Ava Lucila Rykus had woken in darkness. Her entire body jostling. Hands gripping her arms and legs. Carrying her through the forest.

While the village had scrambled to deal with the aftermath of the rebel attack, the shaman had enlisted the help of a large boy named Ulgar to help in hauling Ava from the shrines to the village temple.

No easy task in the darkness of the forest, or in the clamor of the village. But Ava was weak when she woke, hands bound, and she did not resist them.

Somewhere between the shrines and the outer walls of the village, there was a shaman’s passage, a secret tunnel leading straight into this secret chamber in the temple.

There had been many other people in the woods near the village walls, but there had been plenty else going on, the air filled with cries of children and injured villagers within the walls, and Ava’s hood had been drawn, and it was the middle of the night yet.

They slipped through a very tight space between an old socha trunk and a large boulder, then slipped down a small hole in a space behind a tree, and they were out of the forest.

Malik had used a significant amount of magic, Ava noted, to direct attention elsewhere when they neared that secret entrance.

Ava could still sense the guilt gnawing at Malik’s gut, the intrusive magic clearly against the moral code of these shamans. As was harboring a murderer in the inner sanctum of their temple, Ava expected.

She’d never held such reservations about magic, at least none that had not been forced upon her by the academy or the demands of secrecy. But it told her much about the shaman. The boy, Ulgar, she had less of a read on.

He struck her as a simple man, and he smelled faintly of fish. Not a brute, but the sort of boy who let others do the deliberating.

So, why had the shaman brought Ulgar now?

Ava groaned as she craned her neck to face them both. She’d spent nearly two days tied to that chair, and her whole body was stiff. Her head throbbed from when Riese had knocked her unconscious. And her bad hip ached something fierce.

A small sacrifice, she thought.

The shaman had at least let her remove the brace from her leg. Worn too long, it cut off circulation. Now, it flopped against the side of the bookshelf in this inner temple chamber.

Ava peered up at Malik, then her gaze drifted to the porridge in his hands.

“You going to eat that in front of me out of spite?”

“Er, no.” Malik set the bowl in front of her.

He’d only brought a flagon of water when he’d visited her this morning, and she was the hungriest she’d felt since the academy trials that had sent her out to survive in the woods for three days with only a spear. Her hip made it difficult to hunt game, and she’d subsisted mostly on nuts and berries.

Ava glanced at the bowl of porridge with longing, but she couldn’t resist another jab. The shaman always reacted.

“So… do I lap it up like a dog, then?” She leaned her face forward, arms straining against the ropes fixing her hands to the back of the chair. She stretched her neck toward the bowl.

Malik blanched. “What do you think?” he asked Ulgar.

“Eh, her legs are still bound.” Ulgar moved behind the chair and untied Ava’s hands.

She grunted as she stretched her aching fingers and rubbed the raw lines formed by the ropes on her wrists. “You’re both noble gentlemen,” she said.

Malik glared as she extended a soft flare of magic at them both.

“No more warnings,” he said. “If I sense any magic manipulation, we turn you over to the Consul.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Consul?” Ava asked curiously. “Surely not Campos, the way I left him. That must mean…”

“Enough,” Malik said.

“You brought it up, not me.” She flashed a full-lipped smile. “I don’t suppose it would help to remind you my actions were entirely—”

Malik sent a flash of magic her way, pressing into her mind.

“Sorry,” she said. “You’ve no idea what it takes to survive an Attican upbringing. Valucians all thought we were traitors. Atticans looked down on us as lesser lords, but still blood-traitors. It required a lot to make my way here.”

“And look at you now,” Ulgar said dryly.

Ava smirked. “Yes, caught somewhere between traitor and saint, once again, aren’t I?”

These two had no idea what she’d been through. What her family had sacrificed. What her people had endured.

But you can’t blame them for that, Ava reminded herself.

The shaman was a good man, and at the very least, he questioned what should be done with her. Ava had to build on that.

“Tell Ulgar what you told me,” Malik said again.

He was growing frustrated. Ava took that, and Ulgar’s return, as good signs.

She took up the bowl and scooped the goopy porridge into her mouth with her fingers. It was cold, and lacked any seasoning, but her body relished the sustenance.

