Fireborne

by Rosaria Munda

  Rock’s not good enough to beat Cor.

  It wouldn’t be an obvious call to the audience, but it’s easy for me to see the signs: Rock sur Bast moves too slowly; Cor sur Maurana keeps getting within range. Though Cor’s shots are going wide, as soon as one aims true, Rock won’t have time to dodge. Tournament sparring is won by hits of unsparked dragonfire—a smoky substance called ash, which has enough heat to burn and blackens tourney armor on contact. The torso counts as a kill shot, the limbs as penalties; three penalties serve as a kill.

  “Come on, Cor!”

  Duck has gotten to his feet beside me, leaning against the railing of the Eyrie, squinting upward against the glare of the sun. When Rock lands the first penalty—a lucky shot that blackens Cor’s arm—Duck inhales like he feels the burn.

  “Stormscourge fire. Nothing burns so bad, they say,” says Power, who’s joined us on Duck’s other side. His movements on the ground are like his flying: lithe and predatorial as a slinking cat. His helmet is tucked under his arm, the sunlight glowing on his bronze skin and the shaven edge of his hair. Duck stiffens but doesn’t look left.

  “Care to comment, Annie?” Power adds.

  Asking for my expertise on stormscourge fire is one of Power’s favorite ways to taunt me. He likes to study my face while he does it, as I stare back woodenly. After so many years, it feels like a kind of tradition.

  Duck’s fists are curling. When we were kids, Power’s allusions to what happened to my family got Duck riled enough to fight. Fights that he lost. Power’s muscles are compact, his tactics in fisticuffs closer to a street rat’s than a patrician child’s.

  “What do you want?” Duck growls.

  Power leans close, too close, to Duck. His voice is a low murmur. “A long, slow roast.”

  Duck stiffens, and I place a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Get away from us,” I tell Power.

  Our conversation is quiet, but it’s caught the attention of riders on nearby bleachers. Lee and Crissa are closest. At my quelling glance, Lee remains where he is, but continues to watch. Waiting, poised to move.

  Now Power’s turned his attention from Duck to me, like a dragon on a new scent. Dark brown eyes bore into mine, teeth flashing in a smile. He inclines his head in a mockery of old regime obeisance, as if I were dragonborn.

  I can feel heat in my face. As Power slinks away, Duck shrugs my hand off his arm. Though his eyes have returned to his brother’s match above us, his breathing is light. “Hey, Annie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Want to come with me to see my family during the break?”

  “I thought we’re supposed to wait till the end—”

  “I think I’d better do it before.”

  I think of Power’s eyes, fury-lit, and feel the helpless ache that I associate with watching Duck get hurt. Power sur Eater has hospitalized other riders before.

  “All right.”

  Duck takes his eyes off the match long enough to smile crookedly at me. The wind tugs at his wavy hair as a sheepish but stubborn shrug pulls his shoulders up, like his good humor is itself an act of defiance. When I first met him, he took my hand and led me onto the roof of the Cloister, just to look at the stars. At the time, I hadn’t understood. Just to see the stars? We can see them anytime. Not like this, Duck told me. You’ll see. They’re beautiful.

  And I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful they were, so close and still on that crenellated rooftop that they seemed near enough to touch. We got caught, but it was worth it. It was the first detention Goran ever gave me that I completed smiling.

  The crowd is erupting. Cor has dived down, swept close, and landed a third penalty shot against Rock. Duck lets out a triumphant yell, his fist pumping the air.

  Cor sur Maurana landed a kill shot. The match is over.

  I’m the only highlander left in the running.

  On the Eyrie, Cor and Rock dismount with the telltale stiffness of fresh burns. The announcer proclaims Cor sur Maurana as the first member of the Fourth Order, and Cor waves his arm in the air. An adrenaline high makes his grin seem a little crazed. Rock is welcomed off his dragon by his friend Lotus, who helps him limp over to the railing while his stormscourge takes off for the caves.

  “You put in a good fight, friend,” Lotus says. The son of a celebrated patrician poet, Lotus’s wiry hair, brown skin, and lanky frame are a study in contrast to Rock’s highland build.

