Bloodwing

The letter that changes my life arrives on a Tuesday morning, sealed in black wax and smelling faintly of smoke. I almost leave it on the entry table with the rest of my father’s correspondence, assuming it belongs to him, until I see my name written across the front in precise silver lettering. VEYRA ASHBOURNE. Not Miss Ashbourne. Not Daughter of General Alaric Ashbourne, which is how half the kingdom seems to know me. Just my name, followed by the unmistakable crest stamped into the wax beneath it: a dragon with its wings spread around a mountain peak.

My stomach drops before I even break the seal. Everyone in Eryndor knows that crest. Children carve it into desks and pretend to soar through the skies on the backs of dragons. Soldiers wear it stitched onto their uniforms with pride. Mothers curse it when black-clad officers appear at their doors carrying folded flags.

Varyn War College has produced every dragon rider who has defended this kingdom for the last nine hundred years, and apparently, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, they have decided to write to me.

I slide my finger beneath the heavy parchment and unfold it, expecting some mistake to reveal itself within the first few lines. Instead, the first sentence makes my heart stop. By order of the Crown and command of the Eryndorian War Council, Varyn War College has opened voluntary enrollment to every eligible citizen between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age.

I read the letter twice. Then a third time, because surely repeatedly staring at the words will make them less insane. They don’t.

The northern conflict has worsened. Border defenses are failing. Rider casualties have risen beyond the numbers Varyn’s existing classes can replace, and the War Council is expanding recruitment before the next campaign begins. Any citizen of eligible age may present themselves at Mount Vaelor on the first day of autumn and attempt admission to the Rider Corps. No military lineage is required. No previous combat training is necessary. Those who survive entrance will receive instruction in weapons, strategy, aerial warfare, hand-to-hand combat, survival, and—my eyes catch on the words—dragon bonding. Successful candidates will eventually enter active service in defense of Eryndor. Unsuccessful candidates may withdraw during initial processing, provided they do so before beginning the Ascent. After that, voluntary withdrawal is apparently no longer an option. The final page contains mortality statistics, because evidently whoever wrote this believes honesty becomes comforting when presented in neat columns. Last year’s first-year class began with four hundred and twelve candidates. Two hundred and sixty-eight survived to the Claiming. One hundred and ninety-three bonded dragons. One hundred and seventy-nine completed the year. I stare at that last number until it blurs. Less than half.

Somewhere far beyond the windows, a dragon roars over the city, and the glass trembles softly in its frame. I’ve heard them all my life, but suddenly the sound feels different. Closer somehow. Like the beast knows what I’m holding.

My father would burn the letter if he saw it. That thought should be enough to make me fold the parchment, shove it back into its envelope, and forget Varyn ever decided to fling open its gates to people stupid enough to volunteer for a war.

General Alaric Ashbourne has spent twenty-one years ensuring I remain as far from battlefields as possible. He has buried friends, soldiers, and eventually my mother, though he has never given me enough details about her death to make the story feel complete. The Ashbourne name may carry military prestige, but no one in my family has bonded a dragon in generations. We command from war rooms. We study maps. We send other people into the sky. At least, that’s the future my father has always imagined for me, and until this morning, I’ve never had a better one to replace it with.

I should be frightened by the numbers printed on the page. I am frightened. Only an idiot wouldn’t be. But beneath the fear is something else, something hot and restless that has been trapped beneath my ribs for years without a name.

I look around the quiet house where nearly every choice of my life has already been made for me, then back at the drawing printed beneath Varyn’s crest: Mount Vaelor rising through the clouds, enormous wings circling its summit. For the first time, I don’t see the possibility of dying there. I see the possibility of finally discovering who I might become if no one else gets to decide for me.

There’s an acceptance form tucked behind the final page. One signature. That’s all Varyn requires from volunteers foolish enough to believe they might survive long enough for a dragon to choose them.

My hand shakes when I carry the parchment into my father’s study, and it shakes harder when I take a pen from his desk. I hesitate with the nib hovering above the line, imagining everything that could happen after I put my name there. I could fail the entrance examination. I could reach Mount Vaelor and lose my nerve before the Ascent. I could climb anyway and fall. I could survive training only to walk into the Claiming and discover that no dragon wants me. I could become one of those neat little numbers printed on the final page, another casualty reduced to ink for next year’s volunteers to contemplate over breakfast. Every sensible thought in my head tells me to put the pen down. Instead, I think about spending another twenty-one years wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t. The decision becomes strangely easy after that.

I press the nib to the parchment and write Veyra Ashbourne across the bottom.

The ink is still wet when another dragon’s roar rolls across the distant mountains, deep enough to vibrate through the floor beneath my feet, and this time I find myself smiling. In six weeks, I will stand at the foot of Mount Vaelor and attempt to earn a place at Varyn War College. If I survive the Ascent, I’ll learn to fight. If I survive Varyn, I might even become a rider. And if a dragon decides I’m worth choosing, I’ll go to war.

I don’t know yet that somewhere high in those mountains, something ancient has already begun to stir. I only know that I seal the acceptance letter before I can change my mind—and by nightfall, it’s on its way back to Varyn.