Fireborne

by Rosaria Munda

  Lee curls his hands into fists and looks down at the text beneath them. For a moment he’s silent, but then he starts listing words aloud, throwing out the Callish equivalents of each word without any effort to make sense of them:

  “The enemy, has, walls, rushes, in the deep, away from, summit—”

  Tyndale throws an eraser at Lee’s head.

  Lee ducks, and the eraser sails past. There’s a thud as the wooden side hits the far wood-paneled wall, powdering it with chalk. Tyndale is still bearing down on him, and now he stands right in front of Lee’s desk. Neither of them is pretending anything but fury now.

  Despite all the reasons I’ve stopped speaking to Lee, at the moment, as I watch Tyndale approach him, it’s Tyndale I feel hatred for. Knee-jerk, fierce, protective. As if a poetry professor’s triumphant sneer were danger enough to wipe every other grudge from my mind.

  Stay away from him.

  “No,” Tyndale says.

  Lee seems to be paralyzed, wide-eyed, waiting to see what Tyndale will say next, and Tyndale himself seems to be struggling to decide.

  And then, as I watch them, as I hold my breath, the case of a single elusive noun becomes clear in my mind. And just like that, I realize I have it.

  My voice is clear.

  Alas, flee, dragonborn, you and your family. Flee from the flames. The enemy has your walls, the City falls in ruin from its height.

  For a moment, the room is strangely still. The sound of my own voice, so unusually loud in my ears, lingers in the air. The tragedy of the line washes over me, beautiful and heartbreaking.

  Then the moment passes. Lee closes his eyes and sinks back in his seat. A strange expression fills his face, tightening it. Tyndale seems to deflate. He turns from Lee, disoriented, and looks down at the books spread across his desk, gathering his thoughts.

  “Yes,” he says, distantly, moving away from Lee. “Yes, yes. Very good, Antigone.”

  Behind his back, people are glancing at each other, exchanging confused looks. Lee lowers his face into his palms and exhales.

  “I should tell you,” Tyndale says, turning back to us abruptly. He holds up his own copy of the poem, an old leather-bound version that looks like he’s had it since his own school days. “The Aurelian Cycle was officially banned today, by the Censorship Committee.”

  I feel the pulse of the line in my ears again, the terrible beauty of it. Lee lowers his hands from his face and straightens slowly.

  Lotus speaks up hesitantly. “You mean, banned for the lower class-metals? Restricted to the Lyceum library?”

  “No. It was already restricted. Now it’s being purged.”

  “Why?” Lotus asks.

  Tyndale grimaces. “It was . . . decided . . . that the poem promotes values that are contrary to the national interest.”

  I remember rounds with Ornby in the censorship office, over a month ago, telling me, Don’t want to give the lower class-metals these kinds of ideas, they’ll start wanting the dragonlords back. They can’t handle nuance like you can . . .

  Wasn’t he right? I’ve heard the murmured discontent in the streets, I’ve seen the editorials in the People’s Paper urging reason . . .

  But even as a newcomer to Dragontongue literature, even as someone who hasn’t grown up hearing the Aurelian Cycle quoted as readily as speech, the idea of banning it is unthinkable. It’s taken too much of my heart already, in this class alone.

  Even if some fools are misinterpreting it—how could Atreus allow such a thing? He enrolled the Fourth Order riders in this course. He quotes the Aurelian Cycle in class with us, effortlessly. Clearly he shares my love for its beauty, its tradition—

  But that’s not the same as prioritizing it.

  I remind myself: Atreus led a coup against his own masters that resulted in their massacre. The same dragonborn that the Aurelian Cycle portrays as hubristic and godlike, Atreus brought to their knees. He doesn’t have a history of standing on tradition. Even if he does have a taste for Dragontongue poetry.

  “The official announcement will be in the Gold Gazette tomorrow,” Tyndale says. “Raids will be conducted throughout the summer, and confiscated copies will be destroyed. Needless to say, the status of this class has become . . . uncertain.”

  Cor mouths Thank the dragon at Lee, whose face is slack, and doesn’t return his grin.

  Tyndale has us read a little more, but after hearing a few more lines of poor translations, he dismisses us. As we get up to leave, he goes over and stands next to Lee’s desk, silent, but his meaning clear. Lee remains seated, his arms folded, as the rest of the students leave.

  Power catches up with me in the corridor, breaking away from a group of Gold girls, and we exit into the Lyceum courtyard together. This late in the summer, the green would usually be full of students lounging on the grass and pretending to read, but in the wake of Starved Rock it’s unnaturally empty. As if leisure under an open sky is no longer possible.

  “That was fishy as hell,” he comments.

  I stop dead and round on him.

  “What?”

  Power pauses, too. Lifts an eyebrow. “You tell me, Annie.”

  For a moment we stand completely still as we stare at each other, and my heart begins to race as I take in his muted, sneaking smile as he regards my alarm and plays stupid. What has he guessed? What does he know?

  This is dangerous. Power’s made no secret of hating Lee, not since they were children, not since Lee put himself in opposition to every single one of Power’s moves of assertion within the corps. I remember the sound of Power coughing while Lee held him and Cor punched.

