Chapter Text
Gods, I hate this day. The tension feels thick and heavy, like a sheen that coats my skin, even two hundred feet up in the air. But we’re riders and learnt long ago to school our faces, to not betray a hint of any emotion we feel, fear least of all. It’s a weakness that’s not tolerated in Basgiath.
Everyone dies. Fear just kills you quicker.
Still, I hate watching the young, innocent faces of the new year’s intake. Hate seeing the anticipation and thrill of learning how to ride a dragon drain out of their eyes as they finally see the sheer scale of the walkway they must cross, just to have a fighting chance.
Last year, Command had me on the other side of the Parapet, inside the Rider’s Quadrant. I can’t decide which is worse. There, I would watch every cadet make it those final few steps to safety, see them jump down onto solid ground with their eyes burning with triumph and joy, knowing three out of four will be dead before they leave this hellhole.
On this side of the walls, I see the faces of every single candidate and hear the screams as they fall.
But at least there’s just fear. I understand fear.
Today, I stand near the edge of the near-vertical drop, kicking loose grit and crumbling brickwork off the floor and into the valley below, the rocks eaten up by shadows before they hit the canyon floor. My muscles are tensed between boyish excitement to finally see Liam again after all these months and a horrible foreboding that his name will be etched on a tombstone before he ever sets foot inside the Quadrant. No, I shut down the thought before it can take hold. We trained together. If I made it, he can. I refuse to tolerate any other possibility.
I eye the moody storm clouds gathering across the horizon warily, wishing them away. We don’t need to stack the odds against us any more than they are already. It rained so hard on this day, two years prior, when I faced down a different kind of terror: one for myself for once, rather than for every other kid my desperate deal had forced into this place.
Back then, the skies were almost black when I waited in this exact same spot, ominous clouds seeming to roll and gather momentum. It felt like they were coming straight towards me, encircling me on all sides and narrowing my field of vision to the thin edge of wall in front of me, a knife’s edge between a chance of life and freefall. The rain came in sheets, wind whipping in every direction as I crossed the parapet, trying to put one foot in front of the other without feeling the eyes of every person in this place, willing me to fall.
It was only the weight of the one hundred and seven innocent rebellion kids on my shoulders that kept me upright, willing me to survive. I would make it across for them, prove it could be done. And give them footsteps to follow.
The clouds today look less angry, hovering on the horizon but seeming to hang back, watching, and waiting.
Seventeen have fallen already.
Another forty or so still to fall, by my count. If the rain holds.
The next cadet is carrying a pack far too big for his frame and doesn’t look even nearly nervous enough. There’s a fine line between fear that kills you and fear that keeps you alive. He’s grinning back at another third-year rider, Emery, who’s patting the promise ring dangling round his neck to wish him luck. Someone loves him. But I’m certain he’ll lose his balance and fall before he’s even halfway across the parapet.
I want to help him, want to push him back along the growing line of would-be riders and empty out his pack to give him better odds. But that humanity has long since been trained out of me in this place. You can’t save everyone. Most people won’t make it. Don’t get too attached. I’ve seen people I’ve known for years, people I’ve sacrificed everything for, die in this place, despite my efforts. I cannot afford to split my focus and help people I don’t even know are worth saving, no matter how many people are waiting for them to come home.
I cross my arms across my chest and gesture him across with a grave, silent nod.
I don’t want to watch him walk out or sense his fear kick in when the wind begins to pelt him from all sides once he’s out of the relative shelter of the entrance.
I turn and look back along the line, searching for Liam. Instead, my eyes catch on one girl, struck by how different she appears, even in the same black clothes as everyone else here. Why are they all so desperate to don a uniform that makes them infinitely more likely to die than in any other Quadrant? We’d have better odds in Infantry.
The girl is watching me carefully, and looks strangely familiar, as if I’ve known her in a previous life. The sense of familiarity is unsettling. She is so striking that I’m certain I would remember her if we’d met before. Strands of silver run through the tight braids of her hair, framing a face full of softness in a sea of others that are all honed muscles and harsh angles. Her eyes are piercing, and the intensity of her gaze is startling, like she can see straight through me. Though she’s smaller than every other rider in the queue, she exudes a quiet strength I can’t quite place.
“See you two on the other side!” the boy on the parapet calls over my shoulder.
I turn to face Emery, who says something to me I don’t hear. I’m still watching the girl from the shadows, scanning over her features to try and place her. I’m so sure that I know her, but there’s no sprawling rebellion relic, no hint of shared knowledge or experience.
“You ready for this, Sorrengail?” The girl in front of her asks.
The name makes me tense up, like someone’s exposed all the secrets I’ve killed too many to protect.
Then understanding clicks into place.
What the fuck. This is Brennan’s little sister, Violet Sorrengail.
I turn to face her, looking straight at her now. I see the silvery tips of her hair and the familiarity of features shared between siblings, the shape of her face and soft curve of her lips.
