Riese let her bonespear fly with a surge of hish. It shot through the air and struck the tusked boar in the chest mid-stride with a resounding thud.

It didn’t even squeal. The beast simply collapsed on its side.

Cheers resounded around her. Half a dozen Faltari youths paused to congratulate her on the first kill of the contest, before bounding off through the trees, whooping and hollering, keeping tabs on the other contestants.

Yuri clapped her on the back.

“Ha! Imperial soldier, my ass!”

Yuri wasn’t much of a hunter, and had merely tagged along for support.

It was custom for the Faltari to pair off with foreigners for the games. Riese’s companion, an Attican woman named Deven jogged past the boar and retrieved her own spear, which had sailed over its head.

The woman was tall and strong. Dark hair and sun-specked pale skin suggested she was likely of mixed Attican race. Deven stooped to inspect the kill as Riese joined her.

Already, its breaths had stilled. But Riese had felt the boar’s spirit expire moments after her spear struck home.

Riese had learned long ago the agony of a prolonged kill. Her first stag, she’d had to slit its throat while it squirmed to get free, and it had been a slow a gruesome death.

Deven shook her head. “Gods damn! And on the run, no less. I’m impressed.”

“Not bad for a bloody heathen, ey?” Yuri jabbed.

“Yuri, god’s breath, leave it alone,” Riese said.

“Nah,” said Deven, flashing a smile. “Not bad at all, heathen.”

Riese smiled. “Thanks.”

“And I’m captain of the House Rykus guard,” Deven said. “Not some imperial grunt, I’ll have you know.” She shot Yuri a smirk. “But I did my time.”

The woman was perhaps in her mid-twenties. Skin weathered from hardship, much like most Faltari hunters. Some might have found her firm jaw and chiseled forearms off-putting, but Riese thought her nice to look at. Even if she was a heathen.

She felt a twinge of guilt, but then, Lysa wanted little to do with her after her matching was announced, and she was currently entertaining the idea of running away from that too. From everything she’d ever known.

Something nagged at her spirit that she could not fully explain, but the minute Malik suggested they might leave, she could not shake it. And gods knew, they’d have to befriend some foreigner to make that happen.

Riese stooped down, pulling a bone dagger from her belt, and prepared to gut the beast, but Deven stopped her.

“Here.” The woman handed her a shimmering steel dagger.

“Shit,” said Yuri. “How’d you…”

Deven shrugged. “It’s supposed to be for trade, but I thought for the hunt, it might be handy... anyway, I’m not exactly trying to hide it, am I?”

Yuri shrugged, but peered closer.

Riese turned the blade over, light flashing on the silver edges. She brushed her calloused finger sideways against the edge. “Gods, that’s sharp.”

“Kirithian blade,” Deven said. “Runemarked steel beneath the hilt for added strength and durability.”

“Are you sure? I’d hate to dull the blade.”

“That’s what the runes are for. Go on. My master’s orders.”

“Your master?”

“It’s a Kirithian method, but that’s Valucian steel. I’m supposed to show these off so Lord Rykus makes his trades. Don’t worry, only a couple were allowed through your… customs.”

Riese proceeded to gut the boar, the blade slicing easily through abdomen. The sternum was more work, but far less than Riese had ever experienced. Steam wafted from the beast’s insides as she drove her hands in and pulled out the boar’s innards.

When she was finished, she wiped the blade off on her pant leg. It was remarkably clean as she handed it back.

“Runemarked,” she said.

Deven smiled and stowed it back in her pack. “You just Ascended, I think I gathered.”

Riese nodded.

“And betrothed too,” said Yuri.

“Well, well…” Deven winked at her. “Tell your father, he ought to consider a Rykus blade for a gift, for either occcasion.”

There was another cry further off, and more cheering.

“Someone else made a kill,” said Yuri.

“Well, let’s hurry back,” said Riese, hefting the emptied carcass over her shoulders.

***

Everything about this strange festival at the edge of the world was magnificent in Ava’s eyes. It reminded her of the free city of Beirus, but without the enormous crowds and the foul memories and the influence of the eastern missionaries.

Beirus was the only place on the continent of Erithèa where the Empyrean Church of Elya had found a foothold. Where the power known as the Other was hailed as god itself, rather than a gift of the gods.

The only place in the western continent where magic was practiced openly, and where there had been any chance at finding someone who might heal Ava’s injuries sustained during the Valucian Uprising when she was but a child.

The healing was incomplete, and required a sacrifice Ava would bear on her conscience the rest of her life. If it had been a true healer of the Elyan orders—or maybe even a shaman from this very island—perhaps it might have turned out different.

