ELARA BIT INTO ONE OF THE SWEET, RIPE MANGOES THAT REEVE had bought her as she stared out over the city of Port Sol for the last time.
She barely saw it. In her mind, she was back in Deadegg, a place surrounded by cities and villages and a mountain range shrouded in mist. Before the war, she’d never left her small town. Parts of her still hadn’t. It took no effort at all to remember silver-haired Miss Johnson from up the street, a lonely old woman whose children had all moved on to bigger cities as soon as they could, and her glowing stories about all their accomplishments. She blinked and suddenly she was back in Blind Alley, a narrow gap between a restaurant and a clothing store that was nearly invisible until you were standing at the mouth of it, a popular location for neighborhood children playing hide-and-seek. The sticky mango juice on her fingers reminded her of the garden behind her house, of the bright green leaves of the cherry trees and skeletal blue mahoes, the rapidly spreading scarlet hibiscus flowers and deep indigo lignum vitae blossoms unfurling in the sun.
As far as towns went, Deadegg was a decimal point at the base of the Argent Mountains that wasn’t even identified on most maps. But, gods, Elara was going to miss it.
Sea air on the breeze eased her out of her memories. The scent of salt and brine could never be found in landlocked Deadegg. At best, there was only the muddy smell that occasionally wafted up from the green-brown swamp water of the gully. Elara turned away from the balcony view to get a napkin to clean her hands with and realized that the queen of San Irie was in her bedroom.
She nearly dropped her mango.
“Oh! Your Majesty!” Elara went back inside and slid the balcony doors shut. As an afterthought, she also closed the curtains, though she doubted anyone could see them up here. “Um, Faron just left, but she’ll be back in a—”
“I am not here for Faron.”
Elara hadn’t seen the queen since the night before, when she had agreed that Elara should leave behind all she’d ever known for the safety of everyone she’d ever cared about. Whether due to exhaustion or the emotional ordeal, Elara had slept through the medical summoning and then through most of the morning. When she’d woken up in the early afternoon, she and Signey had been discharged—and with the second day of the Summit canceled while the queen dealt with all of this, Elara had nothing else to do but pack.
She eyed the Queenshield lined up before the door as she stuffed her half-eaten mango back in the bag with the rest of them. The sight of so many soldiers made the fruit sour in her stomach.
“I will try to keep this fast.” Aveline strode forward, her golden diadem catching the light. She spread her arms, and a glittering film, thin as the congealed surface of a bowl of porridge, began to spread across the floor, the ceiling, the walls. It muffled the sounds outside the room, until Elara could hear nothing but her own breathing. Despite this show of power, the queen’s voice was a low whisper when she spoke. “I’ve placed a barrier around this room to be safe, but can they hear you?”
Elara began to say no, but the seriousness of the situation made her stop to actually check. Even without concentrating, she could feel Signey and Zephyra like extensions of her body. She knew at once that they had gone flying. She could feel the cool brush of the wind on her face and, when she closed her eyes, she could even see the ocean as a rippling blanket of blue between gaps in the clouds. But her thoughts and her feelings were definitely her own. She could hear nothing from them unless they were directly speaking to her, and it had stayed that way since Signey had put her mental walls up. It was a comforting thing, considering how many uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Signey in the last few hours.
“No,” she answered. “They can’t hear me unless I want them to, I think.”
“I need to give you an assignment, if you are certain we can speak freely.”
Elara reached out to Signey and Zephyra, screaming both of their names as loudly as she could without speaking. Neither of them gave any indication that they’d heard her, not even a flicker of annoyance to show she was being purposefully ignored.
“I’m certain,” she said. “An assignment?”
Elara squashed the part of her that wanted to ask, again, if the queen meant to be saying this to Faron. Aveline had come to her. Aveline was looking at her. She didn’t want to give her a reason to look away so soon.
“I know you likely think me cold for pushing you into the enemy’s arms so easily. Or perhaps you hate me for breaking my promise to you that you could return to the army. But I believe that the Langlish are planning something, and, right now, you are at the center of that.” Aveline said this as if it were an accepted fact and not something that made Elara’s eyes widen. “You are going there at their invitation, bonded to one of their sacred creatures, and thus you will be privy to things only their so-called saints usually get to be privy to. I think you can likely tell where I am going with this.”
“You… want me to spy?”
“More or less. You are in the perfect position to be our eyes and ears in Langley, provided, of course, that your co-Rider really isn’t listening in. And provided that you can even keep this from her when she’s in your head.” Aveline frowned. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”
“No!” Elara blurted. She was no spy. She’d never worn deception well. She had wanted to be a soldier, something that seemed open and honorable compared to this kind of subterfuge. But she could never join the Sky Battalion now, and at least this would give her a chance to feel as if she were making a difference. “No, I can do it. I think I can do it. There might be some trial and error, but I’m willing.”
