Chapter 8
A low, angry rumble rippled through the terraces. In the high nobility's eyes, genetic deformity was not an accident of nature; it was a spiritual crime, a blasphemy against the sun.
"For thirty days," Gideon continued, his tone dripping with mock solemnity, "the Empire has fed and sheltered a monster that failed every test of the flame. A creature that possesses no fire, no wings, no bone-density, and no pride. A slug that insults the blood of the Progenitor himself."
He stepped down from the plinth, the crimson velvet of his coat sweeping behind him, the Crown-Rod humming faintly in his grip.
He stopped five paces from Oriana, towering over her.
"The thirty days of observation have expired, Keeper," Gideon said, his voice dropping so only the lower tiers and the court proctors could hear. "Where is the beast?"
Oriana stood with her spine rigid, her chin lifted high.
She did not bow. She did not drop to her knees in the bloody sand. The midday sun beat down upon her face, merciless and blinding, but she did not blink.
Slowly, with deliberate, unhurried care, Oriana reached into the deep pocket of her apron.
She slid both hands beneath Pip’s warm, soft belly and lifted him out into the light.
The coliseum fell completely silent for two seconds.
Then, an absolute roar of derisive laughter erupted from the terraces.
Ten thousand people laughed until they choked. Nobles doubled over in their velvet chairs, clutching their sides; soldiers leaned against their spears, tears of mirth streaming down their visors.
Pip was squinting miserably in the harsh sunlight.
He looked, if possible, even more pathetic than he had in the dim shadows of Stall Forty-Four. He was barely twelve inches long, his gray scales as dull as river mud, his twisted left claw tucked uselessly against his belly. A drop of clear mucus dangled precariously from his nostril, and his cloudy, milky eyes blinked with profound, unbothered confusion at the ten thousand screaming spectators above him.
He looked around, let out a tiny, dry wheeze, and leaned his heavy, blunt head against Oriana's wrist, seeking the shade of her sleeve.
"By the gods," a High Inquisitor scoffed from the Solar Dais, his voice booming through the acoustic runes. "It is an unhatched embryo! A mistake of the shell!"
Gideon looked down at the runt, his eyes gleaming with triumphant, predatory cruelty.
"This is the beast you traded your freedom for, girl?" Gideon mocked softly, leaning in close. "This shivering worm? You dared to invoke the ancient Lawgiver’s name for *this*?"
"The Lawgiver wrote that every egg is a question asked of the sky," Oriana said clearly, her voice steady enough to carry to the first five rows of the pavilion. "And that only fire may judge whether the answer is true."
Gideon’s eyes narrowed to cold slate.
"Fire shall judge it, then," he hissed.
He turned toward the Solar Dais, raising the Imperial Crown-Rod high into the air. The three sun-stones embedded in the primeval bone flared with blinding, sulfurous intensity, reflecting off his gilded coat.
"High Inquisitors!" Gideon roared. "The claimant presents an incurable defect! By the authority of the Grand Dragonmaster, I invoke the *Decree of Immediate Excision*! Let the Primordial Bone unleash the ancestral brand! Let the dross be turned to ash where it stands, and let the keeper be stripped of her skin!"
"Aye! Burn it!" the crowd bellowed from the upper tiers. "Cleanse the sand! Brand the traitor!"
The lead Inquisitor on the dais raised a golden scepter, nodding in grim approval. "The Synod concurs. Let the judgment of the First Wyrm fall."
Gideon swung back toward Oriana, his face twisted in a mask of savage, unrestrained arrogance.
He didn't intend to just execute the hatchling; he intended to obliterate it, to let the blinding psychic flame of the Crown-Rod incinerate the beast and scorch Oriana’s hands down to the bare bone in the process. He raised the six-foot rod like a spear, pointing the fossilized tip directly at Pip’s blunt forehead.
"Wait."
Oriana’s voice was not loud, but it cut through the lingering jeers of the crowd like a razor drawn across silk.
Gideon paused, his muscles tense, an ugly, mocking sneer curling his lips. "You have no more appeals, drudge. Your thirty days are dead. Your life is forfeit."
"I am not appealing for my life, Lord Gideon," Oriana said.
She took one firm, deliberate step forward in the sand, closing the distance between herself and the glowing relic. Her gray eyes were utterly devoid of fear, shining with a sharp, brilliant clarity that made the Grand Dragonmaster's breath catch for an imperceptible fraction of an instant.
"I demand the Progenitor's Rite," she said.
The silence that followed was heavy as an iron curtain.
Even the drunken nobles in the upper tiers stopped shouting. The word was old—an archaic phrase buried in the deepest chapters of the *Lex Draconis*, a rite so ancient that most masters believed it had ceased to exist three dynasties ago.
On the Solar Dais, the Emperor leaned forward in his golden chair, his brow furrowing beneath his radiant crown.
"The Progenitor's Rite," Oriana recited, her voice ringing out with flawless, unyielding authority, "dictates that no beast of the Weyr may be executed by proxy or brand. If the Grand Dragonmaster claims the authority of the First Wyrm through the sacred Crown-Rod, the beast must be allowed to face the relic unchained, unheld, and unbranded."
She looked straight into Gideon's flint-gray eyes.
"You claim that rod holds the will of the Ancestor. You claim it commands absolute submission from all who carry draconic blood. Then let him face it alone. If he burns, he burns. But you will strike him as a drake, not as a helpless hatchling in my hands."
A ripple of uneasy murmurs spread through the imperial box.
Gideon stared at her, his jaw tightening until the muscle leapt beneath his skin. He felt the eyes of ten thousand citizens upon his neck. He felt the cold, appraising gaze of the Emperor behind him.
To refuse her demand would look like hesitation. It would imply that the Grand Dragonmaster of the High Empire was afraid of a twelve-inch, half-blind lizard that couldn't even walk without grunting.
A cruel, dismissive laugh broke from Gideon's chest.
"You think the bone cares whether it sits upon the sand or in your lap, girl?" Gideon spat, stepping back two paces. "You think a drop of dead blood will save it from the Progenitor's fire?"
He swept his arm out toward the center of the arena.
"Put it down."
Oriana looked down at Pip.
The little creature was still huddled against her wrists, his soft, pewter scales cold against her skin. He looked so unimaginably tiny against the vast, blood-stained expanse of the Sunken Coliseum. If the Crown-Rod unleashed its full power, there wouldn't even be bones left to bury.
*I gave you thirty days,* she thought, her heart clenching with an agony so pure it took her breath away. *I gave you everything I had.*
She bent down.
Gently, tenderly, as if she were laying a sleeping infant into a cradle of down, she set Pip upon the churned, bloody sand.