  Rock dusts his hands together. “Now, for our wager on Lee and Crissa?”

  As Guardians, we’ve taken vows forswearing the earthly pleasures of money, marriage, and offspring—but gambling still finds a way, at least where Rock and Lotus are concerned.

  “Yes indeed,” says Lotus. “I’ll raise you a Dragontongue translation that—”

  “You know we can hear you,” Crissa interrupts them. “And I assume you’ll be betting on me, Lotus. Since I’m your squadron leader?”

  Lotus gulps. Crissa smirks, then catches Lee’s eye and pounds a fist into her palm. “Ready, Lee?”

  Clad in scale-plated tourney armor, unsmiling, with his dark hair, gray eyes, and high cheekbones, Lee looks more like a warlord from a tapestry of the Bassilean Wars than an opponent to trash-talk. But Crissa is undeterred. And to my surprise, Lee lifts an eyebrow at her. A minute rejoinder that is enough to make Crissa blush.

  Another bet going on, in the girls’ dorm: how much of Crissa’s flirting it will take for Lee to—in Deirdre’s words—succumb. Deirdre and Alexa started it, and even Orla joined in eventually. Crissa knows about the pot and thinks it’s funny. I avoid conversations about it. There have been no payouts.

  Lee and Crissa make their way down the ramp to the summoning point, and the sound of Deirdre’s and Alexa’s giggling from a nearby bleacher grates in my ears. But when they launch into the air, the Eyrie falls silent. All concerns with Crissa, her flirting, and Lee’s inscrutable responses to it fall away at the sight of Lee flying.

  I’m Lee’s sparring partner so often that I rarely get the chance to watch him. Lee and Pallor move with a perfect balance of fluidity and precision, never overshooting, never falling short, never holding back. It’s so beautiful that I find myself holding my breath, aching to get in the air myself. I want to be the one responding to their attacks and retreats, to feel the intoxication that comes from sparring with someone who pushes you to fly your best, your most daring, your hardest.

  Crissa is probably our strongest skyfish rider. She knows how to turn her skyfish’s natural speed and flexibility to her advantage. But even this does very little against Lee’s pinpoint control.

  “Why does he keep missing openings?” Rock murmurs.

  But he doesn’t know Lee’s style as I do. Lee isn’t missing openings. He’s just not going for anything less than a kill shot.

  Finally, Crissa grows impatient, veers in a roundabout, and charges. Lee swerves left a split second before Pallor fires. Pallor’s first breath of ash is the one that wins the match: The front of Crissa’s cuirass blackens. Lee won without a single penalty.

  When he lands and removes his helmet, his face—in contrast to Cor’s startled euphoria—is completely calm. He finds Crissa, who smiles with contained disappointment as she shakes his hand. Lee maintains a look of stone-faced tranquility as the sound of cheering comes from the stands and the announcer declares him the second member of the Fourth Order. It’s like he’s been waiting for it.

  I feel a twinge of something between bitterness and admiration: It comes so naturally to him. Not just winning—but thinking he should win.

  And then the rejoining thought, unwanted but undeniable: Of course it does. Of course it comes naturally to him.

  It’d come naturally to you, too, if you were dragonborn.

  The term feels dirty. Like peasant, banned, except rather than from the lexicon, it is banned from my mind in
reference to Lee. Sneaking into my thoughts now only because he looks so bloody poised.

  Of course, his birth was never substantiated—

  But it never really needed to be substantiated.

  And it never mattered. What matters is, Lee flies well. He’s a good leader, and he’s my friend. He deserves to win. Why should I begrudge him the comfort he has in doing it?

  Why should I begrudge him the First Protector’s favor, this supposed slum orphan with all his unexpected confidence and grace—

  A twenty-minute break has been called before the final two matches: Duck’s against Power, and mine against Darius. The riders who’ve already sparred are making their way down the Eyrie stairs to the Palace entrance, where medics are ready to treat their burns during the break. Duck touches my arm.

  “Coming?”

