Be Proud of that Skin Full of Scars

Chapter 1

Xaden.

I'd been thinking about it for weeks. Months. Since I thought I was going to die, since I wanted to die fighting next to my father and he sent me away, since my last words to him were in anger and I realized I was never going to get to fix it.

I thought a lot about things I was never going to get to do, and things I never wanted to let happen. I knew then that I couldn't be the woman my father imagined I'd be, the duchess of Aretia that led Navarre into an honest and honorable future, a proud infantry captain, maye even the Queen of a free Tyrrendor. I'd never be the daughter he watched grow up, get married, and learn from his hand how to be the leader our people needed.

One tiny, guilty thought bloomed behind that grief. If I couldn't grow up to be the woman he imagined I would be, if I never got to apologize and ask for his understanding… well, I couldn't disappoint him either, could I?

I thought about it when I asked for Sorrengail like Prince Xaden had in the stories, offering himself to secure the safety of his people. I hated her, but she was the highest-ranking soldier who'd actually been in Aretia, who'd done the fighting, and I knew better than to trust soldiers who didn't fight. Our parents had tried to keep us save twice already, once by putting us in that damn safehouse and once with Colonel Mairi's runestones. Our luck would run out eventually, though.

So I had to think Dad would be okay with me doing whatever I had to do to keep the other children alive. That meant accepting the knife, and her deal, and then standing there while she presented it to her leadership. That meant bowing my head to Tauri, and saying the empty words Sorrengail put in my mouth.

I'd met Duke Lindell several times at my father's side, and I didn't know the plans they'd outlined but I knew Lindell was one of those my father had sent away with instructions to play Navarre's game, as a backup plan. Maybe that was three times our parents planned to save our lives.

It meant Liam and I went back to Tyrrendor in a carriage, as comfortable as was possible given the state of my back. Even though I worried for Bodhi and Liam worried for his sister, even though Lindell was distant and careful, I knew it could have been so much worse.

I had nightmares about dragonfire. Watching my father burn, or where the runes didn't work and I had to watch Bodhi and everyone everyone else burn around me. Sometimes I felt myself burn away until there was nothing left of me.

But I woke up. As long as I woke up, I told myself, it could have been worse. Sometimes Liam climbed into my bed, the way Bodhi had when we were younger. Sometimes I slept on the couch in his room, the way Garrick and I had traded off.

We had a lot going for us, honestly. We were housed and fed and treated like guests. We had tutors and books. We had freedom, mostly. Without worrying about pleasing my father, or keeping up with all of his expectations, I had more time to think about what I wanted than I ever had. It was a strange thing to find in my grief.

Liam cut his hair a season or so into our stay. Normally a boy cutting his braids for manhood would give them to his parents; Bodhi had done it impulsively before we went to the safehouse so he could give his to his mother. Liam kept his until Malek's bonfire at Samhain instead. I watched him place his on the pyre alongside all the other offerings made: the letters we'd written to our parents, symbols of things that had ended during the year, memories and things that had been missed during funerals, and gifts for Malek, begging his help with things that hadn't ended clean.

My braid felt like it weighed more than a dragon, dragging me down. I wished I'd had the courage to offer it to my father like Garrick had, like Bodhi had. I'd held back because it wasn't something girls did. Women might wear their hair short for practical reasons in adulthood but that was different.

Lindell spoke to the assembled townsfolk in Navarran as he always did, but when I watched him join the priestess from the temple to light the pyre, I realized he was speaking the blessing in Tyrrish. It was the first time I'd heard him speak it, the first time I'd heard it from anyone since Aretia burned.

I watched the first flames lick up against the offerings to Malek and that regret shot through me again like lightning, and I knew the dead were never closer than their first Samhain after walking with Malek. If I wanted to…

Before I could second-guess myself, I ran into the kitchen. Most of the staff was out at the bonfire, and the woman minding the cookfire was facing away as I grabbed the kitchen shears and started hacking as close to the back of my head as I could without feeling like I was going to cut my ears off.

When I finally got through the braid, the weight of it fell fully from my left hand. It looked longer, somehow, in my hands; maybe because it wasn't starting out of view. I left the shears on the counter and ran back out to the pyre, not stopping when I heard my name called half a dozen times.

I went so close I thought my eyebrows would burn off, so close I could smell the memory of my father dying. I threw the braid as hard as I could into the flames and it disappeared. I stood there staring where it had gone, frozen. I let the memories come for me. It was too hot to cry.

Liam grabbed at my shoulders and pulled me back, wrapping his arms around me. I realized he was shaking.

"It's just hair," I told him, the words tumbling out in Tyrrish. I repeated them half a dozen times, rubbing his back. He didn't let go, but he did look up at me and I saw fear and grief there, splotches of damp that shone in the firelight.

"I thought– I don't know. I worried you were going to jump in. I thought I saw my mom. I don't know. I don't know. I panicked." He kept repeating himself. I held him even tighter.

"I'm sorry, Liam. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't think."

Slowly he started to relax his grip on me. "You won't leave me, right? You promise?"

"I won't, Liam, I promise. I won't leave you." Even as I said it, in the back of my head I knew I'd have to go to Basgiath before he would, that it was inevitable that I'd leave him. But that wasn't what he needed to hear right now, so I took the weight of the lie along with his fear onto my shoulders.

When he finally let go and stepped back to look at me, I saw him blink like he was actually seeing what I'd done. The moment had passed, and he spoke in the common Navarran again. "You cut off your braid. Why?"

"Like you… I wanted to offer it to my dad."

"But that's a thing men do." Men, not boys. Liam was a man now too, I realized.

"It is," I agreed, trying to figure out what I wanted to say, how to explain it.

Liam just grinned at me, though, and the reflection of the bonfire in his eyes glowed like the sun. "Does that mean you're my brother now?"

"Absolutely." I nodded. "I've felt like a boy more than a girl, a lot of times, and when I think of everything else I have to do… when I think of my future, I want to imagine myself as a man. Does that make sense?"

Liam pulled me into another hug, this one so tight that the scars on my back pulled and ached, but I didn't care. He hadn't answered me with words, but I don't think he needed to.

That night we slept curled up together in my bed at his suggestion. "So I won't have nightmares," he suggested.

I think it worked. At least, I didn't have any, and he didn't wake me up gasping or shouting.

At breakfast in the morning, Lindell fussed over my hair. "We'll need to get it fixed up and presentable before we leave."

"Leave? Where are we going?"

He didn't answer, only continued to tut about finding someone who could fix it.

"Shear it the rest of the way," I told him. "I want it cut like Liam's."

"You'll look like a farm girl."

"Liam doesn't look like a farm girl."

"That's because Liam is a young man. Where is this coming from?"

I screwed up my courage to answer him. Under the table, Liam poked my foot with his in support.

"Tell me where we're going first."

His mouth in a tight line, Lindell dismissed the servants who were fussing over the breakfast dishes. "We're going to Aretia, and so it is extremely important you look like the duchess you are."

"To Aretia? Why? To mourn?" I snapped harder than I probably should have at him, but I could tell we weren't going to have this conversation properly until I got all of the information out of him. "Tell me what you have planned."

"This is why I never had children, you know. I'm not suited for this." Lindell sighed. "We're going to Aretia to introduce you to the Assembly, a group of riders who have defected from Navarre and are believed to be dead. They are on our side, and among other things they are working to continue your father's rebellion."

