex and instinct that it takes to match her, of slipping into the all-minded focus that relieves the need for conscious thought—suddenly that’s the only thing I want.
However complicated Julia has left my thoughts about the Pythians, my thoughts about the tournament are simple. I want to make finalist, too.
“Great. Let’s suit up.”
Last night and the confusion of emotions left over from it are already passing like the memory of a dream.
6
SEMIFINALS
ANNIE
I wait with growing dread for another message from the ministry in the week leading up to the second tournament, but nothing comes. I do get a letter from Holbin: Macky’s son writes, Dear Annie, we hope you beet them were sorry we wont be their this time but were all rooting for you in Holbin, and I pin this letter on my wall, too, next to the dried laurel from the first tournament.
In the preceding week, the Fourth Order riders are exempted from coastal patrols in order to train; the other three are also allowed to delay their morale visits. Since I haven’t been assigned any, I have nothing to reschedule. I tell myself it doesn’t matter; that morale visits are crass, cheap experiments in rhetorical manipulation; but I still know that being excluded from them means I have, yet again, been written off by the Callipolan ministry.
Let them write me off. I’ll train.
I spend every free minute drilling with Lee or with Cor and Rock, whose stormscourges make them good preparation for Power. I’ve never felt a desire for victory quite like this. All Power’s jokes about highlanders and peasants, all the entitlement he brags about among his patrician friends, all the ministry’s misgivings about me and their favor for riders like him—I finally have a chance to throw it back in their faces, in public. Because Power may be more polished leadership material on the ground, but the air is my turf.
In the lead-up to the match, many of the Janiculum riders stop talking to me, while Rock and the other riders from the countryside sit with me at nearly every meal. But not all loyalties divide along such lines. To my surprise, in Dragontongue class the day before the tournament, Hanna Lund and the other patrician students I’ve been doing homework with in the library pass me a handmade card signed by most of the girls in the class. They’ve written a quote from the Aurelian Cycle inside: And as she turned, it was revealed by her tread that she was fireborne.
“Power’s a jerk. We’ll be cheering for you, Antigone.”
The day of the tournament dawns overcast, fiercely windy, with thick gray stratus blanketing the low sky, hiding the top of Pytho’s Keep. Des
pite the gloomy weather the stands are full. Power has stationed himself on the far side of the Eyrie, surrounded by stormscourge riders, to watch Lee and Cor’s match. They glance occasionally in my direction, where I stand with the aurelian riders beside Duck, and I return their stares: I feel the coming match has turned my blood brazen.
Duck grimaces as his brother and Lee set up overhead and launch into forward attack. I wonder, but don’t ask, if he can decide whom he’s rooting for. In any case, he doesn’t have much time to consider the question. Cor has always been an erratic flyer; on good days he flies as well as Lee or better; but on bad days he can’t hold a candle to him. And stress almost always means that Cor will have a bad day. Lee lands a penalty hit early and it goes downhill from there: Cor spills over, which makes him and Maurana fly worse, and then it’s only a matter of time before Lee gets inside their guard.
“No surprises there,” Lotus mutters to Rock, when the bell is rung in Lee’s favor after about five minutes.
Lee sur Pallor, finalist for Firstrider, the announcer cries.
They land, and Cor shakes Lee’s hand sloppily amid roaring applause, then strides off the Eyrie to nurse his disappointment privately. Next to me, Duck sighs, frustrated but not exactly disappointed. As if even he can’t resist rooting for Lee, family ties to the contrary.
Goran’s voice calls: “Power, Antigone, you’re up.”
Duck’s fingers tighten on my shoulder, a silent encouragement, before releasing it. I start to make for the cave mouth before pausing: Lee is moving purposefully in our direction, his helmet under one arm, his hair plastered in sweat, his face still lit by adrenaline. Right before he reaches us, Power crosses Lee’s path. He leans in, clasps Lee’s shoulder, and I can only just hear him over the whistling wind.
“You know what the dragonborn used to say. Peasants burn best—”
Lee’s gray eyes, still blazing from his own match, focus on Power’s. Though his expression doesn’t alter, a chill emanates. Power’s grin falters and he takes a half step backward, seemingly unconsciously.
Then as I turn for the cave mouth, Lee’s hand reaches out and catches my arm.
“Let me check your armor.”
He speaks through gritted teeth. I feel myself warming beneath my helmet.
“My armor is fine.”
But he ignores my protest, and though I should try to stop him, I don’t. He begins to pat me down, yanking on each buckle of my helmet, cuirass, and limb guards, roughly and quickly, as if determined not to let his hands linger. But when he raises his face, it’s reddened.
At the sight, an answering heat awakens in my body. Blooming from every inch of me that his hands brush, spreading up my neck with warmth. He’s standing so close that I can smell him, his fresh sweat mingled with the scent of Pallor’s smoke. Although I know we’re being watched by thousands, all I really notice is that Duck and Crissa are looking over, and I wish they weren’t.
Finally, he nods and steps back. His face, usually so pale against the dark hair, glows red even at a distance.
“Go,” he says.
Power is waiting for me at the cave mouth, grinning as I approach. His gaze travels down to my bare neck, still flushed enough that the summer breeze feels cool against it.
“Do you think he got everything?”
I ignore him. We blow into the whistles built into our wristbands, waiting for a sound that’s inaudible to us to call the dragon who’s been trained to respond to it. Power raises a canteen to his lips as he waits, and I do the same: Now’s the time to drink as much water as possible.
