Fireborne

by Rosaria Munda

  There’s darkness for a time after that. I’m aware of the night continuing, of Lotus’s wandering off to visit with his mother and father, and of my sitting alone on the edge of the hall, unable to summon up the energy to leave. Annie is still dancing with Duck.

  You thought she could be happy with you? That she could ever forget?

  “There you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “What are you doing here, sitting alone in the dark?”

  Cor and Crissa have taken seats on either side of me, Cor punching me in the arm. He follows the gaze that I’m too slow to retract.

  “My brother’s a horrible dancer,” he observes.

  Crissa looks at Annie and Duck, then turns to me, and puts her hand on my knee. “We’ve been talking, Cor and I. Have you been training for the Firstrider Tournament?”

  I rouse myself. “You mean in all my free time?”

  “Ha-ha. We wanted you to know—we’ll train with you.”

  I look from one of them to the other, shadows in the candlelight but their faces turned toward mine, their bodies angled inward. Suddenly the only thing that matters is that they’re here, on either side of me.

  “You don’t have time for that—”

  “We’ll make time. We want you to win, Lee.”

  It’s surprising, after an evening of being told variations of this from old men of the Janiculum, how different it is coming from Cor and Crissa. A vote of confidence from within the corps that I hadn’t realized that I needed.

  “I’d . . . really appreciate that. Thank you.”

  The music changes; a new set has begun. The sound of highland pipes is filling the hall with a pounding rhythm; the violin has become faster, playful. It’s the kind of melody that was never played, never wanted, at the balls of the old regime. Annie, about to quit the floor, has her hand seized by Rock. I watch her protest halfheartedly, laughing, then allow Rock to lead her in a few bounds back into the center of the floor. Most of its occupants are younger, alumni among the youngest generations of the Lyceum, cheering with enthusiasm to begin a different kind of dance. Around the hall, older faces are looking on with thinly disguised disapproval. But those dancing don’t notice.

  Annie and Rock have begun mimicking each other with shouts of delight, their fingers twined together as they lean back. Annie’s hair falls free of its pins and tumbles down her back, but she hardly seems to notice. The highland rhythm is so powerful that it seems to catch you in your stomach, take hold of your legs, so that even seated all you want to do is move your feet. There’s a swapping of partners, and now Annie dances with a lanky, straw-haired ministry official who beams as he swings her outward; and then she’s back in Duck’s arms.

  Crissa takes my hand, squeezes, and I look at her. Her dress, blue as the Medean, exactly matches her eyes, and her hair glows warm and gold in the candlelight.

  “I think it’s time we took you for some fresh air,” she says.

  ANNIE

  Duck and I walk back to the Cloister in the early morning, when the sky is no longer quite so inky black. Duck hums the last song, his coat swinging over one shoulder; I hold my shoes by their heels on the hooks of my fingers, the marble of the Palace walkways cool beneath my aching feet. Duck’s voice echoes in the deserted courtyard.

  “Can you believe we live here?”

  The courtyard smells of cold stone and the cool water that burbles in the fountains. Columns along the arcade rise to vaulted overhangs above us, where tendrils of ivy hang silhouetted against the stars. Distantly, a gull cries.

  “Can you believe we ride dragons?”

  He rounds on his heel, takes a few steps backward. “Can you believe I just danced?”

  I laugh aloud.

  “And not too badly, by the end,” I grant.

  This, I realize, must be what giddiness feels like. Like escape. As though for a few short hours, as I danced until my hair fell from its pins, I left behind every bitter thought that haunts me and was free.

  Most of all the memory of Lee’s hand in mine, the rush of old comfort thrilling with new danger—and his face when I pulled away. Like I’d just pulled him apart.

  We’ve reached the Cloister garden. The rippled glass of the solarium glows orange, a fire lit within: We won’t be alone when we enter. I reach for the door handle, and Duck takes my hand, pausing it. I turn to him.

  “Oh. Not so fast.”