Now, her injuries were settled, and she limped around on one bad leg rather than two. Without that botched healing, she would likely have had no chance at becoming at entering the Dawncrest Academy. Certainly not at becoming Dragonmount. But if not for that healing, perhaps…

Ava pushed the thoughts from her mind.

But for the faulty healing encounter, she’d thought Beirus a beautiful place.

But the Isle of Faltara elicited a different freedom, even from that of the free city-state of Beirus. Ava felt like she could breathe here, in a way she’d only ever felt back in her family’s lands. She’d spent most of her youth in the sprawl of Attica City. Even Dawncrest itself was stifling, even if it was at the edge of the city. All walls and towers and training grounds.

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But here at the edge of the world, she felt at ease, like she did on the hillsides of her island home. Ava wished she could hold on to this feeling, though she knew all wishes were as fleeting as a summer breeze. This northern air cut straight through her woolen clothes and skin and chilled her bones.

The other Attican youths, including Ruan, had joined the locals in a hunting contest along with many others. Her father was chatting with foreign vendors about longer term trade for his runemarked blades. And Ava wandered the markets alone.

People from across the lands perused foreign trinkets and delicacies, but Ava hung near the outskirts, watching, taking it all in. She was used to lingering at the edges of things. People always hurried about, even friends like Ruan. Forgetting she moved slower. Apologizing—always the damn apologizing—and then, the cycle would repeat all over again.

It wasn’t that Ava didn’t mind being overlooked. But she’d learned to take what was given her, and made it a strength. Ava Lucila Rykus had learned to watch people with the precision of a gods-damned falcon. Learned to read them, predict them. Bend them, when necessary. She’d built her own strength. That did not mean it wasn’t lonely.

Ava hung near the edge of the Yerida markets. They began in the outer square, and into the village itself, and then, spilled beyond the outer walls to a meadow filled with crude barns and pens, filled with enormous mountain stags and strange wooly creatures that seemed to be part ox and part sheep. More vendor stalls lined a dirt path that led to an open meadow filled with tents.

The grass was not long like such meadows in Attica or Valucia. It only reached halfway up her ankle-high leather boots, but the blades contained the deepest shades of green Ava had ever seen, perhaps amplified by the stark black rocks that jutted out from the hillsides.

She gazed up beyond the stalls and the meadow and the columns of snowpine, tracing a wending path up the foothills that disappeared into the passes of the swiftly rising peaks of the island, where the Faltari came back from their Ascension ceremonies.

Ava wondered if this was where all dragon eggs came from, or whether there more secret lands such as this.

“Curious place, isn’t it?”

Ruan’s voice.

Ava turned, shifting her weight on her cane. Her knee ached more in the cold, but she never complained.

“Hunt’s over?” she asked.

Ruan shrugged. “Thought you might appreciate some company.”

“You’re thoughtful,” she said. “And yes, this place is curious, but I think it’s lovely, in a primitive way.”

“Sounds like Campos has finished with their meeting.” Straight to the point. Ava liked that about Ruan. And no apologies for leaving her behind, either.

“They were at the temple,” Ruan added.

“Did they get them already?”

“I don’t know.”

Ava spotted Campos and Urla Pelasius near the edge of the meadow, speaking with traders from Ytan. The stall bore thick sacks of rice and small displays of herbs.

“I suppose we could ask your mother, couldn’t we?” Ava teased, knowing Ruan was equal parts embarrassed and proud that his mother had been chosen to join Campos as his guard.

The others were all jealous. Ava’s father feigned offense in front of the others, though Ava knew he hadn’t expected any such honor as a first-blood.

It was all chance. Whose house’s lands happened to be where, and which kingdoms happened to secede from the empire over the past century. Rykus blood was as ancient as any great house. They’d been Dragon Lords once, in the First Age, her father claimed.

“My mother is too good at tending secrets,” Ruan said.

“Maybe you just need to be a more trustworthy son.”

Ava shot him a wink.

***

The festival stretched into the evening, but to Malik, it felt like eternity until nightfall.

Hundreds of people milled around him, and Riese was nowhere to be seen since she’d returned from the hunting games. In truth, he was annoyed with her for playing at all. But that was only because she had no idea the truth Malik had just uncovered.

Malik joined Yuri for supper within the village, but he was infatuated with his new match, and carried a mug of ale with him at all times, and Malik was so tired of nothing being serious to his friend. All he wanted to talk about was Riese’s hunt, and some runemarked hunting dagger, and making fun of all the foreigners. And predicting more Faltari matches that would surely come over the next couple of days.

In the past, this had felt like a counter to Malik’s own headiness. Tonight, it was utter aggravation. But Malik couldn’t fault Yuri or his bride-to-be for that.