  Lee’s identity in the hands of Power would be a disaster.

  Power says, with a half glance at his own bare shoulder: “Oh, dragons. I forgot my bag. I guess I’ll have to double back—”

  His tone is unmistakable. He’s toying with me.

  But all I can think of, in this moment, is to make the move he’s prompting.

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  Power just studies me, his smile widening. “Whatever you like, Annie. See you on the Eyrie?”

  “Right,” I answer, barely hearing myself.

  I walk back into the classroom building, and though I should feel nothing, I’m sick with dread.

  No, I think, as I approach. No, no, no, I don’t want this. I’ve never wanted this. It was enough for him to say, You’re not a fool for trusting me; it was enough for Tyndale to slip that name once, Leo, and never say it again. It’s enough for me to want Firstrider, and for that to have nothing to do with who he was once or where he came from. I don’t need this now.

  And the fear that is less rational, that is worse than any of that, that was, perhaps, the point of Power’s game from the start: What if I don’t like what I’m about to hear?

  LEE

  Julia’s words, from our last meeting: Watch and see when we exert pressure how this vision will splinter. Then we will revisit whether you find it noble.

  Is this the beginning of that splintering, this edict banning the words that have guided our people for centuries?

  “It’s been a while since we talked,” Tyndale says, after he closes the door behind him. Dragontongue, again.

  For the first time, I find myself glad Tyndale seeks a confrontation. My guilt has found a target and transformed to anger. I answer in Callish.

  “Yes. It has. Was it you who told them that the Guardians would be in full attendance at the Lycean Ball?”

  Tyndale, standing, leans his palms on his desk. The room is so warm, the heat in it so stuffy from the summer, that drops of sweat darken his white shirt beneath the arms. He tugs at the neck of his collar, loosening it.

  “My dear boy. It’s not as if the Lycean Ball or its guest list was a secret. And I’m not the only member of the Gold estate sympathetic to the Pythia
n cause.” Tyndale nods to the Aurelian Cycle, lying dog-eared on the desk beside him. “After this, I imagine you can see why.”

  An image in my mind: smoke rising from a lonely island off the northern coast. If this is the vision splintering, it’s still better than what the Pythians did to Starved Rock.

  “There’s more to civilization than poetry.”

  Tyndale sneers. He lifts a hand and flicks it, dismissing.

  “Don’t tell me a few dead fishermen were enough to turn your stomach.”

  “Unarmed civilians—”

  “Casualties of war. An unfortunate price.”

  I stare at him, hatred coiling in my stomach. How dare he, this academic, this scholar who spends his days scanning verse and picking apart figures of speech, refer to what we saw on Starved Rock as a price, as if the loss of lives can be set on a numeric scale quantifiable like currency—

  “But,” Tyndale goes on, “if it’s a price that makes you squeamish, now is your time to reconsider.”

  I’m shaking my head, as if with my body I can force out the thoughts that have already been plaguing my mind.

  “I should report you,” I tell him.

  “I should report you.”

  For a moment we stare at each other, neither of us so much as blinking.

  I get to my feet. Reach for my bag, sling it over my shoulder. Fingers shaking, though I will myself to calm. But as I turn to leave, Tyndale speaks again.

  “Have you thought about what will happen if you refuse her? Not to the civilians. To you.”

  When I don’t answer, Tyndale does for me. I’ve paused, half turned from him, my hand gripping my shoulder strap so tightly, the leather bites my fingers.

  “You’ll be in combat against your own relatives, your cousins. You’d be killing your own family.”

  Tyndale drives the words home hard, like he’s determined to jolt me with them.

  “She’s Firstrider, Lee. Their champion, their fleet commander. It won’t just be them you’ll have to go against. It will be her.”

  He must find what he’s looking for in my expression, because his own has become triumphant. “We await your next letter.”

  I have the feeling of ground slipping, and it’s against this feeling that I growl my answer, with all the conviction that I wish I felt.

  “I have nothing more to say to them.”

  I turn on my heel, wrench open the door onto the hallway, to find Annie standing on the other side of it. White-faced and round-eyed.

  What did she hear?

  What language were we speaking in?

  Dragontongue.

  Which she must have realized, but is also less likely to have been able to understand when muffled through the crack of a door—

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I forgot something,” she says acidly.

  “Shouldn’t you be off playing spillover with Power?”

  Her face colors. “Shouldn’t you be off sparring with Crissa?”

  I’d meant to pass her, but we’ve both stopped, and there’s only about a foot between us. I feel like shaking her.

  “You’re in my way,” I say, through gritted teeth.

  Annie’s eyes are bright. She lets out a soft laugh, full of anger.

  “What are you going to do,” she whispers, “order me to move?”

  It’s enough for me to jerk sideways, and for her to pass without a word.

  ANNIE

  We await your next letter.

  Tyndale’s words, Lee’s low-voiced answer, the Dragontongue too fast for me to understand, the door bursting open and Lee’s furious face draining as he sees me—

  What was Lee’s answer to Tyndale?

  Out on the Eyrie, Power says, “Well?”

