Lucian stood by the northern tip of the island and watched the flickering lights in the competitors’ rooms. The sea churned against the rocks as he finally wended his way toward his own chamber. The competitors’ rotundas had been placed around the central temple like five points on a star.

He stopped outside of his room and turned his gaze to the actual stars, picking out constellations like Draconis Major and the Emperor’s Bow. He fixed his gaze on his favorite star, the brightest in the sky, chief ornament in the Celestial Diadem. Then he knelt on the ground, placed his hands over his breast, and bowed his head. The oath of the Sacred Brothers played in his thoughts.

I swear that I shall uphold my vows until the last breath of my body.

I shall never take up arms against another, for every living creature that walks this earth and flies through the air is my brethren.

Lucian pictured his father’s horrified face as Tyche burned that exalted sword…

I shall forsake all worldly things, for temptation removes our thoughts from good deeds and the suffering of our fellows.

Lucian recalled an old man clutching a little boy, gazing up in terror at the dragon rider circling the gray skies over their village…

I shall cherish no one person over any other, for all people are equal in my heart.

Lucian’s eyes snapped open at the surge of wings. Tyche descended out of the twilight and landed before him. Her tail skated along the ground, upsetting pebbles. Her nostrils flared, and in this darkness he could see the faint glow of embers. Holding up his hand, he let his dragon nose at his palm, and chuckled at the tickling heat.

“I can’t cherish any one person,” he said. “But the vows don’t say anything about dragons.”

Tyche tilted her head and made the light, chittering noise she always gave when playful. Sighing, Lucian sat back on his haunches and began to sing.

“They say that love should be boundless,

As high and as deep as the sky.

And yet no embrace can compete with the chase,

Of a dragon for clouds passing by.”

It was a silly rhyme that he’d made up for Tyche when he was a boy, and he grinned as she fluttered her wings with the pleasure of it. The dragon tilted back her head and began to “sing” along. She made a series of lilting ooo noises, her tail swishing this way and that as she kept time. Lucian couldn’t make it to the second verse before he had tears in his eyes from laughter.

Pleased with herself, Tyche thumped her tail and laid her chin upon Lucian’s shoulder. He smoothed his hand down her neck, trailing his fingers along the silk of her scales. His girl made a purring noise in her chest, telling him she was happy. Happy just to be with him.

Lucian squeezed his eyes shut. He did not mind forfeiting his own life, but Tyche’s…

My soul. The priests were right about that. She was all that he liked of himself.

“That’s a pleasing tune,” a girl behind him murmured. Lucian swiveled his head to find Emilia watching from a safe distance away. Her hair was still in her face, her shoulders still hunched. “Did you compose that yourself? I remember that you. Uh. Were fond of music.” She spoke haltingly, as if trying to remember lines in a play.

“I did.” He stood, dusted his knees. “Do you have any new theories on what we’re all doing here?”

“I’m currently wavering somewhere between ‘this is all a nightmare’ and inarticulate screaming.”

Lucian chuckled, and Emilia drew a few steps nearer.

“Well, let me know when you come up with a way to save us all. I’m counting on you.”

“Oh? So I’ve got to shoulder this burden myself?” He could see she was smiling.

“I wouldn’t trust anybody else. You were always the one with the plan.”

“Yes, but…that was years ago.” The smile disappeared. She ducked her head, and Lucian frowned.

“If you ever, well, want to talk—”

“About what?” she said abruptly. “We’re trapped, and only one will survive. Isn’t that correct? Being cordial and, well, chummy would only increase bitterness and, and enmity, wouldn’t it?”

Well. Her feelings weren’t wrong.

“I just don’t want us to become…” He searched for the best word. “Worse,” he said at last. Emilia remained silent for a while.

“Some of us are as bad as we can be,” she muttered.

Oh, she was right. She was righter than she knew. Lucian nodded grimly.

“I just want you to know that if you need help in any way,” he began, and then nearly leapt out of his skin when something made a violent, banging noise behind him. A damn explosion. Lucian wheeled about, Tyche expanding her wings and squalling at the disturbance. He blinked as some pebbles scattered across the ground, but otherwise nothing was there. “Bizarre,” he muttered, then turned back. “Emilia?”

But she’d gone. He heard the patter of footsteps as she raced away. Probably the noise had scared her. She was so high-strung. His heart sank to think of what might have happened these past five years to make her so.

I’ll do something to help. I have to.

That was the path of a Sacred Brother, after all. Help those in need.

That thought gave some comfort as he left Tyche outside and entered his chamber with the blue bedspread and a blue gown lying on top of it. Bemused, he picked it up. It’d been measured perfectly for Dido. “Unfortunately, not my size,” he muttered, balling it up and tossing it to the floor. He removed his cloak, sloshed water into a basin, and pulled off his shirt.

There was no mirror to let him stare at his scars. Good. Lucian washed quickly, scrubbing his face and dampening his hair. The scars, so pale against his brown skin, traced his arms like lines on a map.

Some drew raised eyebrows and gasps, like the white knob of scar tissue at the bend of his left arm. That particular scar had come from a Wikingar soldier with a broken broadsword. Lucian had cradled his arm, the injury raining crimson on the snow beneath. He’d been pleased to see his own blood spill for a change. Maybe he’d even hoped this would be the warrior to finish him.

He’d taken all his physical scars from practice and by an enemy’s blade on the battlefield.

The invisible scars, those etched upon his soul, came from his father.

Every time he’d disobeyed or spoken back against a command, he’d been thrown into the brig, divided from Tyche, left to shiver through long winter nights. That discomfort had been nothing, nothing at all, to seeing the sadness in his father’s eyes, the pain that came from Lucian’s rebellion. His father, who could not seem to understand, no matter how fervently Lucian argued. That blind unhappiness had pierced Lucian to the core. A soldier needed to obey orders.

A son needed to love his father.

Lucian was a disappointment on both counts.

With a sigh, he turned to put out the light.

Two burned figures squatted at the foot of his bed and stared at him.

The eyes had disintegrated, their jelly boiled to sludge in the charred sockets, and yet he could feel their gaze. Lucian swore that he could still hear their fat sizzling.

The smaller one’s face had become a mask of curling, crisped flesh.

Like roasted chicken, Lucian thought stupidly as bile rose in his throat.

The old man was skeletal and burned to a black cinder. His silent mouth opened and closed, the jawbones creaking, the hopeless gaping of a landed fish.

He had seen their faces in his dreams nearly every night. He’d stopped waking with a scream after the first year.

But this wasn’t a dream. Lucian collapsed.

Finally, he thought.

Then sanity returned, and he ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. No. No. No. “You’re not real,” he whispered, his voice quavering. Hysterical laughter clawed his throat. When he looked again, the old man and the boy had vanished. The bed was empty.

Lucian’s ghosts had abandoned him, but he knew they’d return.

They always did.