CHAPTER _ONE

Conscription Day is always the deadliest. Maybe that’s why the
sunrise is especially beautiful this morning—because I know it might
be my last.
I tighten the straps of my heavy canvas rucksack and trudge up
the wide staircase of the stone fortress I call home. My chest heaves
with exertion, my lungs burning by the time I reach the stone
corridor leading to General Sorrengail’s office. This is what six
months of intense physical training has given me—the ability to
barely climb six flights of stairs with a thirty-pound pack.
I’m so fucked.
The thousands of twenty-year-olds waiting outside the gate to
enter their chosen quadrant for service are the smartest and
strongest in Navarre. Hundreds of them have been preparing for the
Riders Quadrant, the chance to become one of the elite, since birth.
I’ve had exactly six months.
The expressionless guards lining the wide hallway at the top of the
landing avoid my eyes as I pass, but that’s nothing new. Besides,
being ignored is the best possible scenario for me.
Basgiath War College isn’t known for being kind to…well, anyone,
even those of us whose mothers are in command.
Every Navarrian officer, whether they choose to be schooled as
healers, scribes, infantry, or riders, is molded within these cruel walls
over three years, honed into weapons to secure our mountainous
borders from the violent invasion attempts of the kingdom of
Poromiel and their gryphon riders. The weak don’t survive here,
especially not in the Riders Quadrant. The dragons make sure of
that.
“You’re sending her to die!” a familiar voice thunders through the
general’s thick wooden door, and I gasp. There’s only one woman on
the Continent foolish enough to raise her voice to the general, but
she’s supposed to be on the border with the Eastern Wing. Mira.
There’s a muffled response from the office, and I reach for the
door handle.
“She doesn’t stand a chance,” Mira shouts as I force the heavy
door open and the weight of my pack shifts forward, nearly taking
me down. Shit.
The general curses from behind her desk, and I grab onto the back
of the crimson-upholstered couch to catch my balance.
“Damn it, Mom, she can’t even handle her rucksack,” Mira snaps,
rushing to my side.
“I’m fine!” My cheeks heat with mortification, and I force myself
upright. She’s been back for five minutes and is already trying to
save me. Because you need saving, you fool.
I don’t want this. I don’t want any part of this Riders Quadrant
shit. It’s not like I have a death wish. I would have been better off
failing the admission test to Basgiath and going straight to the army
with the majority of conscripts. But I can handle my rucksack, and I
will handle myself.
“Oh, Violet.” Worried brown eyes look down at me as strong hands
brace my shoulders.
“Hi, Mira.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. She might be
here to say her goodbyes, but I’m just glad to see my sister for the
first time in years.
Her eyes soften, and her fingers flex on my shoulders like she
might pull me into a hug, but she steps back and turns to stand at
my side, facing our mother. “You can’t do this.”
“It’s already done.” Mom shrugs, the lines of her fitted black
uniform rising and falling with the motion.
I scoff. So much for the hope of a reprieve. Not that I ever should
have expected, or even hoped for, an ounce of mercy from a woman
who’s been made famous for her lack of it.
“Then undo it,” Mira seethes. “She’s spent her whole life training to
become a scribe. She wasn’t raised to be a rider.”
“Well, she certainly isn’t you, is she, Lieutenant Sorrengail?” Mom
braces her hands on the immaculate surface of her desk and leans in
slightly as she stands, looking us over with narrowed, appraising
eyes that mirror the dragons’ carved into the furniture’s massive
legs. I don’t need the prohibited power of mind reading to know
exactly what she sees.
At twenty-six years old, Mira’s a younger version of our mother.
She’s tall, with strong, powerful muscles toned from years of
sparring and hundreds of hours spent on the back of her dragon.
Her skin practically glows with health, and her golden-brown hair is
sheared short for combat in the same style as Mom’s. But more than
looks, she carries the same arrogance, the unwavering conviction
that she belongs in the sky. She’s a rider through and through.
She’s everything I’m not, and the disapproving shake of Mom’s
head says she agrees. I’m too short. Too frail. What curves I do have
should be muscle, and my traitorous body makes me embarrassingly
vulnerable.
Mom walks toward us, her polished black boots gleaming in the
mage lights that flicker from the sconces. She picks up the end of
my long braid, scoffs at the section just above my shoulders where
the brown strands start to lose their warmth of color and slowly fade
to a steely, metallic silver by the ends, and then drops it. “Pale skin,
pale eyes, pale hair.” Her gaze siphons every ounce of my confidence
down to the marrow in my bones. “It’s like that fever stole all your
coloring along with your strength.” Grief flashes through her eyes
and her brows furrow. “I told him not to keep you in that library.”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard her curse the sickness that nearly
killed her while she was pregnant with me or the library Dad made
my second home once she’d been stationed here at Basgiath as an
instructor and he as a scribe.
“I love that library,” I counter. It’s been more than a year since his
heart finally failed, and the Archives are still the only place that feels
like home in this giant fortress, the only place where I still feel my
father’s presence.
“Spoken like the daughter of a scribe,” Mom says quietly, and I see
it—the woman she was while Dad was alive. Softer. Kinder…at least
for her family.
