Fireborne

by Rosaria Munda

  For a moment, the irony of my victory is so bitter, it is almost a taste in my mouth. That dream has come true now, years later, in a wholly different world and against all odds. But all I want in the moment is to undo it.

  Goran grips me on the shoulder, and his tone hardens.

  “In the name of Callipolis, pull yourself together.”

  I dry my face as I mount the stairs to the Palace Box.

  * * *

  ***

  Afterward, I make a single detour before finding the Palace infirmary. I go to the Lyceum, to Tyndale’s office, and I slip a note under his door. The words I’ve written on it come with the ease of premeditated thought, and I write with the same blazing certainty that rose to guide me as I leapt from Pallor’s back.

  I was told you await my letter. Here it is. By the time you see this, you’ll know that our fleet is sparked, and the Protector’s answer. Callipolis will not bow.

  You wrote me once that you hoped I would know the feeling of the might of the world at my feet. Today, I have known it.

  Your choices are your own. My conscience is not your keeper.

  Bring what fury you have and I will answer it with ours.

  ANNIE

  In and out of sleep I take in the nights and days of an unfamiliar room, a single familiar figure sitting at my bedside throughout. Dressings are applied and removed and time passes fitfully, through a haze of pain, but in one of the lucid moments I wake to a single half-heard sentence of Dragon-tongue parsed in its entirety by my sleeping consciousness and now fully intelligible:

  Lee told Tyndale, I have nothing more to say to them.

  I return to sleep with the utter exhaustion of complete relief.

  When I finally awake, I’m in pain.

  Slowly the world focuses; I know it after all. An infirmary room, where I’ve lain before, though never with bandaging this extensive or constricting. The window is open, letting in the summer sunlight and breeze. Vases full of flowers fill the space of my bedside table. Seated next to the bed, slumped over in an uncomfortable-looking chair, is Lee. Lines of care have smoothed on his face as he sleeps, though the bruises of exhaustion beneath his closed eyes remain.

  How long have I been here? How long has he been here?

  Memories of the match are returning in flashes: the gut punch at the sight of that letter from the ministry; the steel-hardened spillover with Aela; the aching relief of finally sparring with Lee sur Pallor again. The mounting anticipation of triumph. And then—dragonfire, like the memory of an old nightmare, and pain. And then Aela, needing me, and Lee, still there, holding me—

  That memory is jarring, doesn’t fit. How—?

  But the memories are there, impossible: Lee behind me, astride Aela, his fingers fumbling for the valves of my coolant shafts, his hand on Aela’s side, comforting her as she struggled to spark. Because it’s not only my memories that contain him: Aela’s do, too, and I remember her fear and anger at his intrusion and then, as he soothed her by touch and by words, her surrendering trust.

  My throat has gone dry to remember it.

  Then I realize how he must have done it, and exasperation battles with tenderness as I look at him.

  You stupid, fearless flyboy.

  Lee stirs, sits up with a start as his eyes snap open. The lines of care return to his forehead and mouth. He looks at me and sees I’m awake. His face fills with relief.

  “Hey,” he says.

  But he says it bashfully, and I realize he’s nervous, shamefaced. It takes me a moment to understand why.

  “I’m all right, Lee,” I tell him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says hoarsely. “Annie, I never—”

  I laugh and it hurts, so I stop. He notices, his eyes widening in alarm.

  “It’s not your fault Pallor sparked.”

  Lee is shaking his head, like that’s not enough. “I asked for a rematch,” he mutters, looking down. “But they wouldn’t . . .”

  I’m smiling, though this hurts in a different way.

  “Why would they?” I ask.

  Pain is filling Lee’s face. “Because you deserved to win.”

  My throat tightens to hear the words said. To hear them said by Lee.

  I struggle to put words to the feeling overwhelming me, to call it something other than disappointment. Struggle to explain the victory, stupid though it was, that meant everything to me. The little part of it that had nothing to do with Lee, or Callipolis, or anything but myself.