  Duck’s family is sitting in the Bronze section, reserved for skilled labor; below them is the Iron section for unskilled labor; high above them, on either side of the Palace Box, are the Silver and Gold sections, for the spirited—meaning military—and philosophical classes. Before the Revolution, your family determined your class—commoner, patrician, dragonborn—but under the new regime, class is something you’re tested into.

  “Looking for someone?” Duck asks.

  I’m scanning the crowd, ignoring the stares that our armor is attracting, looking for faces from my village. Where are they? Aren’t they here? They would definitely be class-bronze; farming counts as skilled labor. This is the section where they would be sitting.

  “Dorian! You’re here! And Annie!”

  The Sutters surround us. I’m embraced by Duck’s mother and his two sisters while his youngest brother jumps onto a bench and launches himself into Duck’s arms. The Sutters, much like Duck, have always been unquestioning in their welcome.

  “Exciting about Cor, isn’t it? Do you think he could make Firstrider?”

  Duck squints: I wonder if we’re both weighing the likelihood of Cor having a chance when Lee’s a semifinalist, too. “Maybe. But Firstrider’s more of an honorary title in times of peace.”

  “There might be a war,” Duck’s younger sister Merina points out. Her pigtails flop as she bounces on the balls of her feet. Like all of the Sutter children, Merina has her mother’s tan complexion and her father’s hazel eyes and wavy hair.

  Duck laughs and shakes his head. “Probably not.” He ticks off, comfortably: “We’ve got a good relationship with Damos, the dragons of the Iscan Archipelago are sworn neutral, the Bassilean Empire’s been in decline for centuries . . .”

  Duck has said nothing more than the baseline of what we’ve learned in class about the geopolitics of the region, but his family stares as if he’d jarred them. The Sutters own a bakery in Highmarket. They’ve always taken pride in Cor’s and Duck’s advancement, but with a certain wary incomprehension.

  Mr. Sutter says, with an odd strain in his deep voice, “There’s New Pythos. They’ve got it in for us, haven’t they?”

  It’s an attempt to keep up in displays of knowledge, so awkwardly delivered that I feel peripheral shame. Duck hoists his little brother Greg up onto his back, lines appearing on his forehead as he considers how to answer. Mr. Sutter doesn’t realize it, but he’s just betrayed his educational level. For years, New Pythos has been rumored to harbor survivors from the Three Families that escaped the Palace Day massacres, but its military might is known to be negligible. The island doesn’t have dragons. Or air power. Not even a naval fleet, because the karst pillars that surround it make its waters nearly impassable. But the Ministry of Propaganda keeps up rumors of a New Pythian threat among the lower class-metals all the same. They are—as the propaganda officials tell Guardians in class—useful, for inspiring patriotism.

  An explanation that’s easier to take in stride before your class-bronze dad repeats it to you.

  Duck agrees slowly. “That’s true. There’s New Pythos.”

  Mrs. Sutter’s arms, perpetually flour-dusted, are placed on her hips as if to ward off the tension that she senses rising between her husband and son. “War or no, Fourth Order’s an honor in its own right.”

  Merina pipes up eagerly. “We were learning about that in school this week. Fourth Order means they’re considering you for next Protector. Cor’ll be doing more rounds and speeches and going to fancy parties with the class-golds and sort of auditioning—”

  They’re learning about the Fourth Order in school? The thought of children across the country talking about us fills me with anxiety. Even as I remind myself that of course they are. It’s relevant to them. We’re relevant to them.

  The ministry would like to remind Antigone sur Aela of the in-tensely public nature of the obligations of a Fourth Order rider . . .

  Ana, the oldest girl in the Sutter family, shudders. “That sounds terrifying. Better Cor than me.”

  Tall, bony, plain-faced, Ana has just summed up my own feelings. I feel a rush of fondness for her.

  “Have you taken your metals test yet?” I ask her.

  A year younger than us, Ana is in her final year of school, when the metals test is usually administered. She nods, then flicks her bare wrist. “Results aren’t back yet. But I don’t test well like Duck and Cor.”

  When the results are returned, Ana will wear the wristband her test assigned her. Her parents’ bronze wristbands flash in the sun, the mark of skilled labor. Duck’s and mine, the rarest in the city, are gold entwined with silver, indicating that when we took the test as children in the Guardian talent search, we tested as both philosophical and spirited.