"Apostasy," I said automatically, and thought about what he'd said. "Very well then, I have a request. When we go in front of the assembly, I want to be introduced as my father's son."

Lindell held his mouth closed in a tight line and studied me. I could almost imagine that I saw him cycling through reactions, waiting to get to one he felt was appropriate. Appropriateness in all things was so important to him, it was no wonder my father had agreed to his role pretending to support Navarre. Finally, Lindell's face settled and he spoke: "Tell me more about what you're thinking."

I hurried to put sort my thoughts in the order I thought he'd want to hear them. "I want to– We're– I'm rebuilding everything, aren't I? You're taking me there to assert Tyrrendor still controls Aretia and the rebellion. And I'm rebuilding myself, my self-image, my future..." I trailed off, looking at the a dark, faintly shimmering marks that traced my arm. I'd just begun to get used to seeing them there, in my peripheral vision. My hair wasn't the only thing about me that had changed, after all. "I might as well be what feels right to me; I should start as I mean to go forward, for constancy's sake. And it will demonstrate confidence." I wondered if I should coach it in strategic terms, if that was what Lindell was looking for.

"And how far have you thought through this, young Duke?" Lindell asked. "How would I introduce you? What will you say when you have to present yourself before the crown?"

"I will humble myself as Tauri's ego requires, of course, but Navarre has nothing to gain by being petty about it. Maybe they'll decide that my father was lying about having a daughter all along."

"You know, they just might." He gave a light chuckle at that. "And as for your name? I'd advise you not to take your father's or your grandfather's, purely for political reasons, but beyond that…"

Liam leaned in, half-whispering, "Can I say something?"

"Of course," I told him, and he grinned wide again.

"You've always been Xaden to me," Liam said. "The first time we met you and Garrick were already playing and my mom said you were kind of a tomboy before she brought me over and you said 'I'm Prince Xaden and this is Fiaclan' and pointed to the boy with you, and I didn't think too much about it for ages. I just thought you had a sister maybe? I was twelve before I figured out. When I told my dad later I thought those were your real names, he laughed."

I didn't remember that specific day, but I remembered those games, how I'd almost always insisted on being Prince Xaden and assigning roles to anyone else who was around to play. Usually Bodhi had been Miraz or the Krovlan king, while Garrick was one of Prince Xaden's loyal knights or the great dragon Fiaclan.

Nobody I cared about had argued about it either. When Imogen or Eya was there, sometimes they wanted to play as one of the great queens, but the idea rarely appealed to me. Prince Xaden was my favorite.

"You don't need to decide today," Lindell interrupted my thoughts. "We'll be leaving in a fortnight, and we'll be several days on the road. Let's focus on making sure you're presentable."

I didn't care for the way he said presentable; it was too much like the way my mother had said it when I came in muddy from playing. Nonetheless, I got what I wanted: one of the valets trimmed my hair into a style similar to what Liam (and Lindell) now wore. I pushed the dresses in my wardrobe back into the corner, and a few new shirts and trousers appeared with the clean laundry.

When the time came for our visit, Lindell had little more to say than he had initially, and we spent the carriage ride being lectured in the politics that had been moving behind the scenes since my father's death. I could tell Liam was listening too, but Lindell's focus was on me, as it always seemed to be.

We arrived at Riorson House late enough that it was dark when we got out of the carriage. The place where I'd grown up felt strange, even foreign. There were no torches or magelights outside, no guards at the doors. In the pale light of the quarter-moon, shadows covered almost everything. Slightly lighter triangles next to darker black lines showed where the courtyard stone was scored deeply, and I could still smell char where it hid underneath the other smells of Aretia in winter. There was pine and cedar and the crisp scent of snow in the mountains and… was it a campfire or a hearth nearby? Or was it the memory of the city burning?

I couldn't see where I was going but muscle memory took over as soon as my feet were on the stone. I went up one wide step and then another, then pressed my hands against the door.

I'd never actually opened this door myself– usually the main door was open and guarded, and even if it wasn't due to the weather, a guard would have it open before I got close enough to try. If it was late enough that it was closed and barred, I'd be using another exit anyway.

The wood was warm under my hands, and I could feel the carved runes set into it. I knew this door, this place, in my bones. It knew me, too: I was a Riorson, returning to the home of my ancestral line.

The door opened more easily than I expected. It felt almost light when I pushed it.

Inside, the entry hall did have some light, a few dim magelights that sputtered and brightened when we came in like soldiers caught out by a commanding officer.

There was a single young man waiting for us, reading by magelight. He didn't stand right away, and when he did I noticed he kept his finger in his book like we were interrupting him.

"You knew we'd arrive tonight?" Lindell sounded surprised. I knew he'd pushed the carriage driver to get here as soon as possible, but I hadn't realized he intended to surprise them.

"Marbh spotted your carriage a few hours ago. I tend to be a night owl regardless, so I figured I'd make sure you were welcomed." He nodded, "Suri may have mentioned me in her correspondence with you. I'm Brennan Aisreigh, your grace. Would you like me to show you to your rooms?"

"I know where I'm going," I announced, daring him to argue. "It's my house, after all. Liam can stay with me."

"Of course, your grace," Brennan answered, smiling. I took hold of Liam's wrist, pulling him with me, and as we left I heard him speaking to Lindell: "Aristocrasy or not, I know that tone of voice. When my sisters got like that, I knew better than to argue."

I showed Liam up to my room. It looked the same, and with everything else so different I was horrified to realize I was crying.

"Xaden?"

"Let's go to sleep," I told him. "Bath chamber's over here." The faucets were slow to respond, the pipes out of use, but there was water soon enough. I let Liam shower first, and then I stood under the water for too long, overwhelmed by feelings that I didn't know what to do with.

Finally I stumbled out into my bedroom. Without thinking, I pulled on a pair of my old night clothes. It hadn't been that long, but between time and the training Lindell had started us on, apparently it had been long enough. They were snug across my shoulders, rubbed uncomfortably across the scars on my back, and the pants hung above my ankles.

Of course they didn't fit. Or rather, I didn't fit. But tomorrow I was going to have to go in front of this Assembly and assert that they had to answer to me in Aretia. How was I going to do that?

I laid down in the bed next to Liam, letting his body heat relax me. I thought of all of the times I'd seen my father in command, how he carried himself, and as I drifted to sleep I thought maybe I had a plan…

—

In the morning, I took Liam down to the kitchen through the servants' passages. The kitchens were quieter than I'd ever seen them, with only one small fire lit. I found rolls and jam for Liam and I, and on the way out of the kitchen I found Lindell speaking to a man and a woman in riders' leathers. I introduced myself and Liam, and Lindell told me we'd be meeting after lunch.

With the time to kill and a plan only half-formed, I decided I needed to do something selfish. I took Liam up to my favorite place to sit and think, a hill outside Aretia where I'd gone since I was little.

"Wow…" Liam whispered when I showed him the view.

"This used to be my favorite view of Aretia."

"It's still beautiful," Liam said. "Different, probably. But beautiful."

I tried to see the city the way Liam did, not just an echo of what wasn't there anymore but what still existed. It did still have many of the best features– the mountains were the same as they always were, covered in snow aside from the shock of green where the nesting grounds of the black dragons once was. Riorson House looked the same from here, part of the cliff face behind it.