  “It was good to really . . . want it. I didn’t know I could—want something that much. And to believe it should be—”

  Should be mine.

  And now this is what it feels like, when you let yourself want something, fully, and fail to get it. I’m swallowing, willing my vision to clear. Lee is looking at his lap.

  “Anyway,” I add. “It’s—probably for the best. You were the one they wanted.”

  Lee twitches, drags his fingers through his hair. And then he reaches into his pocket and produces a letter. Crumpled, seal broken, but I recognize it at once.

  “I went back . . . while you were sleeping. It didn’t say what we thought it did.”

  He hands the note to me. I open it and read the single phrase within.

  Antigone,

  Go show them what you’re made of.

  Miranda

  And that’s how I learn that consolation has the power to hurt, too.

  I hadn’t imagined this bitterness of disappointment could intensify until it did. To see the words finally written, the affirmation finally given, that I’ve craved and struggled for as long as I can remember—and too late.

  All I want to do, all my body wants to do, is pull my knees up against my chest, wrap my arms around them, lower my face, and sob.

  Lee is staring at the floor, haggard with shame and guilt, and although I know he’d leave if I asked him, I also know there’s more to say. So I run my thumbs under my eyes, gather my composure, and tell him what he needs to hear. The thing both of us need to hear, and remember.

  “You’ll be beautiful at it, Lee.”

  My exoneration, from its depths.

  Lee’s eyes are bloodshot as he raises them to look at me.

  Beautiful: this boy who has grown into a young man, who is ready to become a leader, who’s through it all been my best friend, and the bravest person I’ve ever known.

  Whom I will trust to the end.

  My voice is shaking as I add: “And it will be my honor to serve as your Alterna.”

  The past is behind us, the war ahead, and our fleet is sparked.

  That’s what matters.

  Lee reaches out, and when his fingers take my bandaged hand, I don’t pull away. For a moment, we’re both still, feeling the pulse between our palms in the silent infirmary ward.

  Lee speaks first. Now his voice is the lowest murmur.

  “Annie. I need your help. I need you to . . .”

  “Report Tyndale. I already did.”

  Lee blinks.

  My heart is racing, but I keep my voice and my gaze steady. “After I overheard—I wasn’t really . . . sure, what I’d overheard but I knew—” My fingers stiffen, still in his. “I knew I didn’t want you talking to him anymore. To . . . them . . . anymore.”

  That was the gamble. Tyndale, not Lee.

  And now I know I gambled right. I have nothing more to say to them.

  He rubs his forehead and exhales slowly, through his mouth, realizing the danger narrowly missed in retrospect. As though realizing that I could have just as easily reported him.

  “I put the report under my name,” I go on, “and I filed it under speaking out against the ban, so it shouldn’t . . . it shouldn’t jeopardize you. The Reeducation Committee should process it within the week.”

&nb
sp; Relief is washing over Lee’s face.

  “Thank you,” he says hoarsely. “I needed—I couldn’t—”

  “I know.”

  The next words seem to come choked out of him. “It’s . . . going to get bad, Annie. Soon.”

  I wonder if he means for Callipolis or for himself. Because, I realize, looking at him, it will be both. Now that nothing stands between Callipolis and New Pythos but dragonfire. Lee’s choices coming home to roost.

  I can think of no consolation to give besides confirmation of the course.

  “Then it’s a good thing our fleet’s sparked.”

  12

  PALACE DAY

  LEE

  Annie is discharged from the infirmary a few days before Palace Day. Because I’ve been promoted to fleet commander, she’s promoted to aurelian squadron leader in my place, and I hand her the badge for her uniform myself; the fleet commander’s medal has already replaced mine. A bugle within the silver-and-gold-entwined circlets for the Firstrider; an aurelian dragon, wings spread, for the squadron leader. She accepts it with a gracious smile that doesn’t hide her shuttered disappointment or undo my own clenching guilt.