Aveline’s smile was small but warm. “You’re very brave, Elara. Both you and your sister are incredible, brave, wonderful women, and it’s been the best kind of honor to watch you grow.”
Elara’s heart thudded in her chest from the strange finality of the compliment. It was almost as if Aveline didn’t actually expect her to come back, but she pushed that idea out of her head. It didn’t matter whether the queen expected her to come back or not. Faron would expect her to come back—and, if Elara didn’t, Faron would tear apart both countries looking for her.
But her heart beat hummingbird-fast, even so.
“It’s been an honor to know you, too, Aveline,” she said. “And I appreciate you trusting me with this mission. I won’t let you down. But… what do you think the Langlish are planning? What am I supposed to be looking for?”
Aveline stepped past her toward the balcony doors. She was quiet for so long that Elara began to feel awkward about her question. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. She wasn’t Faron. What right did she have to question the queen?
But the queen was not the queen right now. She had softened those sharp edges, that steel demeanor, something she only seemed to do around Elara. As if Elara were the sister she’d chosen.
“This situation feels wrong,” said Aveline. “They arrive with more dragons than I expected, so I call in the Empyrean early. You, of all people, bond with one of the dragons they’ve brought, and we find out about the Fury for the first time. Now the Empyrean has to divert her attention to curing it for them because your life is at stake? Too much of this has worked out in Langley’s favor for me not to believe at least some of it was planned. And it’s much easier to go back to war if you don’t lose control of your dragon midflight.”
This time, Elara’s heart stopped. “You think the Langlish Empire wants to start another war?”
“They’ve almost started three in as many days.” Aveline turned around, looking older than Elara had ever seen her. “San Irie has only just recovered from the last war. We can’t handle another.”
“We have the drakes.” The last thing Elara wanted for her island, for herself, and especially for Faron was another war. But she couldn’t stand that look on the queen’s face, as if she’d already been defeated before the first battle had been fought. “We have more drakes built than we ever had before! I think we’d be able to hold them off the island this time, if it comes to that. Maybe even take the fight to them.”
“War takes more than drakes, Elara. Wars also require support, and I’m just not sure I would have that going into another one only five years after the end of the first. I am barely clinging to public support as it is. You were in the city. You saw the protesters. The position I am in is so precarious; anything could shatter it.” Aveline rubbed her temples. “Even if I’m seeing plots where there aren’t any, there’s still the fact that if they decide to attack with the very dragon who you’re bonded to, we can’t fight back without hurting you as well. And that alone is a weapon we can’t let them keep up their sleeve.”
Aveline looked so hopeless. She had seemed like such an adult just a few years ago, when Elara had been thirteen and convinced that Aveline was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen. But in this moment, Elara saw Aveline for what she really was: an orphaned woman barely out of her teens, thrust into a legacy she hadn’t asked for but was giving everything she had to uphold.
“We’ll help you avoid a war,” Elara swore. “Faron’s more focused on finding a cure for the bond than one for the Fury. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open in Langley and alert you to any sign that they’re preparing for another attack. Whatever they teach me about dragons’ weaknesses and vulnerabilities, I’ll report back to you, too. I won’t let them use me against my own country. I refuse.”
This time, Aveline’s smile was wider. “Thank you.” She adjusted her diadem over her head wrap. When her hands lowered, any trace of weakness had been wiped clean from her expression. The vulnerable woman had disappeared; the untouchable queen had returned. “I will come to you again to say goodbye before your flight. Right now, though, your family is outside, and I am sure they are eager to see you.”
Elara winced, and, to her surprise, Aveline laughed. It was such a bright, rare sound. Elara couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard it.
“Your fear is unwarranted,” she said. “They do not know about your enlistment, and they will not hear about it from me.” The queen winked, removing the barrier with a wave of her hand. “You and your sister are not the only ones who know how to lie.”
As soon as Aveline was gone, Elara turned back to the balcony doors. Soon, her parents would enter, blissfully ignorant of her crimes as they saw her off. Soon, Faron and Reeve would return, and they would all get to say a proper goodbye. Soon, Signey and Zephyra would arrive to help her secure her bags to Zephyra’s saddle for the long trip across the Ember Sea. This was the last time that she would be in the only home she had ever known before she stepped forward into an uncertain future—a future in which she would have to pretend to become everything she’d learned to fear. Worse, she had no idea how long it would be before she would come back. Or if she would even come back at all.
But she was ready for that. She had a mission. No matter how hard things got for her in the Langlish Empire, she would not fail.
Elara Vincent didn’t need to be the Childe Empyrean to be a hero. And she was going to prove that to everyone. Her family. Her countrymen. And, most of all, herself.