The Temple of Amari was still there, even if it was different. The riot of spring flowers coloring the grass by the river was bigger and wilder than I remembered it being.

There was also something beautiful in the signs of rebuilding that I could see. It meant there were people who cared about my city. It meant people had survived and returned, loved it enough to come back and make it their home again. People who were my responsibility no matter what some stupid king in stupid Calldyr tried to say.

Navarre could never make me stop caring.

Homesickness burned in my chest. It wasn't the first time, but it was the first time I'd felt it for this Aretia: not the city I'd grown up in and lost, but the one that was rebuilding. Rebuilding without me.

Not only without me, but overseen but a bunch of riders from Navarre who had defected, who I barely knew. Had they ever been to Aretia before it was under siege? Did any of them understand what had been lost?

"We should probably get back." Liam elbowed me. "It's gonna be almost lunch probably."

And then it was time to face this Assembly. "Probably we should."

Liam shaded his eyes and squinted down the hill. "What's the fastest way to get down to the city from here?"

I grinned. "A straight line." Before he could ask anything else, I took off running straight down the hill. It felt like coming home properly to Aretia, not like sneaking in the dark the night before, and I whooped with joy as the cold air stung my eyes. Behind me, I heard Liam laughing as he ran.

It was almost like flying. It always was, and knowing that hadn't changed made me feel even lighter. It was familiar and reckless and free, and I realized the laughter I heard wasn't just Liam's, it was mine too.

When we returned to Riorson House in the bright light of day, it felt closer to a proper homecoming. I circled around to the kitchen door and showed Liam, so he'd know where else to get in and out.

"Come on," I said, gesturing to Liam to follow me as I ran back up to the family wing. "We need to get ready for the meeting and I have an idea."

"You know I'm good to follow you," Liam said as I threw open the wardrobe in the storage room at the end of the hall, revealing a forest of silks and velvets in every shade of Tyrrish green and a dozen colors to coordinate, "but why are we dressing up?" I started pulling out bits and pieces I remembered my father wearing and anything else that caught my eye.

"I'm dressing up because I need to make sure this Assembly remembers they're a bunch of interlopers from Navarre and I am a prince -- well, okay, I'm not a prince or a duke officially-- but I'm a Riorson of Tyrrendor." I stripped out of the shirt and trousers we'd gone out in and started by wrapping a dress shirt of deep teal silk over my tight undershirt. Then I pulled out a dark green robe, hesitating.

This was the most traditional of formalwear, clothing that I'd only seen my father wear when we'd trekked to the temples of Amari and Dunne to ask for blessings before starting the rebellion. Embroidered leaves and vines twisted up the sleves, speaking of prosperity and good harvests. This style was what the old Queens and Kings of Tyrrendor had worn, when Tyrrendor had queens and kings.

When we played as kids (Liam was still a kid, I reminded myself) these were the sorts of things I'd imagined myself wearing as Prince Xaden, treating with the black dragon den and fighting threats to his kingdom. The silk was shot through with metal threads, runes woven right into it for protection from a dozen threats.

The robes were heavier than anything I'd worn before. I may not have grown into my full height yet, and so the heavier silk that was supposed to land below my hips instead hung at mid-thigh. I didn't think the Assembly would even know the difference, but I frowned regardless, adjusting a belt to see if I liked the way it laid better if the belt held it up.

"Here, you can be my second," I offered Liam, pulling out some of the other pieces. We ended up cobbling together something that mostly fit Liam's lanky frame out of the loose-fitting pants I had worn for the temple procession and a paler green robe that technically would have marked Liam as my heir.

I missed Bodhi and Garrick both fiercely in those moments, torn between my gratitude for Liam's support and the fact that neither of the roles my foster brother was playing should have been his. Still, Liam knew enough about formalwear to help, and it was good to have someone standing next to me even if it wasn't Garrick or Bodhi. Once Liam was dressed, I distracted myself by studying the pair of us in the dressing mirror.

Liam's voice was quiet with awe. "You really do look like Prince Xaden," he whispered.

I wasn't sure about that. I wanted to feel like Prince Xaden, yes, but for the first time, I saw my father in my reflection. It was a relief to see my father again, even when grief washed over me. I knew my father, and I knew his role. I told myself I could do this.

When we returned to the first floor and the chamber where the Assembly was meeting, I looked to Lindell first. The man's eyes widened like he'd seen a ghost, but he quickly smiled.

"Gentlefolk, it seems your leader has arrived. For those of you who haven't already, may I introduce you to Xi-"

"I am Xaden Riorson," I said, first to Lindell and then looking over the gathered Assembly. "Thank you for agreeing to serve my country."

The meeting went about as well as could be expected. The Assembly– all riders who'd fought under Navarre's banner against the rebellion before turning– were by turns infuriating and patronizing, talking about the strategic value of this or that choice in the battle against the venin without nearly as much attention paid to restoring Aretia as I would have liked. All of their strategy felt very shallow and eventually I put together why that was.

I'd let them talk largely among themselves until I was satisfied they were genuine, if deeply full of themselves. Then I leaned back and spoke to Lindell in Tyrrish: "They don't know?"

"They are your secrets to share. I certainly wasn't going to write them in a letter, and as far as I know it's never been spoken in Navarran."

"What don't we know?" The young man who'd met us at the door the night before was among those at the table. I'd assumed he was too young for such a role, but there weren't many to choose from so I probably shouldn't have been surprised.

What did surprise me was that he understood Tyrrish.

"Where are you from?" I asked him. I saw annoyance cross the faces of most of the other Assembly members, though one or two were paying attention as if they were at least trying to follow the conversation. Interesting.

"Nowhere in particular," Brennan Aisreigh said, "but my father taught me Tyrrish when I was younger."

"Interesting." There was a lot more I needed to know, needed to do, to fill my role. All of my roles. But… "Are you teaching the others?"

"As much as they're interested in learning," he answered and I nodded in appreciation. That was one fewer thing I had to worry about, and I suspected after this conversation, the ones who hadn't been interested before would be now.

"I think we've covered everything that needs to be discussed today," I decided finally. Details could wait. "Thank you again for choosing to serve Tyrrendor."

I stood and walked out, Liam falling into place beside me again. A clear dismissal. That had gone about as well as it could. Now there was just… too much to think about really. I took a deep breath and looked at Liam. He was smiling up at me with real hope in his eyes. They were the brightest I'd seen them in the months we'd been living together.

I would have to live up to that hope.

Chapter 2

Brennan

"Xaden! Wait." He paused, his back stiff. He was tall, even at seventeen, even without the proper balances in his body. His second, the blond boy, stopped half a step later, an obedient shadow to Riorson.

He was braced for an argument when he turned, I could see as much. "Aisreigh?" For a minute, I was convinced he knew I was lying about my name.

"I should tell him," I thought. "Before he finds out."

"You think he'll find out?" Marbh asked. He'd been bored most of the day, most of all the days lately. We'd both spent longer recovering than we liked. I'd been busy working on the ground most of the time since then.

"The other riders know. I can't imagine it won't come up at some point," I pointed out. Suri had already tried to bring my mother up in a meeting once and I'd shut her down. I hoped it wouldn't happen again, but… something told me that this young man would not appreciate secrets being kept from him.