It was what all Faltari did at the festival. All except his father, Malik supposed, and now, him. Cursed to bear weights no one even knew about. It seemed everywhere he turned, there was one of the Attican youths or their parents, or some of the other tall and muscular Atticans who’d joined them, who he was certain must be guards or soldiers.

All the foreigners from strange lands laughed and bandied stories and drank and formed impromptu dance circles in the streets as a bard struck up a tune. People were happy and content, and their minds swarmed around Malik like a raging torrent of frivolity.

All Malik’s existence seemed to form a nexus around this moment, and he couldn’t even hear himself think.

And he was shaman now, and he had duties to be seen and to be friendly. To offer blessings to Faltari families as they enjoyed their last nights of inter-clan unity before the traders left, and they hauled their supplies back to their respective villages, and the impending gloom of winter settled on the island and sealed off their lands from the world once more.

The sun descended over the walls of the fjord, and the crowds gathered in the meadow in the fading light. Malik’s father and the chieftains of the four clans all gathered at the crest of a small knoll, overlooking the crowd.

Malik probably should have been with them, but he’d avoided his father, and his father had not come hunting for him tonight.

He stood at the back of the crowd, barely listening as Joren told the tale of the Crossing. How their ancestors had fled a land on the brink of destruction. How some had not learned the lessons, and had gone on to form empires and fight wars over land and power, just as had been done in the World Before.

It was the same ritual his father performed every year, but Malik never realized how intentionally vague the tale was told. Joren did not speak of the Gate located on this very island. He spoke of their people arriving first on “these shores” and proceeded from there.

Faltari would apply their own meaning, and the others would do the same. Joren spoke blessings on the foreigners gathered, praying they would see the sanctity and peace of this sacred land, and remember.

“Look around this meadow. Here, there are gathered emissaries from every corner of the world, all coexisting in peace, for a day. It is not too late to learn.”

Did we learn anything at all? Malik wondered.

When his father had finished his speech, the chieftains thanked the traders for another successful trade. And then, a troupe of minstrels from Beirus struck up a song, and the crowds began to dance.

Food vendors mingled with the crowds, selling roasted meat and vegetables on skewers of wood from Chardonia, bowls of rice noodles from Ytan, legs of grouse from Attica, and more.

At last, Malik spotted Riese near the edge of the crowd with her family. He worked his way through the teeming masses.

“Malik!” cried Riese’s mother, Toren. “Good to see you, young shaman. My, it’s hard to believe you’re both Ascended now. And god’s breath, Riese and Yuri both getting matched.”

Vinder Perrinsein turned from his conversation with Riese’s father and nodded to Malik, placing an arm around Riese’s shoulder.

“Vinder, you know Malik, I trust,” said Lady Toren.

The young man nodded with respect, but a hint of irritation in his spirit. “Of course, shaman. May the breath of the gods remain upon you.”

“And you,” said Malik.

Toren laughed. “Riese and Malik have been friends since they were in babe’s wraps! But Malik, when are you going to be matched? Even shamans have to carry on their lineage. I seem to recall you dancing with a very pretty girl during the Ascension cermeonies. Where has she gone off to?”

Malik was growing tired of all the pleasantries. He felt he’d been exchanging them for months, one festival right after the other.

“I’ve been learning the shaman ways, ma’am. Little time for courting, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, yes, quite understandable... sorry, Malik. Yes, we’re all most grateful for your service to our people. Where would we all be without men like you and your father. Certainly don’t mean to make light of it.”

“No, of course, ma’am. Er, do you all mind if I borrow Riese for a moment?”

Riese was scowling. “Can’t it wait until later, Malik? I’ll find you after—”

“Sorry, it’ll only be a moment, I promise you.”

“It’s no problem,” Toren said. “You two hardly see each other anymore, and with Malik being shaman now, and you being matched, Riese… well, after the festival, you might not see one another for a while.”

Riese’s father laughed. “We’ll be with you all winter, dear. And besides, I’ve been wanting to take up your new match on a round of spears.”

“The way Riese hunted today, I reckon I don’t stand a chance,” said Vinder.

Riese nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” She glanced up at Vinder apologetically. “It’ll just be a moment.”

The young man shrugged, though Malik could sense irritation, but he ventured off with Riese’s father, both men laughing.

Riese seized Malik by the wrist and dragged him away from the crowd. She said nothing until they’d withdrawn within the walled fort encompassing the village.

“I told you I wanted time with my family tonight, Malik.”

“I know… it’s important.”

Malik led the way deeper into the village. A few youths were huddled in corners, drinking, and a young couple was pressed against the walls of a longhouse, lost in their passions.

“If we’re leaving, Malik, I want to spend my final moments with my family before—”

“Just trust me, okay?”

Malik stopped near the great socha tree at the center of the inner village square and lowered his voice. There was no going back now.

“It’s about your egg.”