Chapter 1
There were thirty-seven distinct imperial tests to determine whether a newborn dragon possessed a soul worthy of bonding, and the bruised scrap in Oriana’s apron had failed thirty-eight of them. It had no flame-gland, no pride, and could barely digest boiled mash. Yet when Lord Gideon of Palomar marched into the nursery with the culling brand glowing white-hot, the little lizard did not cower. It merely opened one milky, cataract-crusted eye, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, the torchfire in the vaulted stone corridor bent completely backward, as if bowing to an executioner who had arrived a millennium late.
The torchfire snapped straight again with a nervous hiss, casting the vaulted arches of Brood-Chamber Seven back into shivering shades of rust and tallow-grease.
Oriana held her breath until her ribs ached against the frayed hemp of her smock. In the deep pocket of her apron, beneath three layers of boiled wool and a sprig of wild chamomile, the scrap didn’t stir. It was smaller than an orchard hare, soft-bellied and slate-gray, with two leathery nubs on its shoulders that looked less like the budding wings of a majestic war-drake and more like parched plum skins.
Down the corridor, the boots kept coming.
*Clack. Clack. Clack.*
Iron-shod heels against basalt. It was a rhythm every drudge in the High Imperial Weyr knew in their marrow. It was the gait of men who owned the sky, who looked upon the colossal spires of Mount Ignis not as living stone, but as a cage built to hold their dominion.
Above them, through two hundred feet of solid volcanic granite, the Great Roost groaned. Even muffled by the rock, the sound was horrific—a low, rhythmic keening that vibrated through the flagstones and settled in the soles of Oriana’s worn boots. It was the sound of a three-year-old crimson drake having its will broken. At this hour, the Master of the Forge would be driving the third silver rune-pin through its crest, seating the heavy cold-iron subjugation collar until the beast’s thoughts belonged entirely to its noble rider.
*Break the blood before the wings dry,* the Weyr-masters preached. *A dragon unmastered is a fire unbanked; it burns the house that warmed it.*
Oriana wiped a streak of grease from her cheek with the back of her wrist, her other hand instinctively cupping the bundle in her apron.
"Stay down, Pip," she whispered under her breath, the syllables barely vibrating her lips. "Just five minutes. Be a stone. Be an empty sack."
The wheeze came anyway—a pathetic, raspy little whistle from the depths of the wool, like a cracked bellows drawing damp air. Pip had a perpetually congested lung, a crooked left claw that curled inward like a dead root, and a jaw so misaligned he could only lap at watered goat’s milk and stewed nettle mush.
Under the thirty-seven Blood Trials decreed by the Imperial Inquisition, a hatchling was tested within forty-eight hours of cracking its shell.
Trial One: *The Spark of the Crucible.* (Pip had produced a solitary, wet hiccup that extinguished the proctor’s match).
Trial Eight: *The Grasp of Iron.* (Pip’s talons had slipped off the testing rod entirely, causing him to tumble headfirst into a tub of bran).
Trial Twenty-Four: *The Submission Gaze.* (When the High Inquisitor locked eyes with the clutch to demand mental fealty, the other young drakes had hissed, rolled onto their backs, and bared their throats in trembling surrender. Pip had blinked once through milky, cataract-fogged eyes, yawned so wide his lower jaw clicked, and fallen asleep on the Inquisitor's embroidered boot).
He was an insult to the Empire. He was genetic refuse.
And in the High Weyr of the Sun-Throne, refuse was fed to the smelting vats.
"Keeper."
The voice cut through the damp heat of the chamber like a newly honed cleaver.
Oriana stiffened, her spine locking into the rigid, hollow-eyed posture demanded of the third-tier kennel staff. She dropped to one knee on the straw-littered flagstones, her head bowed low enough that the dirt on her collar was visible, her apron pulled tightly across her lap to muffle the faint, irregular heartbeat thumping against her stomach.
Lord Gideon of Palomar stepped into the stall.
He smelled of crushed bay leaves, furnace smoke, and the sharp, coppery tang of null-silver. He was thirty, perhaps younger, but he carried himself with the absolute, unyielding arrogance of a bloodline that had supplied the Emperor’s Vanguard with dragon-captains for four centuries. His black riding coat was embroidered with silver thread along the high collar, stiff as armor, and at his hip hung the null-whip—a braided lead of drake-sinew woven with lead beads, capable of stunning a five-ton beast into paralysis.
Behind him loomed two junior inquisitors in heavy leather aprons, carrying between them an iron brazier mounted on ash-wood poles. Resting in the glowing heart of the coals was a three-pronged iron brand, its business end glowing the color of a setting winter sun.
"My Lord Dragonmaster," Oriana said, pitching her voice into the flat, obsequious drone required of servants. "The Seventh Brood was cleared for the weaning pens at dawn. The stalls are scrubbed."
Gideon did not look at the stalls. His pale, flint-gray eyes were fixed on the far corner of the manger, where an empty clay saucer still carried the faint, sweet scent of boiled chamomile and barley paste.
"The ledger says nine eggs hatched in the seventh clutch, girl," Gideon said softly. He drew off his white kidskin gloves, finger by finger, letting them drop into the waiting hands of an acolyte. "Six passed the Trials and wear their training bands. Two were crushed in the shell after failing the ether-duct test. That leaves one unaccounted for."
Oriana’s heart hammered a frantic, suffocating tempo against her ribs. Underneath her apron, Pip shifted. A tiny, clawed foot poked her through the hemp, followed by an indignant little shudder.
*Don't,* she prayed silently, squeezing her thighs together to pinch the fold of her skirt shut. *Don't you dare sneeze now.*
"The ninth was a stillbirth, my lord," Oriana lied smoothly, the falsehood tasting like copper on her tongue. "Deformed skull. It never drew air. I threw it to the bone-grinder before the mid-day bell."
Gideon took a slow step forward. The polished leather of his boots crushed a dry stalk of sweet-grass with a crisp *snap*. He paused, tilting his head slightly, listening not to her words, but to the room.
"A strange thing, the bone-grinder," Gideon murmured, his voice silky, carrying that aristocratic cadence that made violence sound like high philosophy. "The overseer at the dross-chutes swore he processed only shells today. No meat. No marrow."
He stopped six inches from where she knelt. The heat radiating from his cloak was oppressive, carrying the sour trace of dragons subjected to terror.
"Stand up, girl."
Oriana swallowed hard, kept her eyes pinned to the grime between his boots, and rose. She kept her hands clasped before her apron, fingers woven tightly over the bulged fabric where the little drake rested against her navel.
"Look at me."
She raised her chin. She was small, half-starved on the cabbage-and-rye rations allocated to kennel hands, with dark brown hair hacked unevenly at her collarbones to keep it clear of the heating torches. But she had gray eyes—uncomfortable eyes, clear and cold as well-water—and she did not look away.