“Your friend is safe,” Ava said. “Your people are safe, at least as far as the rebellion is concerned. I can’t speak for the empire.”

“Safe? Tell that to all our injured people,” said Ulgar, crossing his thick arms across his chest and stepping closer, so he towered over her.

Ava had seen enough academy boys try to overcompensate for their insecurities to ignore the intimidation. “Were any of your villagers killed in the attack?”

Ulgar hesitated. “I don’t believe so.” Ava took another sip of porridge. “I’m relieved to hear it. Our enemy is Attica, not Faltara. But if a new Consul is here, I fear the island won’t be safe much longer. The shaman fears this too, I think.”

Malik dipped his chin.

“If our island is unsafe, it’s because of what you’ve done,” Ulgar said. “No one has been killed in cold blood here in centuries.”

“We did what we did because of what your people have done for centuries. Without dragons, what power would Attica have? Your people did that.”

Ulgar stepped back a step, then shrugged. “I expect you know more about all that than me. I’m just a lowly island boy from the edge of the world.”

Ava smiled. “Perhaps.”

“What is it your people want?” Ulgar asked.

“Freedom,” said Ava softly. “Something you value here on the island, I’m told.” She glanced at Malik, who seemed to be striving to maintain an indifferent demeanor.

He was not so worried earlier, Ava thought. Not before the Atticans returned.

“And the Elyans?” Ulgar asked. “How do they fit into all of this?”

“Freedom is a value we all share. They lent our cause the use of one of their runeships obviously. We are not the first.”

“And what about those creatures? Where’d they come from?”

Ava shrugged. “They’re not creatures, but I’ll say no more. I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Seems to me, you’re the one who needs to prove trust.”

“Does it seem that way to you?”

Malik shifted uneasily. He was so jittery.

“Why were you left behind?” Ulgar asked. “Your father didn’t so much as look back. I saw it. And you don’t seem to concerned about it either.”

“The mission always comes first,” Ava said.

“Or he left you here for a reason,” said Malik, finally interjecting.

Ava nodded, pleased with how the conversation had gone, even without the assistance of magic.

“Because he’s coming back,” Ulgar said.

“You two seem to know as much as I do.”

“Quit playing games,” Malik said, straightening up, jaw tensing.

Ava sighed and leaned back from the desk. “You’re cute when you’re frustrated, shaman.”

“I mean it,” he said. “No more bullshit.”

Ava pounded the empty bowl on the table. “That is the one thing I have never done. My family is ready to die to free Valucia from Attican tyranny. And if you think that your own island is exempt from their cruelty, you’re the one bullshitting yourself. Your island is the home for the dragons that fuel the empire, and the secret’s out. You’re all going to have to decide which side to take.”

The two young men glanced at one another. Even without her magic, she could tell the tension. It was all she could do to not try to probe further.

“How many eggs are there really?” she asked. “Every year more come to Attica. For centuries. And according to my father, dragons can’t reproduce in this world.”

“This world?” said Ulgar.

Malik shot a glare at the boy, and Ava grinned.

“Maybe your father doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Malik said.

“Maybe… but I’d wager that dozens of eggs have passed from this place. Maybe hundreds. And I think there are more. Far more. And if something isn’t done, the empire will seize them all. Maybe they’ll hide them someplace else. Maybe they’ll hatch them all. And THAT would be the end of the world as we know it. An Age of Fire.”

Silence hung over the room. Ulgar shifted nervously, glancing at the door.

Malik sighed. “So what?” said Malik. “We should give them to your rebels instead?”

“You seriously think we’d tell you where they are?” asked Ulgar.

“Oh, that’s not why I’m here at all,” said Ava.

“I don’t think you’re here for any reason,” said Malik, but she could sense the doubt in his spirit, even without magic.

“Well, we’ll certainly find out soon enough.” Ava sat back in her chair. “You’re right, the rebellion will return. And the empire is going to try to seize as many eggs as they can. And they won’t care who dies in their wake, that much I promise you. Not Valucians. Not Faltari. No one will be safe.”

Ava drew a long breath, letting the tension build. “I’m here to warn you, shaman. It’s time for your people to leave this island. For good.”