"Can I speak with you for a minute, privately?"

Xaden raised an eyebrow, clearly trying to figure out my angle, and I needed to say the right thing quickly.

"It's not Assembly business, but another subject. More… personal, possibly."

He didn't look open but he at least looked curious now. He nodded to the younger boy. "Go change and wait for me, I won't be long." I stepped into one of the small sitting rooms off the grand hall, and Xaden followed, looking around at the space as he closed the door.

"Very well, what did you need?"

"Two things, one of which is a question," I said quickly. "The first is… I am using the name Aisreigh, but some of the others on the Assembly knew me before I changed it. I was Brennan Sorrengail."

His eyes flared with anger. "That woman burned the city in your name and you didn't even die?!"

"I did die," I corrected him, wondering if the words would ever stop sounding so heavy on my tongue. "I died and I am no longer dead."

Xaden's hands were angry fists, and I couldn't blame him. I still needed to continue. "I will be happy to tell you that story, my reasons for being here, whatever you need when you have more time," I hurried. "Before you leave, though, I wanted to ask, you are twice-born, correct? Do you have someone overseeing your treatment?"

"Treatment?"

"I know someone. Knew someone," I corrected myself. "I met him at Basgiath during my first year, but at the time he hadn't yet realized he was meant to be a man. He was about to graduate when he told me, and didn't know he had options.

"After he graduated, I spent time training with the mender at Basgiath, alongside the healers. I did research with Winn– with the head healer there, and with the herbalist that taught me when I was younger, so I would be able to help my someone with the tinctures to correct the balance when I followed him to his posting."

"So you're… offering?" Xaden's voice had gotten quiet. "To help me?"

"If you don't already have someone in Llewellyn who knows what they're doing, yes. If we started now, you should be established with the correct humors and hormones, and if you're interested in surgery… well, you have options. And time. Two and a half years. Would you like me to draw up a treatment plan for you?"

"You're very confident for a dead man barely out of rider training," Xaden drawled, but it was also the least tense I'd seen him all day.

"I learned from the best," I assured him.

"How is that working out for your… someone?"

"We barely had time to start before everthing became complicated. and then he died." I had time. Xaden had time.

Naolin hadn't had enough time.

When Xaden didn't respond I pushed ahead, babbling. "It would be a favor to me, in a way, if you let me help you. I feel responsible for what my mother did, yes, but I wanted to do so much for him and we never had the chance." I looked at the ground, willing my eyes back under my control. I was too well-trained to cry in front of the aristocracy.

Xaden only nodded. He didn't push at an obvious weak spot the way a Tauri would have. "I would appreciate that."

—

After he left, I tossed the small room in the guest quarters I'd claimed as mine, hunting for the notebook I'd been carrying when I died. I'd not bothered to copy out the research into a new one because I didn't… I didn't think I would use it. But I'd held onto it, just like I'd held onto Naolin's torn flight jacket. Like it was proof that he'd been there.

Opening it for the first time in months, the words from my past self hit me harder than I expected, and I'd expected them to hit me like a rider cadet with something to prove in the sparring ring. Research notes were interspersed with little drawings of Naolin, of other people we knew, and with little notes about Naolin, things I thought he would like or that I wanted to tell him when I got the chance.

Some of them, I had gotten to tell him. I breathed through it as my head spun with memories, and then I took some fresh paper to copy what I would need for Xaden's treatment.

It didn't surprise me that Naolin still loomed so large in my memories. I assumed he always would; he had even before I knew him personally. Naolin had had a reputation in the quadrant.

Of course he did, he was a bit of a legend already as a squad leader second-year, bonded to a dragon so large and powerful that even the professors' dragons deferred to him. It didn't help that my own squad leader, a third year named Kaori, couldn't seem to stop talking about Naolin's dragon like he had a crush him.

"So what if I do? I'm in good company. Half the quadrant wants to sleep with Tairn's rider too."

I didn't bother to point out the difference between talking about the rider and talking about their dragon like you wanted to sleep with them. Kaori was a good squad leader, so I didn't give him shit like some of the other first years did. I grew up with too much discipline for that.

Once I manifested my signet, I was always in demand in the quadrant. Emmetterio would call me over during sparring if someone was badly hurt, and my squad mates took full advantage of the "signet practice" I needed. Instead of spending my the signet time in my schedule with Carr, four days a week and weekends were spent in the healers quadrant with Nolon, learning hands-on.

It was nice, being around him and Winnifred so much. A bit like being at home. When Nolon had to fly to Calldyr, he'd pass me updates about my sisters when he returned, the only real advantage I had because of my legacy.

The first time I got to talk to Naolin was when he (she then, because I didn't know better and he hadn't told me yet) stumbled into the healers quadrant half-carrying another rider in his squad. I helped get her settled on one of the beds, even while Naolyn refused to remove a hand from the rider's midsection.

"I'm pretty sure I'm holding something in," Naolyn told me when I tried to pry her hand away.

Nolon had me try the mending, since I'd been training my signet for a few months now and he was there to help. As a healer cadet forced a dose of pain tonic into the rider's mouth, I closed my eyes and put my hands on either side of Naolyn's. As I worked Marbh's power through the torn organs, putting things back where they belonged, I felt something else warming me, something other than the firelight of Marbh's power.

I went back into myself enough to realize there was a hand on my back, not Nolon's. The energy was coming from there.

"The squad leader is a siphon," Marbh explained. "Their gift is both to take and to give."

The power braiding through Marbh's familiar light was… cooler, like a gentle breeze or ice on a burning forehead.

"You've been pushing yourself too much," my dragon said, but he didn't seem to mind when I wasn't actually threatening my own health. "Perhaps you should work with the siphon more often."

I realized then that I was done, the rider was healed. As I stopped, the tension of being mended relaxed into sleep across her body. Fresh scars crossed her midsection. The strands of gifted power faded, and Naolyn hugged me suddenly.

"You did it!"

"I did," I realized, grinning. Nolon clapped me on the back, congratulating me It was the most complex work I'd done, probably the first time I'd been entirely certain I'd actually saved a life. It felt good, really good. This was why I'd become a rider, I thought suddenly. Not just to make my mom proud or because it was my duty as a Sorrengail. To know I'd helped people.

"I felt you there," I told Naolyn. "Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help. I'd hate to have to find another XO, especially if they make me wingleader next year."

I laughed a little at that. She didn't want to leave her XO's side right away, so we talked for hours after that, about nothing in particular. When my shift was over, the healer replacing me at the patient's bedside shooed us away and told Naolyn to come back in the morning to collect her XO.

"You still look a little shaky," Naolyn looked me over. "Let me make sure you get to the dining hall in one piece."

"Do you think they'd let us in there right now?" I asked, gesturing at the dried blood on both of our leathers. "My first stop after a shift with the healers is always the showers."

"Good point. I'll see you around, Sorrengail." She smiled, genuine, something all too rare in the quadrant.

Chapter 3

Xaden

Most of the time, the Assembly came to us. It was more efficient, since they could fly.

I hated it. I wanted to go home, even if it meant more time in a carriage than in Aretia. Even if it meant leaving again. I thought I'd gotten good at leaving; I had no idea.