“I am the daughter of a scribe.” My back screams at me, so I let
my pack slip from my shoulders, guiding it to the floor, and take my
first full breath since leaving my room.
Mom blinks, and that softer woman is gone, leaving only the
general. “You’re the daughter of a rider, you are twenty years old,
and today is Conscription Day. I let you finish your tutoring, but like
I told you last spring, I will not watch one of my children enter the
Scribe Quadrant, Violet.”
“Because scribes are so far beneath riders?” I grumble, knowing
perfectly well that riders are the top of the social and military
hierarchy. It helps that their bonded dragons roast people for fun.
“Yes!” Her customary composure slips. “And if you dare walk into
the tunnel toward the Scribe Quadrant today, I will rip you out by
that ridiculous braid and put you on the parapet myself.”
My stomach turns over.
“Dad wouldn’t want this!” Mira argues, color flushing up her neck.
“I loved your father, but he’s dead,” Mom says, as if giving the
weather report. “I doubt he wants much these days.”
I suck in a breath but keep my mouth shut. Arguing will get me
nowhere. She’s never listened to a damned thing I’ve had to say
before, and today is no different.
“Sending Violet into the Riders Quadrant is tantamount to a death
sentence.” Guess Mira isn’t done arguing. Mira’s never done arguing
with Mom, and the frustrating thing about it is that Mom has always
respected her for it. Double standard for the win. “She’s not strong
enough, Mom! She’s already broken her arm this year, she sprains
some joint every other week, and she’s not tall enough to mount any
dragon big enough to keep her alive in a battle.”
“Seriously, Mira?” What. The. Hell. My fingernails bite into my
palms as I curl my hands into fists. Knowing my chances of survival
are minimal is one thing. Having my sister throw my inadequacies in
my face is another. “Are you calling me weak?”
“No.” Mira squeezes my hand. “Just…fragile.”
“That’s not any better.” Dragons don’t bond fragile women. They
incinerate them.
“So she’s small.” Mom scans me up and down, taking in the
generous fit of the cream belted tunic and pants I selected this
morning for my potential execution.
I snort. “Are we just listing my faults now?”
“I never said it was a fault.” Mom turns to my sister. “Mira, Violet
deals with more pain before lunch than you do in an entire week. If
any of my children is capable of surviving the Riders Quadrant, it’s
her.”
My eyebrows rise. That sounded an awful lot like a compliment,
but with Mom, I’m never quite sure.
“How many rider candidates die on Conscription Day, Mom? Forty?
Fifty? Are you that eager to bury another child?” Mira seethes.
I cringe as the temperature in the room plummets, courtesy of
Mom’s storm-wielding signet power she channels through her
dragon, Aimsir.
My chest tightens at the memory of my brother. No one has dared
to mention Brennan or his dragon in the five years since they died
fighting the Tyrrish rebellion in the south. Mom tolerates me and
respects Mira, but she loved Brennan.
Dad did, too. His chest pains started right after Brennan’s death.
Mom’s jaw tightens and her eyes threaten retribution as she glares
at Mira.
My sister swallows but holds her own in the staring competition.
“Mom,” I start. “She didn’t mean—”
“Get. Out. Lieutenant.” Mom’s words are soft puffs of steam in the
frigid office. “Before I report you absent from your unit without
leave.”
Mira straightens her posture, nods once, and pivots with military
precision, then strides for the door without another word, grabbing a
small rucksack on the way out.
It’s the first time Mom and I have been alone in months.
Her eyes meet mine, and the temperature rises as she takes a
deep breath. “You scored in the top quarter for speed and agility
during the entrance exam. You’ll do just fine. All Sorrengails do just
fine.” She skims the backs of her fingers down my cheek, barely
grazing my skin. “So much like your father,” she whispers before
clearing her throat and backing up a few steps.
Guess there are no meritorious service awards for emotional
availability.
“I won’t be able to acknowledge you for the next three years,” she
says, sitting back on the edge of her desk. “Since, as commanding
general of Basgiath, I’ll be your far superior officer.”
“I know.” It’s the least of my concerns, considering she barely
acknowledges me now.
“You won’t get any special treatment just because you’re my
daughter, either. If anything, they’ll come after you harder to make
you prove yourself.” She arches an eyebrow.
“Well aware.” Good thing I’ve been training with Major Gillstead for
the last several months since Mom made her decree.
She sighs and forces a smile. “Then I guess I’ll see you in the
valley at Threshing, candidate. Though you’ll be a cadet by sunset, I
suppose.”
Or dead.
Neither of us says it.
“Good luck, Candidate Sorrengail.” She moves back behind her
desk, effectively dismissing me.
“Thank you, General.” I heft my pack onto my shoulders and walk
out of her office. A guard closes the door behind me.
“She’s batshit crazy,” Mira says from the center of the hallway, right
between where two guards are positioned.
“They’ll tell her you said that.”
“Like they don’t already know,” she grinds out through clenched
teeth. “Let’s go. We only have an hour before all candidates have to
report, and I saw thousands waiting outside the gates when I flew
over.” She starts walking, leading me down the stone staircase