A stillness settles over me as I feel Aela approach, and one by one my senses confirm it: the sound of her wings; the brush of the cave-draft on my face; the sight of her amber scales glinting in the darkness as she emerges. The nerves that have been twisting my stomach all morning fall away, replaced by an awareness so clear, it is a kind of absence of thought. This is Aela. It’s time.
I tighten Aela’s saddle, check her reins, and she twists her head round for one last check, finding my eyes with her slitted golden ones. I scratch the ridge of her nose and she flexes her neck back. Her eagerness for the match, mingling with mine, charges a rush down my spine. Aela’s thirst for the fight has always been a high I ride with pleasure.
“Let’s do this.”
She folds her wings close as I mount. I strap my boots, one by one, into their stirrups. A few meters away, Power has done the same with Eater. We put on our helmets and, after an exchanged nod, pull our visors down.
And then, with a leap that breaks from gravity, we’re in the air, great wings beating to lift us higher. The gray blanket of clouds, the crowds, the glistening river fill my vision once again: On Aela, the world always seems hyperfocused.
Then the bell rings, Power charges, and we dive.
A week ago, when we first talked this match out, I told Lee the strategy I wanted to take and he tried to talk me down. Eater’s lungs don’t run out, he said, it would take too long, run too high a risk of injuries, and given Power’s proclivity for full-heat hits, the injuries risked would be too debilitating.
“Eater’s range is twice as long as Aela’s,” I answered. “How else should I do it?”
Lee, rather than offering alternatives, just said, “It’s suicide.”
The reply I gave was one I wouldn’t think of making to anyone but Lee.
“Not for me.”
Lee didn’t argue with that.
It’s known as the gadfly approach: teasing in and out of range long enough, provoking enough shots from your opponent, that they run out of ash. But for Eater, that will take a long time. Not to mention that Power is one of the few of us who’s mastered using spillovers to his advantage: Where anger and excitement spilling into your dragon disorients someone like Cor, they just make Power unpredictable. It’s a tactic historically favored by stormscourge riders. He and Eater ride their emotions like a roller coaster whose direction only they can predict, and Power gives him rein to fire at will.
But Aela and I can dodge almost anything.
So as the match starts, I let Power take the offensive, Aela and I playing hopscotch between Eater’s jets of ash, staying close, keeping him firing, keeping him busy. The minutes tick past, and Aela and I dodge, weave, and dodge again.
But even if you’re flying at your best, you can’t help tiring eventually, and mistakes happen. After about ten minutes we turn just a little too shallowly, and I feel a blistering heat across my left calf. I can’t contain a hiss of pain: It’s a full-heat burn, the kind we aren’t even allowed to dole out in training. The shining armor blackens, reacting to the heat, and a bell for the first penalty rings out across the stands. Aela senses my pain even if she’s impervious to the heat. She pulls out of range and waits as I unplug the coolant shaft set in the calf of my flamesuit. Cool liquid pours down my leg, soothing the burn, though it’s severe enough that the pain doesn’t fade entirely. But the coolant will hold off the worst of it for another half hour, which is all I need.
Every second I spend out of range is one gained by Eater, and I need to keep him firing if I want to deplete him, so I bring Aela round without further pause. We begin a second round. Minutes blur together into dodging and gamboling and shots fired to my left and right and back as I focus only on reaction and response—
Until the second penalty hits. I fail to dodge Power’s jackknife turn, and Eater’s ash, full heat, sears my arms. In the time-out before reset, I fumble to open the coolant shafts at my elbows with fingers stiff in their gloves, then twist the reins around my wrists, relieving my fingers of the need to clench. Even as I struggle to master the reins, I feel the adrenaline and pain loosening me, pushing me closer to Aela. The heightened connection fills me with a different kind of calm. Aela and I are on our last chance: Three penalties counts as a kill shot.
We reset for a third round.
“It’s over, Annie,” Power calls.
He’s grinning as he replaces his helmet; the emotions he’s freely spilling over are, clearly, verging on euphoria. I reenter his range. He resumes firing. As Aela and I begin, once more, to swerve and dodge, I note what Power, in his transported state, has not. Eater’s ash has begun, every few meters, to sputter.
I turn Aela and pull her to a halt. Power and I are facing each other. I’m exposed, within Power’s range. I can make out his glittering, triumphant eyes through the visor of his helmet. The arena is spread below us, and the clouds obscuring the top of Pytho’s Keep hang low and close.
Eater opens his mouth for a kill shot—and nothing comes out.
Power’s eyes widen. In the split second that it takes me to surge forward and fire, he launches upward. My shot misses everything but Eater’s trailing tail. And then Power and Eater disappear into the cloud cover.
For a moment Aela and I are stalled, looking up into the clouds where Power has vanished.
Power’s intention is as clear as if he’d announced it. Two rules of tournament sparring that both of us know: first, that contact charges are off limits between dragons of different breeds during sporting events. Second, that whatever happens out of sight of the referee is considered fair game.
If I go into those clouds, Eater will tackle Aela. He’s more than half her size.
But if I wait, his lungs will recover. And every moment that I wait, the coolant wears off a bit more, and the pain becomes just a little more consuming.
“Are we doing this?” I say to Aela.
But Aela is already rising, and I don’t have to urge her with anything more than a shared determination.
The passage up through the stratus cloud is quiet, disorienting in its seamless uniformity of gray. I can feel Aela’s heart pounding in time with my own. When we break through, I have a split second to realize that there’s an altostratus layer of clouds blanketing the sky still higher, and that we’re between layers, lost in a strange, gray-white light. The only remaining sign of land is the top of Pytho’s Keep, a few hundred meters away, rising out of the stratus like a floating fortress.
Fireborne Page 13