"It hurts," I said to Brennan in my nineteeth year, "knowing that Aretia is rebuilding and I can't be there to see it more than a few days a year if I'm lucky." He was showing me how to make the herbal tinctures he'd been providing me, in case I needed to make them for myself during my first year at Basgiath. I planned to take some with me across the parapet, and he thought the head of the healer's quadrant was trustworthy, but I didn't want to depend on anyone.

He looked thoughtful about what I'd said, his eyes unfocused as he ground the herbs in the little stone bowl. I watched attentively. It looked the same as what the cooks did in the kitchens. Then he asked me: "Does it help to think that you and Aretia are doing the same thing?"

"What do you mean?" As riders went, Brennan was infuriating in an entirely different way than the others. My father had always complained about riders being egotistical, and while he'd said it teasingly to my aunt, he said it seriously far more often.

Ferris and the others lived up to that assessment; even the most patient of them, Gerault, is patronizing in his kindness. But I think my father would have liked Brennan even when he's infuriating. Maybe it was because Brennan was younger than the rest of them, but he seemed to take his joy in out-thinking rather than overpowering. I suspected he was trying to prove to himself or the others that he belonged at the table despite his age. He was faster to take my side in a disagreement than anyone else.

He also listened. When I made points, he answered them instead of brushing me off. He also asked me questions about Aretia and Riorson House, about what things had looked like, about what was missing.

"You and Aretia are both something new, rebuilding your self-concept. She'll never be the city she was before, but no city stays the same, even in the best circumstances." Brennan handed me a small brown bottle and slid the ground herbs to me across the table on a piece of parchment. "I've read quite a bit about the city. It's easier to mend when I know what I'm fixing. And there's so much to read; Aretia's been inhabited as long as we have records. She's been a dozen different cities under the same name."

I rolled the parchment into a cone shape to funnel the herbs into the bottle. Once I'd gotten most of them in, Brennan handed me a measuring spoon and I carefully poured out the alcohol and added it to the bottle until it was full.

"Go ahead and paste a label on there and add today's date. For best results, let them sit in the dark through two full moon cycles and shake them every few days. That will be your summer dosages." He pulled another, similar bottle from his pocket. Sure enough, the date on it was just about two months before. "Now let's get this one ready for you to take now." More funnelling, this time to remove the herbs, and then re-bottling the tincture so it was ready for me.

His hands moved so confidently, made it look so easy. "How long did it take you to be good at this?" I asked as liquid dripped down the side of my bottle.

"I don't remember," he admitted, steadying my hand with his own. "My father started teaching me when I was a kid. I know your instinct is to go slow and be careful, but it doesn't pour correctly if you do that. You have to move decisively."

The casual comments he'd made about possibly teaching me a few poisons before I went to Basgiath flashed through my head. "He let you mess with this stuff as a kid? But it's all…"

"Breakable? Maybe poisonous?" He laughed. "We didn't start with dangerous things. But I wanted to help as far back as I can remember, and my mom's job wasn't really the kind of thing I could help with. My dad was the one who took care of us, and so I wanted to do everything he was doing: studying herbs, translating books, cooking dinner, caring for my sisters…"

Brennan got quiet then. We didn't talk about family much, between the small amount of time we had and the pain the subject carried for both of us.

"I wanted to be like my father too," I offered. I'd finally gotten as much of the tincture into the bottle as I was going to get, so I screwed the lid on snugly and wiped off the glass, trying not to smear the label.

He smiled at me. "I thought you wanted to be a fairytale prince?"

"That too," I shrugged. "You said there was something else to discuss this time?"

"I spoke with a healer in Cordyn, the last time I was there. He was familiar with the surgery they perform on twice-born men to remove the– the extra chest tissue."

"You can say breasts, Aisreigh, I know you're not flirting with me," I elbowed him.

"Right. I think I can work with a healer here to arrange the details."

"You won't do it yourself?"

Brennan looked distantly horrified. "I'm a mender and an herbalist, Xaden, I'm not actually a healer. I'm certainly not a surgeon."

"Of course, I just… I didn't think." I shook my head. Silly of me, really.

He fell back into the formal way he spoke with the Assembly most of the time, or with Lindell. "We'll want to do it soon if you're interested. There will be a recovery period, and you'll want to make sure you're used to the change in your center of gravity…"

"Will you be here? For the surgery?"

"I'll be here to mend you as soon as the surgeon is done."

I looked away from him, embarassed at my own relief. I needed to be strong. Self-sufficient.

Brennan left me with written instructions for the ingredients in my treatments. I made it a priority to commit them to memory, and spent more time in the kitchens practicing the skills Brennan had showed me and learning to cook. We didn't know what to expect at Basgiath, and I was ready for the worst, meaning not trusting anyone. I would cook for myself and Garrick and the other marked ones myself if I had to.

I would do whatever I could, whatever I had to. Prince Xaden had, and that was what made him great. I did lessons with Liam, sparred with him, drilled with him. I couldn't stop thinking about the surgery, though.

Liam preferred to spar topless. It was recommended by our sparring tutor, since it meant less options for an opponent to get a hold. I tried it several times, but I hated it. Instead I preferred to keep my chest bound flat. Not having to worry about it would be an improvement.

"How does it work?" I asked Brennan just before it happened. "How are you able to mend me to be different, after?"

"It's a bit like mending someone who's lost an arm," Brennan told me. "A mender can, if we're careful, choose the correct state to mend something to. We can turn limitations, like the inability to restore something that isn't there, into tools we wield."

"So the surgeon removes my breasts and you just… mend me up as if they were never there and I just lost a very strange knife fight?"

Brennan chuckled at at, and I felt a little more at ease. Still, I hated taking the sleep tonic, knowing I wouldn't be able to control what happened while I was out.

When I woke afterward, I was confused and panicked– my first thought was that I was back in Calldyr, waking up after I'd completed the bargain with Sorrengail. It hurt to breathe, and when I tried to move my arms, that hurt too.

I reached anyway, blindly searching for Garrick. My hand smacked into an arm and I dug my fingers in before I realized it wasn't Garrick, and this wasn't Calldyr, and I was laying on my back so clearly it wasn't the same thing at all.

"Apologies," I murmured, letting go of Brennan's arm.

He chuckled. "I've had worse from patients, don't worry."

The recovery was much easier than having my back scarred, between the mending and the limited number of cuts. There were still scars, dark red at first that faded to a lighter brown over the weeks. I didn't mind a few more.

I'd earned every one of them, after all.

Chapter 4

The hardest part of mending isn't actually knowing where things go. That's very important, yes, the ability follow my signet into a thing that was broken and understand where everything belonged was what made mending possible. But more than that, I had learned a new kind of confidence when I was learning to mend. Not just in using my signet, but in taking care of others.

There was something about Naolyn that I couldn't put my finger on. I couldn't stop thinking about her, watching her when I saw her squad headed somewhere. Sometimes we shared the flight field with them and I got to watch her on Tairn's back, the way she closed her eyes in the air.

Another second year in our wing died during War Games, because no one in Third Wing knows when to back off. Kaori told me that Naolyn had volunteered to burn his things.

"-if you want to talk to her alone," he said with an exaggerated wink.

"It's not like that." He should know; we'd both spent more than a few evenings choosing not to get drunk and sleep with anything that moved.

"I'm just letting you know. You've been watching her a lot."

