“Oh, Violet.” Worried brown eyes look down at me as strong hands brace my shoulders.

“Hi, Mira.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. She might be here to say her goodbyes, but I’m just glad to see my sister for the first time in years.

Her eyes soften, and her fingers flex on my shoulders like she might pull me into a hug, but she steps back and turns to stand at my side, facing our mother. “You can’t do this.”

“It’s already done.” Mom shrugs, the lines of her fitted black uniform rising and falling with the motion.

I scoff. So much for the hope of a reprieve. Not that I ever should have expected, or even hoped for, an ounce of mercy from a woman who’s been made famous for her lack of it.

“Then undo it,” Mira seethes. “She’s spent her whole life training to become a scribe. She wasn’t raised to be a rider.”

“Well, she certainly isn’t you, is she, Lieutenant Sorrengail?” Mom braces her hands on the immaculate surface of her desk and leans in slightly as she stands, looking us over with narrowed, appraising eyes that mirror the dragons’ carved into the furniture’s massive legs. I don’t need the prohibited power of mind reading to know exactly what she sees.

At twenty-six years old, Mira’s a younger version of our mother. She’s tall, with strong, powerful muscles toned from years of sparring and hundreds of hours spent on the back of her dragon. Her skin practically glows with health, and her golden-brown hair is sheared short for combat in the same style as 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 I’m not, and the disapproving shake of Mom’s head says she agrees. I’m too short. Too frail. What curves I do have should be muscle, and my traitorous body makes me embarrassingly vulnerable.

Mom walks toward us, her polished black boots gleaming in the mage lights that flicker from the sconces. She picks up the end of my long braid, scoffs at the section just above my shoulders where the brown strands start to lose their warmth of color and slowly fade to a steely, metallic silver by the ends, and then drops it. “Pale skin, pale eyes, pale hair.” Her gaze siphons every ounce of my confidence down to the marrow in my bones. “It’s like that fever stole all your coloring along with your strength.” Grief flashes through her eyes and her brows furrow. “I told him not to keep you in that library.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard her curse the sickness that nearly killed her while she was pregnant with me or the library Dad made my second home once 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 the Archives are still the only place that feels like home in this giant fortress, the only place where I still feel my father’s presence.

“Spoken like the daughter of a scribe,” Mom says quietly, and I see it—the woman she was while Dad was alive. Softer. Kinder…at least for her family.

“I am the daughter of a scribe.” My back screams at me, so I let my pack slip from my shoulders, guiding it to the floor, and take 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 Day. I let you finish your tutoring, but like I told you last spring, I 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 customary composure slips. “And if you dare walk into the tunnel toward the Scribe Quadrant today, I will rip you out by that ridiculous braid and 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.”

I suck in a breath but keep my mouth shut. Arguing will get me nowhere. She’s never listened to a damned thing I’ve had to say before, and today is no different.

“Sending Violet into the Riders Quadrant is tantamount to a death sentence.” Guess Mira isn’t done arguing. Mira’s never done arguing with Mom, and the frustrating thing about it is that Mom has always respected her for it. Double standard for the win. “She’s not strong enough, Mom! She’s already broken her arm this year, she sprains some joint every other week, and she’s not tall enough to mount any dragon big enough to keep her alive in a battle.”

“Seriously, Mira?” What. The. Hell. My fingernails bite into my palms as I curl my hands into fists. Knowing my chances of survival are minimal is one thing. Having my sister throw my inadequacies in my face is another. “Are you calling me weak?”

“No.” Mira squeezes my hand. “Just…fragile.”

“That’s not any better.” Dragons don’t bond fragile women. They incinerate them.

“So she’s small.” Mom scans me up and down, taking in the generous fit of the cream belted tunic and pants I selected this morning for my potential execution.

I snort. “Are we just listing my faults now?”

“I never said it was a fault.” Mom turns to my sister. “Mira, Violet deals with more pain before lunch than you do in an entire week. If any of my children is capable of surviving the Riders Quadrant, it’s her.”

My eyebrows rise. That sounded an awful lot like a compliment, but with Mom, I’m never quite sure.

“How many rider candidates die on Conscription Day, Mom? Forty? Fifty? Are you that eager to bury another child?” Mira seethes.

I cringe as the temperature in the room plummets, courtesy of Mom’s storm-wielding signet power she channels through her dragon, Aimsir.

My chest tightens at the memory of my brother. No one has dared to mention Brennan or his dragon in the five years since they died fighting the Tyrrish rebellion in the south. Mom tolerates me and respects Mira, but she loved Brennan.

Dad did, too. His chest pains started right after Brennan’s death.

Mom’s jaw tightens and her eyes threaten retribution as she glares at Mira.

My sister swallows but holds her own in the staring competition.

“Mom,” I start. “She didn’t mean—”

“Get. Out. Lieutenant.” Mom’s words are soft puffs of steam in the frigid office. “Before I report you absent from your unit without leave.”

Mira straightens her posture, nods once, and pivots with military precision, then strides for the door without another word, grabbing a small rucksack on the way out.

It’s the first time Mom and I have been alone in months.

Her eyes meet mine, and the temperature rises as she takes a deep breath. “You scored in the top quarter for speed and agility during the entrance exam. You’ll do just fine. All Sorrengails do just fine.” She skims the backs of her fingers down my cheek, barely grazing my skin. “So much like your father,” she whispers before clearing her throat and backing up a few steps.

Guess there are no meritorious service awards for emotional availability.

“I won’t be able to acknowledge you for the next three years,” she says, sitting back on the edge of her desk. “Since, as commanding general of Basgiath, I’ll be your far superior officer.”

“I know.” It’s the least of my concerns, considering she barely acknowledges me now.

“You won’t get any special treatment just because you’re my daughter, either. If anything, they’ll come after you harder to make you prove yourself.” She arches an eyebrow.

“Well aware.” Good thing I’ve been training with Major Gillstead for the last several months since Mom made her decree.

She sighs and forces a smile. “Then I guess I’ll see you in the valley at Threshing, candidate. Though you’ll be a cadet by sunset, I suppose.”

Or dead.

Neither of us says it.

“Good luck, Candidate Sorrengail.” She moves back behind her desk, effectively dismissing me.

“Thank you, General.” I heft my pack onto my shoulders and walk out of her office. A guard closes the door behind me.