  He pulls me back to him, and as I realize what is about to happen, I freeze.

  And then, with dizzying speed, a hundred small incidents click into place like a narrative whose common thread I did not, until this moment, let myself see.

  Oh, dragons. How did I not know this was coming?

  “Duck, I don’t . . .”

  He stops, too.

  For a moment we continue to stand close, frozen, and I feel the threat of an end rise over us: an end of something that could have started and that I was almost certain I did not want; and worse, more terrifyingly, an end now to what we already had.

  But then Duck takes a half step back and lights a smile. And even if it’s not quite as easy as his usual smile, it’s close. Crinkling his eyes, spreading across his square face.

  “Hey. It’s—okay, Annie.”

  The lingering uncertainty as I take in the strain around his eyes: Is it?

  “Let’s go in?” I ask.

  That’s when the alarm bells begin to toll.

  LEE

  Early morning, Cor is asleep. Crissa and I are beside him on a deserted part of the Outer Wall where we had, originally, decided to climb for a view of the city. The fire that we’d lit has gone out. The stone is cold, Crissa is warm, and the wineskin that we were passing back and forth is long empty. I feel like I’m moving in and out of a dream. In the dream, her hands are in my hair, mine are around her waist, and her mouth is on mine.

  Is that what it felt like for her, dancing with Duck? I wonder. Did she feel free and forgetful with him, like this?

  Whenever I rouse from the dream and remember why it’s something I shouldn’t have, the conversations begin again.

  “Crissa, this isn’t—we shouldn’t—”

  Even in the near darkness, I can see her lips parting in a smile. Our faces are so close, I can see stars reflected in her eyes. “We shouldn’t what?”

  This time I’m the one to answer by pulling her closer, by bringing us both back under. Because though I sense, dimly, a future of guilt spreading out on the horizon, it still feels a long way off. And in the meantime, Crissa’s lips have opened mine with need.

  We break apart when the bells begin to toll. Crissa groans, lowers her face onto my shoulder, her hair still spread across us both. As I recognize the bell’s tones, the blurred world snaps back into focus.

  “How is it already morning?” she asks.

  “Those aren’t striking the hour.”

  Crissa stills. And then she places a palm on the flagstones to push her weight off mine. The chill of the morning invades the space between us. The east is pink below a sky rippling with low-hanging stratus clouds; a single beacon has lit on the northern tower of the Inner Palace; below it, the alarm bell rings. Beside us, Cor is stirring, wincing from the noise.

  Cold dread rolls over me, dousing any lingering warmth from wine.

  I knew it. I should have said something. I shouldn’t have let us take down our guard—

  Crissa and I get to our feet as one and turn our sights out, over the sleeping city. A trail of beacons mounted on dragon perches have lit through the neighborhoods, vanishing in the distance of the lowland plains, leading to the north coast. A trail of light leading to the source of alarm.

  The bells are rhythmic, tolling in the patterned code we were taught to interpret as children but have never since had reason to use.

  Dragons. Attack.r />
  9

  STARVED ROCK

  LEE

  The lull of the ball is sliding away; all at once, Julia’s words are ringing in my ears. We will strike first to spread fear. My fault, my stupid fault for doing nothing, for letting Holmes make a call that I knew left us absurdly exposed—

  But there’s no point in self-recrimination right now. No time for it. I seize Cor by the arm and pull him to his feet, half woken. Crissa presses her hand to her forehead and inhales as the fullness of our unpreparedness rolls over her.

  “We need to get into the air—and they’re not even saddled—and I’m in this dress—”

  She clutches her gown in disgust, for what good is such clothing against dragonfire?

  Cor focuses at last on the tolling bell, the burning beacons, and begins to swear, like a chant, rhythmically. I shake him till he looks at me, then seek Crissa’s eyes.

  “We’ve drilled this.”

  Crissa shakes her head, clearing it. Then she hums, like a recitation: “Get to the armory and suit up while the keepers saddle the dragons. Summon from the arena gate.”