I swallowed hard. I had to admit that Kaori wasn't wrong about that, not really. I didn't know what it was, just that I wanted to get to know her better. And I never liked to think about someone up there at the burn barrels alone.

I hesitated at the door, just in case she wasn't alone, but I didn't hear anything. When I stepped out into the open air, I spotted her next to the fire, folding paper with clever fingers.

"Do you want company?" I called out, not wanting to startle.

Naolyn looked up. The firelight made her smile look brittle. "Sorrengail. Don't tell me there's someone else walking with Malek tonight?"

"Not as far as I know. Kaori mentioned you were up here, and I thought you might want company."

Her face softened. "Thanks."

"Were you close?" I asked, inclining my head toward the fire.

"Not exactly." Naolyn looked away, into the fire. "But he held a secret for me, and I held one for him."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what to say to that, but she hadn't sent me away. so I went over and sat on the stone nearby. Despite the darkness, it was still warm with stolen sunlight and the fire's heat.

"Do you want to talk about him?"

"Not really. Isn't that awful?" She held up the paper she'd been folding, letting me see that it took the shape of a butterfly, before tossing it into the fire. She immediately began creasing another sheet of paper and I noticed she had a stack of them. "He made me promise that if he died, I'd burn the letters he sent me even though they were mine by Malek's rights."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Naolyn was quiet for a long time, long enough to fold another three butterflies and set each of them aloft in the flames.

"You're a legacy. Do you ever worry that's all people see when they look at you?"

I felt like she'd just punched the air out of my lungs. "Sometimes." Less now than at the beginning of the year, but I had a feeling it would never truly end, not with my mother's rank and a sister who would follow me and probably be better than I was. "It's like I'm not a person, I'm the idea in their head of Lilith Sorrengail's son."

Naolyn nodded, Another butterfly followed its brethren. "Sometimes I think that if I died like he did… no one but Tairn will have ever known me."

"Maybe I can help with that, then. If you wanted. I'd like to know you better." I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Let me get to know you better first," she challenged, and so I sat with her while she folded the stack of letters into butterflies, one at a time. She asked questions about my childhood, about the places I'd lived, about my sisters and my parents. Favorite holidays and favorite stories and what had kept me up at night when I was little.

Finally she held up the last butterfly. "Did you know him?"

"Not really," I admitted.

"Iefan and I grew up in the same village. We were both considered síofra, a bit queer, but my parents loved me and his… I think it was complicated. But we both volunteered for Basgiath." I didn't quite catch the word Naolyn used, and I tucked it away for later.

"I'm sorry for your loss, even if it's more about losing the sense of being known than the person," I said.

"Thank you."

When the last of the sparks from the burning items had settled into low, steady flames, Naolyn stood and offered me a hand up. "Thank you," she said again as she pulled against gravity. The grip was strong and solid, and I suddenly wanted those hands on me again. "I appreciate the company."

"You're a good listener," I offered, which was not what I'd meant to say, and then: "We should do this again." Which was even less what I'd meant to say.

Naolyn laughed, either at my awkwardness or at the look on my face when I'd realized what I said, I'm not sure which. It was good to hear laughter, though. "Sorry, I–"

"I could guess what you meant," Naolyn shook her head. "Let's get through Conscription, but I think I'd like to spend more time with you, too."

Naolyn was made wingleader. Kaori graduated, and I was made squad leader; neither of the new third years minded, which I appreciated.

Slowly over the year, Naolyn and I grew closer; there were leadership meetings and sparring matches, and then we took turns convincing the other of our favorite ways to spend a weekend. Naolyn still liked to go into Chantara, even if it was frowned upon for a wingleader. I showed her many of the secret passages I'd found, my favorite quiet places to sit when I needed to gather myself.

We fell into a relationship almost by accident, our friendship deepening so quickly it felt like I was falling from Marbh's back. We were constantly seeking each other out, working on different assignments in the same room… I just wanted to be in her presence, to share space, as often as I could.

It was the eve of the Solstice when I was finally trusted with it.

We'd left the party and ended up in a quiet corner near the stairs to the Wingleaders' dorms when Naolyn turned to me. "Maybe I should have told you sooner, but: I was meant to be a man. I'm… not wrong, but not quite right, either. But I feel like you see me even without knowing, and so I want you to know."

I thanked him for trusting me, and thought about butterflies in flames. I had to remind myself to start breathing again. We went the rest of the way to his room, and spent a while just laying next to each other and talking the way we normally did.

Not quite the way we normally did. I kept sneaking glances at him.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" Naolin finally asked.

I blushed and laid my head against his shoulder. "I'd been planning to tell you something tonight, but I'm worried it will sound wrong."

Naolyn flicked my ear. "Well you can't say that and not tell me now. What is it?"

"I think I'm in love with you," I mumbled into his chest.

"What did you say?" But when I pulled back and looked at him, he was smiling.

I pouted. "You heard me just fine. You can just tell me if I ruined it."

"You didn't ruin- I mean- Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" I studied his face.

Naolyn just laughed at me. "Because you're gay, and you've been very clear about it with every woman in the Quadrant?"

It was probably a fair question. I closed the distance between us again. "Yeah, and? You're a man. You just told me as much." I leaned in and kissed him.

Chapter 5

Xaden

The ride to Calldyr was certainly more pleasant than the away from it had been, but that would have been true even if I was strapped to the back of the carriage with Lindell's luggage.

We'd been summoned a few weeks before, with the kind of politely worded request that was not a request at all, and timed so that there was no chance I'd be able to do anything but rush directly to Basgiath afterward for conscription day. If it was intended to upend any secret treason I might be engaged in, well, it was a little late for that. All it really did was ensure that I was properly annoyed when we arrived, and that I had to bring with me several court-appropriate outfits that I would promptly leave behind when I crossed the parapet.

Even Lindell's neutral, Tauri-loyal facade seemed stretched by the game, but there was little choice either of us had in the matter. As we got closer to Calldyr, he seemed more nervous. Suddenly he would remind me of a point of ettiquette, or ask me if I'd packed something we'd discussed weeks ago.

As the city appeared in the distance, he looked at me with something almost soft in his eyes. "Xaden, you know I don't consider myself anything like a parent, and I won't be able to say this outright again, but I do want you to know that I'm proud of you. You've done more than any young person your age ought to have to do. I only wish sometimes…"

I waited, silent, as he reached out and rested a hand on mine.

"Well, my role in all that has happened is not the proudest or the most glorious. But it was worth it, to see you and Liam safe and strong. Your father would be proud of you."

That was unexpected.

"You don't– you don't know that. I haven't done anything yet. But I do wish my father could have met Xaden."

"He did. You were still you, and he knew you. And I am certain he'd be proud of you." Lindell sighed. "I wanted to say that now, before we reach the court and the expectations that will place on both of us."

Right. Expectations. He would be playing the loyalist who has been molding me to serve, and I would have to find my place on a different kind of parapet: to act as if my only goal was to please the Crown, while knowing they wanted me to fall. Even getting dressed was fraught. Lindell made sure I had clothing that wouldn't embarass him when I wore it, but it had to properly reflect my standing as a disgrace who'd been stripped of my title, as if that was something Tauri could meaningfully do.

I was starting to see an up-side to wearing riding leathers every day as my aunt had done.