  Since the tournament, three more dragons have sparked. Though it’s not enough to begin to consider offensive measures—particularly against New Pythos, so naturally well-fortified—it’s still enough to change the mood of the city. Callipolis can defend herself again. The turn of sentiment, timed as it is with the arrival of Palace Day, means that the parade and its celebrations take on new significance for the Ministry of Propaganda: a chance to harness the hope of the people and cement it into readiness for war. But the parade is also the focal point of the Defense Ministry’s security concerns.

  Tyndale has vanished into the bowels of the prison that the Reeducation Committee shares with the Ministry of Information, indicted for sharing sentiments contrary to the national interest. Despite the fleet’s sparking, the purge of the Aurelian Cycle remains in effect. Copies of the poem are confiscated across the city. Lotus’s father’s library is among those raided.

  The Guardians’ library is the only collection besides the Protector’s exempted from the purge, but we still have to attend the bonfire. As I watch the flames turn pages into leaflike fragments rising on the breeze, the words of the Cycle itself return to me, bitter as smoke tasted on the wind:

  To you, ashes and final flames of my own, I stand witness

  I who have escaped neither peril nor pain in your destruction

  If it is our fate to die, then by my own hand let me earn it.

  Three days before Palace Day, I’m shaken awake by Cor. Such was the nature of my dreams that I’ve lunged half out of bed, halfway to my feet with legs still tangled in blankets, before Cor pushes me back down.

  “It’s all right. You were just—”

  Just waking people up, I realize. That doesn’t happen much anymore, but around Palace Day, all bets are off. The dorm is unnaturally quiet, the usual snoring gone silent. The nightmares I’ve woken from are fresh enough that screaming is still echoing in my ears. The blankets are sweat-drenched; my face is wet.

  “Thanks. Sorry. Was I—”

  It’s pressured speech; I have hardly any idea what I’m saying, but at Cor’s whispered answer I sober instantly. His face and expression are impossible to make out in the darkness. “You were . . . you kept saying no.”

  I realize then that his hand is still on my shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I say again, shrugging it off.

  In his class with the Fourth Order later that morning, Atreus passes out identical, battered booklets that all have the red stamp of banned material across the fronts. I read the title and feel myself break into a cold sweat.

  A True Account of Palace Day and the Red Month, by R. T.

  “Palace Day is an opportunity for great patriotism in our country,” Atreus says. “A time for the people to unite around a narrative of a beginning that erases the past and starts again. But it is also a time for the four of you to consider the burdens that will be asked of you as rulers. While we encourage the rest of the city to enjoy the story of Palace Day, I would like you to consider the facts. The booklets in front of you, published not long after the Revolution and banned for the sake of political stability, provide a more than adequate summary. Please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the contents before we begin discussion.”

  There aren’t enough booklets to go around. Cor and I are sharing. When I don’t move, Cor takes the book and begins to flip through it. I’m determined not to look at Annie, or Power, or at the book at all, so I keep my eyes on Cor’s face, watching his eyebrows knit together as his eyes travel down the page. His breathing hitches. He continues reading with his hand gripping his mouth.

  By now, I’ve had years of practice sitting through classes about the Revolution and the Red Month. I’ve learned how to keep my face impassive and count the seconds. Anything can be survived for an hour.

  But few teachers have spent any time talking about Palace Day itself, and when they have, it’s never been with the facts laid out so explicitly.

  When Cor finally looks up, his face has gone green. He starts pushing the book toward me, in case I want to take a turn reading. I close it and push it back at him.

  Atreus breaks the silence. “Cor, would you read from the top of fourteen, please?”

  Cor flips to the page, and the others follow suit. He begins to read, hoarsely, about the fate of the Aurelian Triarch and his family. I feel the classroom fade in and out.

  By time he gets to the second child, Cor’s voice trails off.

