For Meredith, the first and best audience for my stories
Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.
—the poet Valerius, prior to his exile in 735 AD (anno Draconis)
One day after the emperor had died and been eaten, the call went out to select his successor.
Emilia of the Aurun considered this on dragonback as she hovered one hundred feet above the rocky coastline. Frothing waves surged against the cliffs so violently she swore the spray speckled her cheek, even at this height. Salt-choked wind tautened her dragon’s wings with a snap and tumbled her heavy red hair into her face. Maybe she really should wear it in a plait, as her mother suggested every other day. Chara’s grumble reverberated in Emilia’s bones. Shortening the reins, she petted the dragon’s neck.
“It’s all right. They won’t pick me,” she said, as if this were a conversation and not something she’d repeated in the locked room of her mind. They won’t pick me. They’d have to be idiots to pick me.
Of course, Emilia privately believed that idiots had been running the Etrusian Empire for hundreds of years.
If her mother heard her say that, Emilia’s hair would be the least of her concerns. After all, the House Aurun hadn’t seated an emperor or empress in over three generations, and their family had the worst land holdings: the Hibrian Isles, two semi-large parent islands constellated by a smattering of smaller ones. Plunked down in the northwest corner of the empire, theirs was a frigid land of sea and wind, of winter and not-quite-so winter. The family needed an emperor in power to advance their fortunes.
They needed Alexander.
And there he was, a dot waving to her from the lip of the cliff. Emilia pressed Chara’s sides with her knees, slackening the reins. The dragon snorted fizzling embers, tucked her wings, and tipped into a steep dive. Emilia lived for that plunge, that butterfly-flutter of her stomach. All the heavy pains of mind and body evaporated in midair.
She leaned back in the saddle as the cliff sped nearer, then pitched forward as Chara unfurled her wings and furrowed her three-clawed feet in the damp ground. The clean scent of upturned earth enveloped Emilia. Her brother came running while she rummaged through the saddlebag and removed a satchel, slipping it over her shoulder as she slid to the ground. She walked about to stand before Chara and stroke the dragon on her most favorite spot, at the juncture of jaw and neck. Chara nestled her snout at the center of Emilia’s belly.
“Thanks, girl,” she murmured, and stepped aside to let Chara flap her way up into the sky. There was still time for play before the calling.
Alexander appeared and wrapped an arm around Emilia. By the blue above, he was warm.
“You’re a hearth f-fire. How?” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. Emilia clamped hands over her ears, twin curves of ice against her palms.
“Blood of the dragon. Obviously.” He bumped her with his hip. “Pity you have none. You’d freeze on a summer’s day in Karthago.”
“You l-laugh now.” Emilia pulled her purple cloak tight against her body. “Wait till I’m the one who’s ch-chosen.”
“Not to worry. I’ll just pitch you over the cliff if that happens.” Alex kissed the top of her head. Without teasing, he said, “They won’t choose you.”
It was some comfort. While technically any child of the five families could be called to the Emperor’s Trial, only the Houses’ eldest ever were. It was an unspoken tradition. They were all fortunate Alexander had been firstborn, not she.
His hair was deep Aurun gold, not her tangle of red. His complexion was fair as milk, as opposed to her deathly pallor. His laughter was easy, hers nonexistent. Unlike Emilia, he didn’t have to be monitored carefully whenever they hosted the lesser Hibrian nobles at winter fetes or during the summer bonfires.
Unlike her, he didn’t cradle death in his hands like a dozing serpent.
They walked the path toward the calling circle on the other side of the promontory, Emilia’s heavy satchel a reassuring thud against her hip. She shivered as the icy wind knifed through her once more. She’d never liked Stormways, the family’s oldest, draftiest, and most northern castle. Technically this was their territorial capital, though it was far from grand. A pity, then, that she hadn’t left it in nearly five years, but that could not be helped. The far north was the most sparsely populated area. She could be inconspicuous here.
The Aurun banners, stark white emblazoned with a purple Aspis—the water serpent, their personal dragon—rippled in the gusts. Overhead, Chara and Alexander’s dragon, Tarkus, dove and capered about each other. Both dragons had long, slender bodies with whipping tails, though Chara’s scales were a creamy pearlescent while Tarkus was plum-colored. Aspises’ heads were sleek, their scales silken, their noses doglike. Two horns corkscrewed on either side of their skulls. Unlike the other dragon breeds, an Aspis could spend time underwater and suffer no ill effects. Chara hunted whales in springtime and would float back home like a bloody wisp of cloud, blubber ragged between her teeth.
“Did you go flying to get a last look at the place before you become empress?” Alex teased. Emilia nudged him in the ribs.
“When I’m living in a golden palace at Dragonspire, I’ll remember freezing my backside off with real fondness,” she deadpanned. Suppressing a shudder, she added, “I, er, needed to clear my mind.”
Alexander understood her. Normally, Emilia could be found with cooling cups of coffee and ink-stained fingers before the library fire, books and papers fanned out around her in a labyrinthine formation only she understood. But then the very fissures of her brain would spark, and she would have to leave before she hurt anyone.
Emilia stopped on the path. Ahead of them lay the evidence of what she’d done.
It had been a seagull. Amid the splatter of blood and the pasted smear of organs, gray and white feathers fluttered in the breeze. Back in her room, Emilia had felt the magic welling until she brimmed with it, like a cup. She’d hurried down the castle’s winding steps, rushed out into the overcast day. She’d stalked toward the cliffs, been startled by a gull’s circling cry. Her eyes had latched on to the bird…and the poor creature had uttered its last call.
There were two types of magic: the orderly arts and the chaotic ways. One type had built this great empire; the other had nearly destroyed the world. Order was creation, and chaos destruction. Emilia possessed no talent for order.
She was a natural at chaos, though.
If the other four families ever found out, death would be the kinder option. A chaotic couldn’t be tolerated, not after the War of the Sixth House a millennium ago.