My court clothes were well-made in quality fabrics, but plain. I missed the rune-weaving and Tyrrish embroidery, though I couldn't have worn that here even if I had my title. Lindell had put me in dark colors, saying they would help me look serious. I didn't think I needed help with that; Liam was always telling me I was too serious.

As I started preparing myself to appear at court, there was a knock on my door. Without waiting for me to answer, Lilith Sorrengail moved in with efficient, measured steps.

"Excellent, I caught you on your way to the bathing chamber," she said by way of greeting.

I froze, tugging my shirt back down. "Why are you here?" Now that I was familiar with Brennan, I couldn't help but look for something of him in her features, but I didn't find anything. She looked older than I remembered her being, and that was it.

"Leadership is aware of your reassignment and apparently there is some concern that someone might be passing off someone else as you. Since I'm the person most familiar with your unique features…"

Improper as it was, I couldn't help letting out a short laugh at that. "They want you to make sure my scars are still there?"

"I said that it was ridiculous, but Melgren insisted it was easier just to do it than to argue with- with leadership." She sighed. "Just strip your shirt off so I can tell everyone that you're not your cousin, or some secret heir that Fen hid the whole time, or whatever else someone has dreamed up."

My instinct was to protest, but in a week's time I'd be fully under Sorrengail's control in the rider's quadrant. There was nothing to be gained, and much as I hated it, I was fully aware that she was the closest thing I had to a supporter once I got there.

Passing my hesitation off as embarassment, I pulled my shirt fully away, leaving my scars on display. Her eyes went to my chest for just a moment, eyeing the scars there, before she walked around me. I couldn't see her but I heard her breath catch as she looked at them. Even healed, they were not something you could miss or mistake.

I hoped that some part of her was as marked by the knowledge that she'd done that to a seventeen year old as I was by the scars.

"I can certainly verify that you're the the same person I scarred three years ago," Sorrengail said decisively. "I've been tasked specifically with keeping an eye on you this year, Riorson. Please see that it's not a problem." She left without attempting any social niceties, which I appreciated.

Once I was bathed and dressed properly, there was dinner. The young man who was assigned to see to Lindell's needs said all the young nobility who were entering Basgiath this year were in attendance, and indeed when we arrived in the hall we were seated surprisingly close to the dais.

Across from me was General Sorrengail, and I was never more grateful in my life for years of being told not to show what I was thinking unless I meant to. I ensured my face was nothing but a blank mask with no emotion whatsoever as she looked me over, surprise on her features.

I lost what appetite I had left listening to the king welcoming us to celebrate the princes' brave and generous service to the people of Navarre.

During the speech, and the meal after, I felt every single set of eyes in that room on me at some point. The princes were eyeing me up in confusion, and then as competition.

I wished that I knew what the rest of the room was thinking. Did they truly believe in the bullshit Navarre sold them? Or did they look at me and see a warning of what would happen to them and their children if they didn't do as they were told?

After dinner, I waited for an opportunity to retire to my room. Fortunately, the other attendees were treating me like treason was catching, so I was spared the trouble of making small talk. I could tolerate beeing sneered at. Unfortunately, I made the cardinal mistake of losing track of the princes. As I was making my way along the side of the room toward the exit, I heard my name coming from one of the little alcoves.

Well, not my current name. My old name.

I froze.

"I remembered her being cute," the speaker continued in a petulant tone that could only be one of Tauri's sons. I shifted my angle enough to see that it was Halden, dressed in a finely detailed tunic made of infantry-blue velvet. Next to him, in an almost as finely detailed tunic of black velvet, was Alic. "It's too bad. I was looking forward to our little wager."

"Even with short hair, I'd still be happy to take a roll with the traitor," Alic said. His eyes flicked up and he spotted me, his mouth widening into a leer. "Ah, and here's the guest of the hour."

"I was just adjourning for the evening," I tried, hoping to slip past, but Alic grabbed my arm.

"Oh, don't be in such a hurry," Alic insisted. "I wanted to speak with you. I have an offer for you, Xi-"

"Xaden," I cut him off. "My name is Xaden."

"So you said," Halden sniffed. "Play your game, Alic, I'm no longer interested."

Alic glared after his brother for a few moments, then turned his attention back to me. "Since we're going to be sharing a quadrant, I thought I might make you an offer. We can have some fun tonight, you can show me what skills you have to offer, and if I find you agreeable… once we've crossed the parapet, I will put out the word that you're under my protection as long as you make yourself useful to me."

For a half second, my brain stopped entirely, then sped through a rush of thoughts: What would I be willing to do to protect my people? Not that. Did I even trust Alic to keep his word? Not really. Was I willing to make an enemy? Always, if the enemy was worth having.

"Unfortunately, you're going to be disappointed," I told him. "I'm not interested in any physical relationships right now. We both have enough to worry about, don't you think?"

Alic pouted at me. "Come on, you might as well live a little; you've only got a few weeks to live anyway. Surely you don't think a dragon would deign to bond a traitor?"

I kept my face perfectly still. "I can only hope they will see how much I've learned from my father's choices. I hope a dragon will understand my loyalties." I didn't know for certain, but the riders in the rebellion, their dragons had fought with them. Some of them had died with their riders. There had to be at least as much honor among the dragons as there was among humans, didn't there?

He seemed to be having trouble following my sentence, and I wondered how much he'd had to drink. I hadn't been paying attention during dinner, and clearly I should have. Or maybe I had just been speaking in the double-sentences and mild Navarrian propaganda Lindell drilled into me for long enough that I didn't notice.

Finally Alic burst out laughing. "Gods, maybe Halden was right. I've had whores with more spunk than you."

I'm frozen. Solid ice, willing myself to give him nothing. "On that delightful note, your highness, it really was a long ride to get here and I'd like to get some rest."

"Oh, of course," Alic gestured for me to go, brightening a little. Maybe he'd caught sight of someone else he wanted to bother.

I made my escape, my jaw tight enough that it was starting to hurt by the time I get back to my guest room. Lindell is still at court and the servant who was here earlier must have other duties, because the suite is blissfully silent, lit by the half-moon outside the window.

Once I've changed and climbed into bed, I will myself to sleep, but I've no luck. At least I feel like I can think again, but I'm left staring at the darkness for what felt like ages but realistically could not be that long.

A sudden noise startled me, the click of a door. It wasn't coming from the direction of the suite, however, but behind my bed. I closed my eyes as the soft glow of a magelit lantern came around the corner, hoping that I was wrong and I would feel a knife against my throat in a moment.

No such luck. A hand reached under my blanket instead, groping at my flat chest. I was even more grateful that Brennan had suggested the surgery.

When I opened my eyes, the perturbed look on Alic's face at my flat chest almost made this worth it.

I grabbed the wrist of his wandering hand with mine, holding it in place with enough force that he would know I wasn't fucking around. "Your highness?" I asked, feigning confusion.

"A rather rude welcome," he grumbled, tugging on his arm. I watched him realize the strength of my grip and frown. "And after you invited me up here."

"Invited you?" I shifted my thumb so I was pushing on a pressure point. Alic hissed.

"Well, you said you were tired and wanted to go up to your room, that's essentially the same thing." He glared at me. "Release me, traitor."

I hesitated just a second, releasing him as he was pulling so that he went stumbling backwards.

"Leave me be, Alic," I stood up so I could properly stare him down. "I'll see you next week on conscription day."