Blood pounds through me in horror that she’s standing up here. This makes no sense; she’s training to be a Scribe. She loves books and ink and quiet corners. Brennan has talked about her almost every day for the past seven or so years I’ve known him, eaten up with regret and guilt over leaving her to believe him dead when he lives safely in Aretia. He speaks of her like she’s truth and fairness, in a world full of traitors and chaos. In his stories, she is a girl from a world I will never belong. She is sheltered and safe, innocent and good.
She has absolutely no business being up here.
I take a step towards her and ask, “Sorrengail?” I need the confirmation, the extra moment to sort through spiralling thoughts. I don’t care what it costs me, what it exposes; I need to get her out of here.
She shouldn’t be here. But she is.
And that means something’s changed. My mind is whirring, trying to piece together what’s happening.
She just stares at me with hatred in her eyes. She’s wearing rider’s leathers a little too big for her. And far too slowly, I piece it together. She’s not just Brennan’s little sister. She’s General Sorrengail’s daughter. And if she’s here… that means they know.
My mouth goes dry. If they know about the weapons runs, about Aretia, about Brennan… Suddenly it feels like every person standing round me is an inntinnsic, capable of exposing my innermost thoughts. Is that why they put me on this side of the parapet today? To see how I’d react?
I have absolutely no idea how to play this.
“You’re General Sorrengail’s youngest,” I say, staring down at her, trying to read the motivations in her eyes. If they knew about Aretia, every single one of the rebellion kids would be dead. They don’t know. They can’t know.
But maybe they suspect. And they’ve sent Brennan’s little sister here to force me into slipping up.
She just stares back at me with that same hate-filled glare. “You’re Fen Riorson’s son.”
It lands like a punch. The way she says it makes it crystal clear which side of this war she’s on. Like the rest of the world, she believes we’re traitors and deserve what we got.
“Your mother captured my father and oversaw his execution.” I say quietly, just to see how she reacts.
Her eyes blaze and her body seems to tense. “Your father killed my older brother. Seems like we’re even.”
I think of Brennan safe in Aretia, and my dad’s tombstone on the hills outside the city. “Hardly,” I bite out angrily, still sizing her up. I suddenly remember the other Sorrengail in Montserrat. One of the most awarded and deadliest riders of her intake. She’s made her own loyalties desperately clear.
Brennan never talks of her. But Violet… if they’re using her to expose us, what does she know? What have they told her to get her here?
“Your sister is a rider,” I say, willing her to slip up. “Guess that explains the leathers.” Are you with them? I silently challenge.
Her answer tells me nothing. “Guess so.”
She holds my glare, not backing up an inch, revealing nothing. They’ve trained her well. I can’t read her. This is not the little sister Brennan gushes about. She’s too hard, too unflinching to be a Scribe. She is unassumingly small; it would be so easy to underestimate her. But there’s a current of strength pulsating in her eyes that says she was destined to be a rider. She’s here to expose us, my gut twists in the certainty of it.
“You all right?” The girl next to her asks.
I glance at her. Is she with them too? “You’re friends?” I question, trying to establish how far this threat might reach.
She straightens up at the order in my tone. “We met on the stairs.”
I look her over and my eyes snag on her mismatched shoes, a rider’s boot hastily tied on one foot. Sorrengail wears the same, only the laces on her proper rider’s boot are tied in perfect criss-crosses. Wait, she traded a boot with this girl she just met? It’s so much like something Brennan would do....
“Interesting,” I say, reassessing.
Every bit of certainty I had of who she is and why she’s here seems to scramble out of my grasp. This doesn’t make any sense.
“Are you going to kill me?” Violet’s gaze seems to pin me in my place.
The rainclouds that had paced the horizon menacingly just moments before are on us in full force. Wind howls around us and the rain lashes the ground so hard it sounds like thunder. Even the slight cover provided by the tower does nothing to keep us dry.
The gut-wrenching scream of the boy on the parapet doesn’t shock me, but I see its effects ripple through Violet and the queue of people behind her.
“Pull yourself up, Dylan!” The girl next to her shouts. Violet covers her mouth, her eyes wide in terror. Without ever taking my gaze from her, I know the exact moment he lets go, falling to his death.
Eighteen.
I weigh the probabilities in my head. Maybe she was so affected by Brennan’s death that she decided to become a rider in his honour. But then she’d look stronger, would have trained years to stand in the place where he stood. No, she’s a spy, sent here by Command to expose us. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.
General Sorrengail controls storms. If she’s sent her here, the storm will ease to let her cross safely and I’ll know. And if it doesn’t… well, she’ll be dead. And I can’t save everyone.
For once, I don’t have to make the call on whether someone lives or dies.
“Why would I waste my energy killing you when the parapet will do it for me?” I move aside to let her pass. “Your turn.”