Fireborne

by Rosaria Munda

  I smile into my teacup. That is how she chooses to reduce it? And then I set it down and level my gaze across the table at Dora.

  “I did it because I believe Lee is everything Atreus’s test found him to be.”

  Dora hums softly, nodding to herself.

  “Yes, I can see why you would think that,” she says. She settles back, blinking at me with beady eyes. “And I can also see why that would make Atreus see him as a threat to everything he’s struggling to build.”

  I open my mouth to tell her that Lee isn’t, and no words come.

  Because, of course, he is.

  The realization is simple, obvious, and terrifying—until it’s answered with a memory from another lifetime. Of a boy who was good to me, who helped me first and asked who my parents were after, who remained my friend in spite of learning truths that hurt.

  Maybe Lee does embody threats that Atreus opposes. Maybe he is a part of the shadow of the dragonlords that we must crawl out of by any means necessary. But when we were children and our choices were what mattered, the choices he made were not of the old world, but the new.

  “Even after today?” I ask.

  Dora smiles.

  “I think,” she says, “that Atreus is capable of being shaken, and that today, what you and Lee did shook him a great deal.”

  She laces her fingers together across her plump abdomen and straightens against her wicker chair. Stretching, turning talk to business.

  “It also attracted my interest. In the boy’s future, and yours as well. And if I am interested, the Janiculum is interested. Do you understand?”

  She does not have to say the words Protectorship and succession for me to understand her perfectly.

  “I believe I do.”

  Dora smiles. She opens her gesture, taking in the tray of biscuits on the table between us, a luxury unaffected by the rationing program that I’m in charge of enforcing.

  “Please,” she says. “Eat.”

  * * *

  ***

  I return to the Palace infirmary later that day, when Lee’s sleeping draft is due to have worn off. I walk down corridors flooded with warm swaths of sunlight down to the final ward and stop on the threshold.

  Lee is in bed, awake, and propped on pillows. He has two visitors: Cor, seated at the end of his bed, and Crissa, her chair pulled up close to him. They’re doing most of the talking, passing the thread of conversation back and forth carefully, relieving Lee of pressure to contribute. Lee, between them, does not share their smiles, but neither does he wear the expression of raw agony that I left him with earlier. He has calmed, and even if he doesn’t speak, he seems to take comfort in their presence.

  It’s with a pain that feels strangely distant from myself that I notice Crissa has taken his hand. The kiss he and I shared in a darkened cell feels like it already belongs to the lives of former selves, burned away in the fire. What’s left beneath, still raw, doesn’t know what claim to place on this boy, whom I’ve just sent to hell and back.

  But then Lee looks past them, as their conversation continues. His gray eyes soften at the sight of me, and the beginning of a line appears at the side of his mouth, like something just a little sadder than a smile, and I know the words without their needing to be said.

  Our claim on each other is the same as it’s always been. The fires we walked through today were ones we’ve trained to walk since childhood. And today, the choices that began in childhood made us strong enough to defy two regimes, in the name of revolution.

  Together we’ll defy them, step by step through this fire, to the end.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Fireborne was inspired by many sources, chief among them Virgil’s Aeneid and Plato’s Republic. I first read Virgil as a high school Latin student and remember being struck, like Annie, by the tragedy of lines that I only half understood. The translations I made then, particularly those recounting Aeneas’s flight from burning Troy, became the adaptive source for many of the lines in Fireborne attributed to the Aurelian Cycle.

  My love of the classics has always been amateur, and I’d be the first to admit that the resemblances between this Callipolis and Plato’s are few. But for readers curious about the sources that inspired Atreus’s regime, the basis for its political structure, propaganda, and censorship practices can be found in the Republic.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book owes its existence in greatest part to two brilliant women: my agent, Danielle Burby, and my editor, Arianne Lewin.