  Our dragons wait for us, clawing the ground with impatience. Standing this close to Aela, I can feel the spillover a breath away. For the first time since we’ve begun training together, I realize the pathway is within my control.

  At the same time, as close as I am to spillover, the part of me considering Power is completely calm.

  “I got your bag, if that’s what you’re asking. Can we start? Call me a peasant, like you did last time. Let’s see if that works.”

  Power scowls at me. Disappointed.

  And then, as he starts hurling insults at me—first in Callish, then Dragontongue—I tune him out.

  I let myself think everything that I’ve been holding in.

  In contact with them. Lee’s in contact with Pythians. Through our bloody poetry professor. How long has this been happening? Has it been happening all along?

  After the sighting, he told me I wasn’t a fool to trust him, and I believed him.

  Aela’s mind close to me, the barriers breaking, my fingers stretching up to press between her eyes at the ridge of her amber-scaled temple—

  Should I have?

  I believe the words Lee said were ones he meant. But in the wake of a disaster like Starved Rock, and New Pythos’s threat hanging over us like a storm about to drop—

  In the face of almost certain violence and death against family—

  If they’re in contact—

  Surely even Lee has limits for his stomach to hold fast.

  The barriers breaking, Aela’s mind sliding into mine, her slitted eyes the only thing I see . . .

  In the last few weeks I’ve let myself want to win Firstrider. Let myself think I deserved to want it.

  But what if there’s more to it than that? What if I’ve got to make Firstrider?

  Is Lee compromised?

  Aela and I become one and we are ready to spar.

  * * *

  ***

  Afterward, head clear, ash scrubbed from my face, I take stock of the situation.

  Tyndale is compromised. Lee is possibly compromised. And I’ve no idea what Power knows or guesses.

  In almost certain threat of war, with such knowledge at my fingertips, what is my obligation?

  I go to the Inner Palace, make my gamble, and file a single report.

  11

  THE FIRSTRIDER TOURNAMENT

  LEE

  The morning of the Firstrider Tournament, I wake from fitful sleep where memories blur with dreams. Sparring with Annie, when we were first learning how; planning our escapes, huddled in the closet in the orphanage; my father and his dragon, in flight. Weaving in and out of these, over and over again, Julia:

  I pray to the long-dead gods that this tournament brings sense to you.

  I sit next to Crissa and Cor at breakfast. Across the room, on the opposite side of the refectory, sit Annie and Duck. We haven’t spoken since we met in the hallway outside Tyndale’s classroom, four days ago.

  The room vibrates with a barely suppressed excitement: The other riders seem to know better than to voice their anticipation in front of either Annie or me. Except, of course, Power, who takes a seat across from me to say:

  “Do you know what Annie had me call her, so she could spill over?”

  “Get away from us,” Cor says.

  Power tells me. Then watches for my reaction. Annie, across the room, glances over at us and then stubbornly away again.

  How, I wonder, how could she have stooped to this, to train with this imbecile?

  Without acknowledging either of them I drain my glass and rise.

  “I’ll see you later,” I tell Cor and Crissa.

  The armory is silent, empty. This time of year it collects heat during the day and never quite has time to cool off during the night, so it’s already unpleasantly stuffy as I change into my flamesuit. I’m halfway through buckling on armor, beginning to think we won’t overlap at all, when the door opens and Annie comes in.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey . . .”

  I can think of
nothing else to say. And though Annie is one of the few people I’ve ever been comfortable with in silence, right now it’s not the kind of silence that’s comfortable. It’s the silence of two people not speaking to each other.

  Then, in that silence, Annie reaches for her flamesuit and freezes. Her back is turned: I can’t see what she’s looking at.

  As gingerly as someone removing an unwanted insect from a plate of food, she pulls a sealed letter out of her cubby and rests it unopened on the bench beside her.

  “What—”

  “It’s from the ministry,” she says, her back still turned to me.

  I straighten. Despite the residual cool that’s distanced us since Tyndale’s class, the news shocks me into anger. Now? They’re still pulling this on her?

  For a moment, I stare at her back as the discomfort creeps in: Maybe the last time this happened, I was the person to say something—but today? Now? What is there possibly for me to say as her opponent?

  But it turns out I don’t have to say anything. Steel has entered Annie’s voice like I’ve never heard before.

  “I’m not reading it.”

  She yanks on her flamesuit without looking at the letter again, and when her armor is on, she heads out to the nests without me.

  A half hour later we’re both on the Eyrie. The blue of the late summer sky is blotted with billowing cumulus clouds, moving fast in a brisk breeze. They hang low, some of them even at the level of Pytho’s Keep. Standing on the Eyrie, surrounded by stands that are completely full and cheering in a deafening roar, feeling the sweat begin to trickle beneath layers of armor and leather, I look up at the racing sun-swept sky and feel the first leapings of anticipation.

  Skies like this are meant to be flown in.

  At the mouth of the cave, we summon our dragons and wait together. There’s silence again, but it’s a different kind of silence: as if Annie, too, is aching to get into the air. Our backs are turned toward those watching on the Eyrie, and we face the stands that have quieted with expectation.

  I feel that stillness awaken all my senses.