“She’s batshit crazy,” Mira says from the center of the hallway, right between where two guards are positioned.

“They’ll tell her you said that.”

“Like they don’t already know,” she grinds out through clenched teeth. “Let’s go. We only have an hour before all candidates have to report, and I saw thousands waiting outside the gates when I flew over.” She starts walking, leading me down the stone staircase and through the hallways to my room.

Well…it was my room.

In the thirty minutes I’ve been gone, all my personal items have been packed into crates that now sit stacked in the corner. My stomach sinks to the hardwood floor. She had my entire life boxed.

“She’s fucking efficient, I’ll give you that,” Mira mutters before turning my way, her gaze passing over me in open assessment. “I was hoping I’d be able to talk her out of it. You were never meant for the Riders Quadrant.”

“So you’ve mentioned.” I lift an eyebrow at her. “Repeatedly.”

“Sorry.” She winces, dropping to the ground and emptying her pack.

“What are you doing?”

“What Brennan did for me,” she says softly, and grief lodges in my throat. “Can you use a sword?”

I shake my head. “Too heavy. I’m pretty quick with daggers, though.” Really damned quick. Lightning quick. What I lack in strength, I make up for in speed.

“I figured. Good. Now, drop your pack and take off those horrible boots.” She sorts through the items she’s brought, handing me new boots and a black uniform. “Put these on.”

“What’s wrong with my pack?” I ask but drop my rucksack anyway. She immediately opens it, ripping out everything I’d carefully packed. “Mira! That took me all night!”

“You’re carrying way too much, and your boots are a death trap. You’ll slip right off the parapet with those smooth soles. I had a set of rubber-bottomed rider boots made for you just in case, and this, my dear Violet, is the worst case.” Books start flying, landing in the vicinity of the crate.

“Hey, I can only take what I can carry, and I want those!” I lunge for the next book before she has a chance to toss it, barely managing to save my favorite collection of dark fables.

“Are you willing to die for it?” she asks, her eyes turning hard.

“I can carry it!” This is all wrong. I’m supposed to be dedicating my life to books, not throwing them in the corner to lighten my rucksack.

“No. You can’t. You’re barely thrice the weight of the pack, the parapet is roughly eighteen inches wide, two hundred feet aboveground, and last time I looked, those were rain clouds moving in. They’re not going to give you a rain delay just because the bridge might get a little slick, sis. You’ll fall. You’ll die. Now, are you going to listen to me? Or are you going to join the other dead candidates at tomorrow morning’s roll call?” There’s no trace of my older sister in the rider before me. This woman is shrewd, cunning, and a touch cruel. This is the woman who survived all three years with only one scar, the one her own dragon gave her during Threshing. “Because that’s all you’ll be. Another tombstone. Another name scorched in stone. Ditch the books.”

“Dad gave this one to me,” I murmur, pressing the book against my chest. Maybe it’s childish, just a collection of stories that warn us against the lure of magic, and even demonize dragons, but it’s all I have left.

She sighs. “Is it that old book of folklore about dark-wielding vermin and their wyvern? Haven’t you read it a thousand times already?”

“Probably more,” I admit. “And they’re venin, not vermin.”

“Dad and his allegories,” she says. “Just don’t try to channel power without being a bonded rider and red-eyed monsters won’t hide under your bed, waiting to snatch you away on their two-legged dragons to join their dark army.” She retrieves the last book I packed from the rucksack and hands it to me. “Ditch the books. Dad can’t save you. He tried. I tried. Decide, Violet. Are you going to die a scribe? Or live as a rider?”

I glance down at the books in my arms and make my choice. “You’re a pain in the ass.” I put the fables in the corner but keep the other tome in my hands as I face my sister.

“A pain in the ass who is going to keep you alive. What’s that one for?” she challenges.

“Killing people.” I hand it back to her.

A slow smile spreads across her face. “Good. You can keep that one. Now, get changed while I sort out the rest of this mess.” The bell rings high above us. We have forty-five minutes.

I dress quickly, but everything feels like it belongs to someone else, though it’s obviously tailored to my size. My tunic is replaced by a tight-fitting black shirt that covers my arms, and my breezy pants are exchanged for leather ones that hug every curve. Then she laces me into a vest-style corset over the shirt.

“Keeps it from rubbing,” she explains.

“Like the gear riders wear into battle.” Have to admit, the clothes are pretty badass, even if I feel like an imposter. Gods, this is really happening.

“Exactly, because that’s what you’re doing. Going into battle.”

The combination of leather and a fabric I don’t recognize covers me from collarbone to just below my waist, wrapping over my breasts and crossing up and over my shoulders. I finger the hidden sheaths sewn diagonally along the rib cage.

“For your daggers.”

“I only have four.” I grab them from the pile on the floor.

“You’ll earn more.”

I slide my weapons into the sheaths, as though my ribs themselves have become weapons. The design is ingenious. Between my ribs and the sheaths at my thighs, the blades are easily accessible.

I barely recognize myself in the mirror. I look like a rider. I still feel like a scribe.

Minutes later, half of what I packed is piled onto the crates. She’s repacked my rucksack, discarding anything deemed unnecessary and almost everything sentimental while word-vomiting advice about how to survive in the quadrant. Then she surprises me by doing the most sentimental thing ever—telling me to sit between her knees so she can braid my hair into a crown.

It’s like I’m a kid again instead of a full-grown woman, but I do it.

“What is this?” I test the material just above my heart, scratching it with my fingernail.

“Something I designed,” she explains, tugging my braid painfully tight against my scalp. “I had it specially made for you with Teine’s scales sewn in, so be careful with it.”

“Dragon scales?” I jerk my head back to look at her. “How? Teine is huge.”

“I happen to know a rider whose powers can make big things very small.” A devious smile plays across her lips. “And smaller things…much, much bigger.”

I roll my eyes. Mira’s always been more vocal about her men than I have been…about all two of them. “I mean, how much bigger?”

She laughs, then tugs on my braid. “Head forward. You should have cut your hair.” She pulls the strands tight against my head and resumes weaving. “It’s a liability in sparring and in battle, not to mention being a giant target. No one else has hair that fades out to silver like this, and they’ll already be aiming for you.”

“You know very well the natural pigment seems to gradually abandon it no matter the length.” My eyes are just as indecisive, a light hazel of varying blues and ambers that never seems to favor either actual color. “Besides, other than everyone else’s concern for the shade, my hair is the only thing about me that’s perfectly healthy. Cutting it would feel like I’m punishing my body for finally doing something well, and it’s not like I feel the need to hide who I am.”

“You’re not.” Mira yanks on my braid, pulling my head back, and our eyes lock. “You’re the smartest woman I know. Don’t forget that. Your brain is your best weapon. Outsmart them, Violet. Do you hear me?”

I nod, and she loosens her grip, then finishes the braid and pulls me to my feet as she continues to summarize years of knowledge into fifteen harried minutes, barely pausing to breathe.

“Be observant. Quiet is fine, but make sure you notice everything and everyone around you to your advantage. You’ve read the Codex?”

“A few times.” The rule book for the Riders Quadrant is a fraction of the length of the other divisions’. Probably because riders have trouble obeying rules.

“Good. Then you know that the other riders can kill you at any time, and the cutthroat cadets will try. Fewer cadets means better odds at Threshing. There are never enough dragons willing to bond, and anyone reckless enough to get themselves killed isn’t worthy of a dragon anyway.”