Fourth Wing

A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their
dragon is dead.
—ARTICLE ONE, SECTION ONE
THE DRAGON RIDER’S CODEX
CHAPTER
ONE
Conscription Day is always the deadliest. Maybe that’s why the sunrise is
especially beautiful this morning—because I know it might be my last.
I tighten the straps of my heavy canvas rucksack and trudge up the wide
staircase of the stone fortress I call home. My chest heaves with exertion,
my lungs burning by the time I reach the stone corridor leading to General
Sorrengail’s office. This is what six months of intense physical training has
given me—the ability to barely climb six flights of stairs with a thirty-
pound pack.
I’m so fucked.
The thousands of twenty-year-olds waiting outside the gate to enter their
chosen quadrant for service are the smartest and strongest in Navarre.
Hundreds of them have been preparing for the Riders Quadrant, the chance
to become one of the elite, since birth. I’ve had exactly six months.
The expressionless guards lining the wide hallway at the top of the
landing avoid my eyes as I pass, but that’s nothing new. Besides, being
ignored is the best possible scenario for me.
Basgiath War College isn’t known for being kind to…well, anyone, even
those of us whose mothers are in command.
Every Navarrian officer, whether they choose to be schooled as healers,
scribes, infantry, or riders, is molded within these cruel walls over three

years, honed into weapons to secure our mountainous borders from the
violent invasion attempts of the kingdom of Poromiel and their gryphon
riders. The weak don’t survive here, especially not in the Riders Quadrant.
The dragons make sure of that.
“You’re sending her to die!” a familiar voice thunders through the
general’s thick wooden door, and I gasp. There’s only one woman on the
Continent foolish enough to raise her voice to the general, but she’s
supposed to be on the border with the Eastern Wing. Mira.
There’s a muffled response from the office, and I reach for the door
handle.
“She doesn’t stand a chance,” Mira shouts as I force the heavy door open
and the weight of my pack shifts forward, nearly taking me down. Shit.
The general curses from behind her desk, and I grab onto the back of the
crimson-upholstered couch to catch my balance.
“Damn it, Mom, she can’t even handle her rucksack,” Mira snaps,
rushing to my side.
“I’m fine!” My cheeks heat with mortification, and I force myself
upright. She’s been back for five minutes and is already trying to save me.
Because you need saving, you fool.
I don’t want this. I don’t want any part of this Riders Quadrant shit. It’s
not like I have a death wish. I would have been better off failing the
admission test to Basgiath and going straight to the army with the majority
of conscripts. But I can handle my rucksack, and I will handle myself.
“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.
“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.