Mom’s. But more than looks, she carries the same arrogance, the unwavering
conviction that she belongs in the sky. She’s a rider through and through.
She’s everything
agrees. I’m
traitorous body makes me embarrassingly vulnerable.
Mom
that flicker from
section just above my shoulders where the brown strands start to lose their
warmth of color and
drops
confidence
coloring along
furrow. “I told him not to keep you in that library.”
It’s
while
she’d been stationed here at Basgiath as an instructor and he as a scribe.
“I love that library,” I counter. It’s been more than a year since his heart
finally failed, and
giant fortress, the only place where I still feel my father’s presence.
“Spoken
woman she was while Dad was alive. Softer. Kinder…at least for her family.
“I am
from my shoulders, guiding it the and my first full breath since
leaving my room.
Mom blinks, and that softer woman is gone, leaving only the general.
“You’re the daughter of a rider, you are twenty years old, and today is
Conscription
will not watch one of
my children enter the Scribe Quadrant, Violet.”
“Because scribes are so far beneath riders?” I grumble, knowing perfectly
well that riders are the top of the social and military hierarchy. It helps that
their bonded dragons roast people for fun.
“Yes!” Her
toward the Scribe
put you on the parapet myself.”
My stomach turns over.
“Dad wouldn’t want this!” Mira argues, color flushing up her neck.
“I loved your father, but he’s dead,” Mom says, as if giving the weather
report. “I doubt he wants much these days.”