  We don’t have far to sprint: The stretch of the Outer Wall on which we stand connects directly to the Cloister by means of a trapdoor and a ladder, which we scramble down, and then we hurtle through a single corridor to the armory entrance.

  “Where do you want us—” Cor asks while we’re running.

  The question is directed at me, even though the three of us are, as squadron leaders, equally ranked. But only after I’ve begun to answer do I remember that, or feel surprised that he’s asked me.

  “Skyfish squadron ahead, aurelian and stormscourge halfsquadrons coming in behind. We’ll leave the other halfsquadrons covering the city; we can’t leave it unprotected—follow the trail of beacons to the attack, but when you get there, limited attacks only, Crissa, hold them off until we can catch up with you—”

  We’ve reached the armory; Crissa seizes my arm before entering, pulling me to a halt. Cor pauses, too, swinging on the doorframe. Inside, the armory is full of riders shouting, scrambling to suit up; many of them are, like us, still in formalwear.

  “Lee, what’re we—?” someone calls from within.

  “We’re going to give orders in the air, just suit up and get to the gate, you’re fine—” I call, before turning back to Crissa.

  Her hair falls in half-pinned clumps from what remains of her bun, loose around her shoulders; in the dark corridor, the blue of her dress looks black against her hair. Her eyes are wide, her chest heaving.

  “And if it’s too late?” she asks.

  “What do you mean—”

  “If it’s an extraction.” She’s clutching the cinched waist of her gown, gasping to catch her breath from the sprint. Cor reaches out an arm to steady her at the elbow. “Lee, if they’ve already—”

  If they’ve already landed fire. A single dragon is still enough to level a town. What will Crissa’s skyfish find when they get there? Dragons waiting for them, or just the dragonfire they’ve left behind?

  “If they’ve already come, get in wherever the fire’s gone down and bring anyone still moving on the blazesite out.”

  We’ve drilled that, too. But all the same it seems hearing the procedure recited aloud is what Crissa needed; she calms once I’ve said it, her face hardening.

  Inside, we strip. Those coming directly from the ball are lacking their usual underlayers, but there’s no time for shame; Crissa wrenches her dress up over her shoulders as confidently as if she were in a room alone; I note in a half glance, with a kind of numb disbelief, that a trail of flushed skin spreading down her neck was my doing and that the memory already feels remote.

  The door bursts open and Annie enters, followed by Duck. Her hair is disheveled, her sleeves low and uneven on her shoulders. I have a half second to wonder whether she and Duck were occupied as Crissa and I were before she’s beside me in the aurelian row, seizing the flamesuit from her cubby next to mine, reaching awkwardly behind her shoulders for the clasp of her dress. She curses.

  “Lee—” she hisses.

  “Give me your bootknife.”

  I slice the dress open down her back; the luxurious fabric rips like paper. She shoves it off with vindictive fury and dives for her flamesuit, a flash of bare skin that I turn my back on at once. We shimmy into our flamesuits without looking at each other.

  “You want me on left or right vanguard?” she calls over her shoulder.

  I think of Crissa’s white face as she said the word extraction.

  We will strike first to spread fear.

  How many minutes have passed since the first beacon lit? How many since we saw the last? What is the likelihood, if any, that the Pythians will still be there?

  Annie may be one of the fleet’s strongest assets in battle. But for an extraction? For a blazesite? Annie, who clutched my hand so tightly at the sight of Duck injured by unsparked stormscourge fire that her nails left marks, facing in all likelihood a scene of devastation by dragonfire the likes of which she hasn’t seen since Holbin?

  No. That at least I can spare her.

  The answer comes out curt.

  “Neither. I need you and Power covering the city with your halfsquadrons. We can’t leave it undefended.”

  I realize only after I’ve said it what Annie will take from this: Defending is traditionally the role of the Alternus. She freezes, midway through tightening her cuirass. For a moment her fingers open and close on the buckles in time with her breath. And then she lifts her head and looks at me.