  The bells are ringing. Duck’s shoulders set at the sound as he remembers what comes next. Power. “Time to be getting back.”

  Mrs. Sutter hugs me farewell, an unthinkingly maternal act that leaves me flustered. “Good luck at your match, dear. You’ll come for Midsummer this year? No excuses this time.”

  “We will drag Annie and Lee bodily from the Cloister if need be,” Duck assures her.

  On the way back up to the Eyrie, I crane my neck to search the crowds in the Bronze stands. But there’s still no sign of anyone from my village.

  Maybe they didn’t come.

  It’d mean a lot to the people in your village if you made Fourth Order, Lee said this morning.

  It’s funny how much the thought of it mattering to them matters to me.

  I’m so absorbed straining for a sight of them that I practically stumble into Darius, my match opponent, descending from the bleachers in the Gold section. He’s blond, tall, well-built like a statue of white marble. He has friends with him, other patrician boys who’ve tested Gold. I know most of them by sight; Guardians attend many of their classes with the Gold students—they’re our future peers, coworkers—underlings. Many of the officials I do rounds with when I tour the Inner Palace and other branches of government are their parents.

  And all of them would love for Darius sur Myra to make the Fourth Order.

  Darius sees me, stops dead, and then gestures at the stone archway we’re both about to walk through, the picture of gentility. “After you, Annie.”

  Dragons. I’ll throw it. I’ve got to throw it. What were my vows for, if not obedience to the will of the state? And the state wants this boy. It hurts but I don’t blame them. I just went cold from the thought of mere schoolchildren talking about me, didn’t I? Darius isn’t my favorite person but he’s decent, he’d do a fine job—

  Duck and Power are up next; Darius and I will close the tournament.

  On the Eyrie, Duck, who is now rigid with nerves, submits to his brother’s check-over of his suit and his murmured advice. Power’s stormscourge is large enough that he doesn’t have to worry about fire conservation and precision; Eater pretty much never runs out. Duck’s best strategy is to move, move, move, and hopefully wear them down.

  “And no—bloody—spillovers,” Co
r hisses.

  Most of the time, the line between our emotions and our dragons’ is dim, subliminal. But with violent flares of emotions, the walls break down, and you share everything. Spilling over can be a rider’s greatest advantage or greatest weakness. Some riders, like Power, spill over on purpose; Lee and I don’t, though I’m more comfortable sharing minds with my dragon than Lee is. Duck’s the sort of rider who spills over easily and shouldn’t. In his and Certa’s case, it never ends well. They lose control.

  Duck and Power walk down the ramp; Lee goes to stand beside Cor and Crissa, and though I don’t usually seek his company when he’s with the other two squadron leaders, I find myself moving toward him as if pulled. Stress reaction, orphanage behavior—I diagnose it even as I let myself do it. When he sees me approaching, he breaks away to join me at the Eyrie’s edge. Side by side, we lean against the rail to watch.

  Duck and Power assume position overhead. There’s silence on the Eyrie again, as there was for Lee’s match, but this time it’s silence of a different kind. Even Rock and Lotus have forgone making bets.

  And then it begins. Power sur Eater attacks; Duck sur Certa retreats; and then Duck sets off, Power in pursuit. But Power must figure out Duck’s strategy soon enough, because we hear him shout: “Running? Brings me back to the good old days, Dorian!”

  “Tune him out, Duck,” Lee murmurs, his gray eyes fixed on Duck’s mother-of-pearl skyfish, his fingers tight on the Eyrie railing.

  But Duck has never been good at tuning Power out. Sure enough, a telltale ripple goes through his skyfish. Not something the audience would notice, but we can tell it’s the first sign of a spillover.

  And then Duck makes a jackknife turn and fires. Power dodges; the ash passes harmlessly over his shoulder; and he takes advantage of the close range to fire himself. He hits Duck on the leg, full heat.

  The audience gasps in appreciation and the bell rings to mark the penalty; but on the Eyrie, muttering has broken out with a different realization. Duck’s opening was wide; Power could have made a kill shot. Instead, Power went for a full-heat penalty.