He sputtered as he regained his balance. "Be miserable, then. There's any number of ways you might die in the the riders quadrant. I look forward to seeing which one gets you."

I didn't answer him, only watched as he retreated the way he'd come in, taking his light with him. After the hidden door closed behind him, I quickly felt for it in the dark and then dragged the small table next to the bed to be in front of it, so if anyone tried again they'd trip and fall or at least make noise dealing with it.

Collapsed back in bed, I waited for the adrenaline to wear off so I could sleep. I heard Lindell return and retire to bed. I watched the moon outside my window shift until the little light I had faded. Giving up on sleep, I closed my eyes and tried to think my way through my favorite Prince Xaden stories, hoping that the ability to do what he had done would… seep into me. That's what I'd wanted all along, right? Now I was Prince Xaden in exile, in the court of my enemies.

I would do this. I had to do this. There was too much depending on me to fail.

Eventually I must have slept, because I woke to the sun.

Alic pretended I didn't exist after that, which I considered a huge improvement. I was going to have to deal with him in the quadrant but I would see what that looked like when I got there.

The days that remained were so awkward that I found myself looking forward to arriving in Basgiath. At least when I got there I should be seeing people I knew and trusted again. More specifically, I'd see Garrick again.

Getting close to Liam had helped distract me from missing my best friend, but between the anticipation of Basgiath and being without Liam, I'd had Garrick on the mind. This was going to be the first time I saw him in years.

I'd written to him, told him my new name, but his responses were very short. He'd never been a writer, and Lindell had told me his foster home were true loyalists, so he'd had to be very specific in his words, but now it just made me anxious how he would respond, especially after listening to the princes.

Once we made the final journey from Calldyr to Basgiath following the celebratory procession led by the princes and their… staff? Guards? I wasn't really sure. Halden certainly seemed like the kind of person who'd bring a valet with him to infantry training. Would Alic order someone to cross the parapet to serve him? Or would he actually be self-sufficient?

It didn't matter, not really. My concern was the other marked ones who would be in my year: Garrick, yes, but there were half a dozen altogether. I knew Soleil well enough and Masen had ended up with distant cousins of his non-Tyrrish father and been able to write quite a bit. The others I would need to get to know quickly.

As least it wouldn't be hard to identify them.

I lined up as early as I could. It wasn't hard; I wasn't exactly sleeping well the night before. I wanted to be there on the other side, to take whatever shit the first of us got and be waiting. Still, I wasn't interested in being the very first. I'd thought perhaps Alic would insist on being first, but when none of the royal entourage was there, I realized they'd probably been having too much fun in Chantara to be interested in getting up early. The less I had to see of Alic, the better.

It was only a few minutes wait in the first line. I'd known intellectually that I would have to give my name multiple times in the process, but somehow I hadn't really thought about how it would feel when the rider at first table asked for my name.

"Xaden Riorson." The rider froze, ink spattering on the parchment.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat--"

The scribe beside her rolled his eyes. "Riorson like the Great Betrayer, or course. Look at his arm!"

After that comment, I could tell everyone was looking at my arm. The rider glared at the scribe, and then glared at me for good measure. "Fine, Great Betrayer Junior. Off you go."

Going uo the stairs in the tower, I felt fortunate it was early enough there wasn't much of a line. When I got to the top, the person in front of me froze, staring at my arm, and then inched away, almost knocking over the woman in front of him. The person behind me left a gap of six or seven stairs between us, as if worried I was going to start a second rebellion right here on the steps.

The space was nice, at least.

When I reached the top, the rider at the desk was staring before I even gave my name. This one had a patch that said squad leader under her name. She refocused her attention on my face and asked my name.

"Leadership briefed us but I didn't..." She shook her head. "Can't believe they let you in. My father died in the Battle of Aretia, you piece of shit."

I had a lot of responses I could have given, but I swallowed them all down.

"Do us all a favor and fall, why don't you? Or better yet--" she narrowed her eyes. "make sure you make it across so I can kill you myself."

I steeled myself. We'd discussed this; I knew it was coming. "You can try," I drawled, hoping I sounded unconcerned, confident. That's what I would need to get through this. Confidence and the skill to back it up. I tugged on the straps of my rucksack as I stepped up into the opening. The rider next to the opening in the stone didn't look quite as murderous as the one who'd taken my name; she didn't try to push me off the side, which was as close to a "good luck" as I could expect to get.

The parapet itself felt almost welcoming after that; it was slightly wider than the rooflines Liam and I had proacticed on. I was about halfway across when a piece of stone crumbled under my foot, but I kept my balance. I made a mental note to start a list of things to warn the others about for next year, once I figured out how to get letters out. The thing was not in great repair, I assume to make it a true test of... something. Balance? Ability to respond to poor stonemasonry under stress? Who maintains this, I wondered? Do they send a rider cadet out with mortar and fresh stones Conscription Day?

Once I'd made it to the other side, I gave my name again, this time to a rider cadet who looked less hateful and more hungover, then stepped down into the courtyard. I was already thinking through the strategies I'd created based on my research about the quadrant and what the riders in the Assembly had told me. Brennan had even made a little list for me to memorize of the most important details. With luck, we'd have a certain amount of surprise on our side the first few days, since no one knew what to expect from us.

As the day went on, I found a shady spot not too far from the parapet where I could stand out of the worst of the sun and wave over the others as I spotted them. Each time someone joined me, I felt a sigh of relief and an answering notch of anxiety that it wasn't Garrick.

I was on the verge of panic by the time I spotted a fucking wall of a man laughing as he jumped down from the parapet opening, his own mark on full display because he was also somehow shirtless. He spotted us a made a beeline over to our little group.

"Bodhi?" Garrick asked, and shook his head in confusion. "I thought– you're too young?"

The idea that I really could be mistaken for my cousin settled warm and bubbling in my chest.

Bodhi was raised to be a rider, like my aunt and like Liam's mother. I'd thought maybe it'd be better if he was the one here first, that I could use his help getting more than a hundred kids though the Riders Quadrant. But even if I hadn't been raised to be a rider, I'd been raised to take care of the people of Tyrrendor. Of Aretia. Maybe there weren't as many as there had been, but they were still my responsibility.

The idea of being more like Bodhi settled in my chest. I could do this. And I had never been so happy to hear my oldest friend sound like an idiot.

"Garrick! It's me, dumbass. Call me Xaden, remember?" I elbowed him and then pulled him into a hug.

He smacked me on the back. "As long as you're not going to try to convince me to to turn into a dragon."

I laughed. "It's good to have you back! Why the fuck aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Some asshole was trying to pull my sleeve up like he was outing a spy and we got into a fight. I got a little carried away and I lost it and my pack down the stairs."

"A little." I said, disbelieving. He'd almost died on the fucking stairs. The adrenaline crash of knowing he was here, and safe, was starting to get to me. "Don't scare me like that again, dumbass."

"Gotta make sure people know who they're dealing with," he grinned at me.

"Oh believe me," I nodded, gesturing for the other marked ones to close in around me. The looked at me like I was actually a leader. There was trust in their eyes, and a few sparks of hope. I took a deep breath and told myself I could do this. I was Xaden Riorson, heir of Tyrrendor, and I was going to save the fucking continent whether it wanted to be saved or not. "We're going to make sure these people know what they're dealing with. Let's get started."