  Power speaks first. Unlike my and Annie’s voices, his is raised for the room to hear. He stands two yards away, separated by the benches between the aurelian row and stormscourge, paused in the act of lifting his cuirass over his head.

  “You’re already ordering Antigone to defend? Is that a joke? Firstrider Tournament’s still two weeks away, Lee.”

  Power is glaring at me, disgusted. The disgust isn’t new; having it turned on me on behalf of Annie is.

  He’s picked hell of a time for it.

  At his challenge, riders around us fall silent and exchange glances. Annie’s brown eyes are still fixed on me, her lips parted. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, close to a whisper, as if determined, despite the scene Power seems bent on creating, to keep our conversation private.

  “I want to be part of the counterattack.”

  My voice lowers, too. Hissing the words that I need to make her understand. “We’re already too late for a counterattack.”

  Annie blinks. As if she hears, though I haven’t said it, the word implicit: blazesite.

  But whatever I expect her to make of that, it’s not the contortion of her disappointment into a twisted smile of newfound realization as she continues to look at me. As if I have, somehow, just managed to hurt her in any entirely different way. Instead of explaining herself, she breathes, with that same expression, so twisted with pain and surprise, it almost looks amused:

  “Yes, sir.”

  She turns away and continues arming with jerking movements.

  Power, who’s made no effort to disguise the fact that he’s continued to listen, lets out a snort behind me that makes me practically jump.

  “So that’s what this is about,” he says at full volume, sneering. “Annie’s history? You’ve got a lot of nerve, Lee—”

  Glances down the row are being shot, anew, in our direction by other Guardians; Cor, two cubbies down from Power, has actually stopped suiting up as he assesses the confrontation, and Crissa’s frown in my direction makes it clear that as far as she’s concerned, I’m on the wrong side of this argument. But by now I’m too angry to care. Since when has anything between Annie and me been any of their business—Power has no idea what he’s talking about—

  My fingers are tightening on my leg guards as I strap t
hem on, my jaw clenching. But before I can answer, Annie lifts her head from her armor and turns it toward Power.

  “We have orders. The Keep needs defending. Suit up.”

  To my surprise, Power doesn’t argue with her.

  Crissa has finished arming first from her squadron, and her voice is the next to fill the room. She’s moved to the doorway where she bellows at the remainder of her riders:

  “Let’s move, people! Weapons, shields, canteens!”

  Outside, in the growing light beside the arena gate, riders arrive two by two at intervals of thirty seconds; dragons emerge from the caves and barely land before their riders mount; keepers are ready at the mouth to help strap boots into stirrups and tighten girths. The skyfish squadron departs first; when they’re off, Cor and I begin launching our own riders. And then at last I’m mounting Pallor, kicking off, and leaving Annie and her blank face behind with the defending halfsquadrons.

  She thinks she can handle a blazesite? Fine. But she shouldn’t expect me to wait on her pride when Callipolan lives are at stake. I have more to worry about than her need to prove herself—

  In fact, I have family to worry about. Only in the air does that reality finally hit.

  Yes, it might be a blazesite. But what if it’s not? What if we aren’t too late, or it’s Julia waiting on dragonback or Ixion or some other long-lost friend or relative—

  What will I do?

  ANNIE

  When Power and I land with our halfsquadrons on the ramparts to take watch, it’s the first time we’ve ever alighted on Pytho’s Keep for anything more than a training exercise. Tonight, in the growing dawn, all I can make out of the citadel and ramparts are rugged silhouettes against the gray sky. The city below us is toylike in the half-light, miniature spires over miniature rooftops; the river glints with the reflected sunrise; the lowland plains stretch out in rolling lines of blue toward the sea to the east, the highlands rise to the west. We watch the rest of the fleet follow the trail of beacons north, their winged silhouettes diminishing against the horizon.