  Danielle changed my life when she found my manuscript in her slush pile, and since then, my awe of her has only grown. Her wisdom, kindness, and superb professionalism have made working with her a delight, and her emails have an uncanny ability to unknot the thorniest of problems—and to brighten the darkest of days. She has been my champion, cheerleader, counselor, and friend.

  The year we spent in revisions, Ari Lewin worked me into a state of advanced exhaustion, kept me going with her wicked sense of humor, and let me up for air about three drafts past what I had thought would be good enough. Ari redefined good enough—and for an author at the beginning of her career, there could be no greater gift. Ari modeled and inspired a perseverance that transformed my book, matured my writing, and set the bar for the kind of writer I want to be.

  In the larger publishing world, I would like to thank Kristin and Brian Nelson and the entire team at the Nelson Literary Agency; my foreign rights agents, Jenny Meyer and Heidi Gall, for finding homes for Fireborne abroad; Alice Lawson, Fireborne’s film and television co-agent at Gersh; and those at Putnam and Penguin Teen who helped bring this book into the world, including Elise LeMassena, Tessa Meischeid, Anuoluwapo Ohioma, Lindsey Andrews, and Jennifer Klonsky, with special thanks to Kristie Radwilowicz for a truly revolutionary cover.

  I count myself lucky to have met and been supported by other writers along the way: Jennifer Gilmore, my undergraduate creative writing advisor; Kristen Ciccarelli and Rachel Hartman, whose wisdom lights the way; and my fellow Novel Nineteens, particularly Bridget Tyler, Nicki Pau Preto, Joanna Hathaway, Malayna Evans, Mara Rutherford, and Crystal Smith. Closer to home, I’m grateful to the Chicagoland writing community, especially Lizzie Cooke, my first-ever writer-neighbor and cafe buddy; Jeff Bishop, who brought the party to Team Lewin; and Reese Eschmann, who made Fireborne a better book.

  My road to publishing was rocky and long, and I would never have made it without the combined love and brainpower of the communities that saw me through. I’m grateful to the parents and teachers of CBECC, particularly for the support of Jeremiah and Marcy Flanagan; the Seton community, especially Beth Norman and Linda Zehren, who helped get me over the finish line; and Portsmouth Abbey School, for being my Hogwarts. I couldn’t have asked for a better cheering squad than Laureen and Michael Bonin, Kate Smith, Kale and Dimi Zelden, the great McDonough clan, and Dom Paschal Scotti.

  I would like to thank the following mentors, friends, and readers who’ve made the difference along the way: Anna Stilz, Helen McCabe, Melissa Lane, and Elizabeth Benestad, for teaching classes that inspired Fireborne; Maggie, my first-ever Voice of the Youth, and Marina, my youngest-ever reader; Sandra Vazquez Ventimilla, Jackson Popkin, Lehman Garrison, Joseph Labatt, Paul Baker, and Chelsea Mueller, for giving their feedback and thumbs-up; Marie and Frederick Nesfield, who’ve been beta reading for me since we were ten; Alissa Spera, for answering every question and bringing two bottles of champagne; and Phil Dershwitz, who convinced me he really did like it when I needed it most.

  I am grateful in particular for the friendship and support of my first two readers and forever-roommates: Katrina Hall, the wise witness to my journey in all its twists and turns, whose beautiful correspondence I treasure like gems. And Erin McDonough, painter of poetry and namer of dragons, who loves the great stories and understands why.

  Last but really first, thank you to my f
amily: Grandma, Pam, David, and Mary Beth, whose love is my bedrock. The Stone family, for welcoming me as a fourth daughter and sister. Lorenzo and Marie Laure, je vous aime pour toujours. My father, who dared to chase the American dream. My mother, who feared nothing and gave me everything.

  And Robert, who has been my first confidant, my best friend, and my anchor at the end of good writing days and bad: I found the shape of this book in our conversations, and its heart in loving you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rosaria grew up in rural North Carolina, where she climbed trees, read Harry Potter fanfiction, and taught herself Latin. She studied political theory at Princeton and lives in Chicago with her husband and cat.

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