  Atreus doesn’t ask him to go on.

  Cor looks up. “Did you know? Did you know it would be like this?”

  Atreus’s smile is all steel.

  “One never knows,” he says. “But the course of popular uprisings are fairly predictable. We knew that the people would be difficult to control once they were allowed inside the Palace walls.”

  Atreus pauses, allowing the confession to sink in. Then he goes on.

  “It went further than we wanted. I admit that. But even so, it was a risk I knew we were taking from the start. It was a hard decision, but it had to be made. Better these deaths, once”—Atreus drums his fingers on the booklet in front of him—“brutal as they were, than countless more undeserved deaths in the future. Do you agree?”

  Silence. The pulse of blood in my ears, the sound of a room of people saying nothing.

  Power speaks first. “I don’t think it would have been a hard decision.”

  Atreus’s response is cool. “You don’t?”

  “None of this is worse than what they did to us,” Power says. “Blood for blood.”

  The words echo oddly in my ears. I can feel Cor glancing at me, and it is only after a moment of paranoia that I realize why. This is the sort of thinking that I usually push back against.

  Then I hear her speak.

  “You think they deserved this?”

  I know Annie too well not to recognize the sound of her anger.

  Power says, “Yeah, I do. After what they did to us, they deserved it.”

  Annie snorts. “After what they did to whom, the Janiculum?”

  Power hears the incredulity in her voice. His eyes narrow, his face suddenly contorting as he leans forward, his voice lowering. “My mother was from Cheapside. I’m a Cheapsider. The highlands weren’t the only part of Callipolis that suffered, Annie. As far as Cheapside is concerned, the dragonborn got what they deserved.”

  It’s the first time Power has ever outright admitted to being anything other than patrician, much less a Cheapsider. Cor’s eyebrows have shot up as he studies Power’s screwed-up face.

  Annie’s voice is shaking. “What they got wasn’t justice. It was a massacre.”

  I raise my eyes from the stained
oak table and finally look at her. Her hair is cropped now, the burned braid cut off after the match; it hangs in jagged chin-length spikes, like an urchin boy’s. She’s glaring at Power and has begun to flush.

  I hear myself speak.

  “You of all people should think it was justified.”

  Annie’s eyes move to mine. Peripherally, I note the others shifting, uncomfortable, catching the reference as well as Annie has. Atreus clears his throat to intervene, but before he can, Annie speaks. Her voice is unexpectedly thick.

  “What kind of person do you think I am, Lee?”

  My throat closes.

  Atreus breaks the silence, his tone impatient.

  “Antigone displays—admirable—compassion for her enemies that Lee and Power would do well to imitate,” he says. “It should never be easy to decide who dies. Even if, as in this case, they were guilty of terrible things.

  “As you may know, before the Revolution, I was chief advisor to Arcturus Aurelian. The fates that Cor just read to us were those that met his family.”

  Annie inhales deeply and slowly as she understands. Atreus goes on with tranquil calm.

  “Some wonder, knowing that connection, if I precipitated such violence against Arcturus and his people for personal reasons. If he had wronged me in some way, if it was an act of vengeance. After all, many revolutionaries were so motivated.” Here Atreus nods, graciously, in Power’s direction. Power twitches and eases back in his chair. Atreus’s voice remains distant.

  “In my case, it was not. In my case, in fact, I had every personal reason to support Arcturus. He had been good to me when I needed help, sponsored my education, and seen to my advancement. But in the end, what he did for me personally was not enough to undo the wrongs he committed as a ruler. And on those grounds, I made my choice. The good of my people over the pull of my emotions.”

  Cor’s fingers are drumming nervously on the table; Annie’s eyes have widened; Power’s lip is curling, his arms folded, as he looks at Atreus with what might be disgust. But the commonality between their reactions is horror. As if what Atreus describes—a cool reckoning unmotivated by personal vendetta—is the most unsettling of all histories.