Read Chapter 1: The Choosing

The Choosing ground was a sea of silk and arrogance, and Elara smelled like horse.

She'd tried to scrub the stench from her skin that morning, using the lye soap the farrier kept for his worst jobs, but it clung to her like a second hide. The nobles' daughters wore gowns of pale blue and rose, their hair braided with silver thread. Their escorts—the sons of dukes and margraves—stood in stiff rows, jawlines sharp enough to cut glass, waiting for the dragons to descend from the Spire.

Elara stood at the far edge of the grounds, behind the last row of titled families, where the stable master had told her to wait. "You'll stand at the back, girl. You'll not shame the Academy by crowding the front."

She wasn't supposed to be here at all. The Choosing was for students of the Dragonhold Academy—those who had passed their trials, proven their bloodlines, paid their tithes. Stable hands didn't get chosen. They mucked stalls and curried scales and watched the great beasts wheel overhead, dreaming of a life they'd never touch.

But Lady Voss had insisted on a full turnout this year. Every soul on Academy grounds. *Every one,* she'd said, her voice carrying down the stone corridors like a bell tolling. Elara had assumed it was about the dwindling numbers. Everyone whispered about those. The dragons were laying fewer eggs, hatching fewer young. The Spire was half-empty now, where once it had hummed with life.

The morning sun crested the Spire's peak, and the crowd hushed.

They came in a rush of color and wind—ten dragons, bright as scattered jewels against the pale sky. A burnished copper wheeled left, trailing sparks from its nostrils. An emerald-green female beat her wings in a lazy rhythm, her scales flashing like cut glass. The smaller ones, the ones already bonded to senior students, glided in to perch on the stone pillars at the edges of the grounds, their riders sliding off to watch the ceremony.

But the great beasts—the unclaimed ones—circled higher, taking their time.

Elara watched them, and something in her chest ached with a longing so fierce it threatened to crack her ribs. She knew each of them by name, by temperament, by the particular way they tilted their heads when they scanned the crowd. She'd fed them, groomed them, sung to them when they were feverish with scale-rot. She knew that the copper one, Fenn, always chose a rider who laughed easily, and that the frost-blue female, Serille, demanded silence from anyone who touched her.

And she knew that the largest of them all, the one who circled highest and slowest, was Ignis.

No one called Ignis *reclusive* where he could hear them. The dragon was nearly twice the size of the others, his scales the color of embers banked deep in a hearth—dark red fading to black at the edges. His horns swept back from his skull in elegant spirals, and his eyes, when they caught the light, were the color of hot gold. He hadn't chosen a rider in nine years.

Nine Chosings. Ninety-nine hopefuls. Scores of the most eligible noble bloodlines in the kingdom, paraded before him like prizes at a fair. He'd rejected them all—sometimes with a curl of smoke from his nostrils, sometimes with a bored flick of his tail that sent them stumbling backward. The Academy had nearly given up on him.

They were bringing the first candidates forward now. Lady Voss stood at the center of the platform, her silver hair swept up in an elaborate arrangement, her robes the deep green of the Academy's herald. In her hand, she held the ceremonial bell—silver, scaled like a dragon's hide, with a clapper carved from a dragon's tooth.

"Ada of House Thornfield," Voss intoned.

A girl in rose pink stepped forward, her chin high. Ignis wheeled once, twice—and then descended, landing on the platform with a thud that shook the flagstones. His head dipped low, his nostrils flaring as he sampled the girl's scent.

Ada smiled, triumphant.

Ignis sneezed.

A gout of black smoke engulfed her, and when it cleared, her hair was singed at the edges and her perfect gown was smeared with soot. The nobles gasped. Someone in the back laughed—quickly muffled.

"Next," Voss said, her voice carefully neutral.

"Marcus of House Valthorn."

The boy walked forward with the confidence of someone who'd never been told no in his life. He bowed. Ignis sniffed him, then turned his massive head away with a disdainful flick of his tail.

Marcus's face went red. "That beast—"

"Next," Voss said, louder.

The Choosing wore on. Cedric of House Ashford came forward—handsome, tall, with the kind of golden hair that seemed designed for portraits—and Ignis barely glanced at him. The crowd murmured. Cedric's jaw tightened, but he inclined his head with practiced grace and stepped back into line.

Elara watched it all, forgetting, for a moment, that she was meant to be invisible. Nineteen candidates, and Ignis had rejected them all. The other dragons had chosen, one by one, until only the great red beast remained, and the sun was climbing toward noon.

"Lady Voss," someone called from the crowd. "Perhaps the beast is past his prime. Perhaps we should—"

"Silence." Voss's voice cracked like a whip. "Ignis has not yet chosen."

"He has rejected every worthy candidate. Who remains?"

Voss looked at her list. Her lips pressed thin. "The remaining candidates are... accounted for. There is no one else."

The crowd began to murmur, and Elara felt a flicker of disappointment. She'd known, of course, that she wouldn't be chosen. She was a stable hand. She wasn't on the list. But part of her—the foolish, dreaming part—had hoped.

That was when Ignis lifted his head.

He was still on the platform, a mountain of ember and shadow, and his golden eyes swept the crowd slowly. Methodically. He ignored the candidates entirely now, his gaze moving past them, past the nobles, past the servants in their drab livery—

And stopped.

Elara felt it like a stone dropping into a still pond. The dragon's eyes fixed on her, and the world went quiet. She couldn't hear the murmuring crowd, the whisper of the wind, the thud of her own heart. There was only him, and the weight of his attention, and something else—a warmth that spread through her chest like she'd swallowed sunlight.

*Come,* the warmth said. Not words, not quite—more like a tug, a current pulling her forward. *Come here.*

"No," she whispered. "I'm not—I'm nobody—"

But her feet were already moving.

She walked past the rows of nobles, past the candidates who stared at her with open disgust. Cedric of House Ashford stepped into her path, his hand raised. "Where do you think you're going, girl? This is the Choosing, not the stable yard. Get back to—"

Ignis roared.

It wasn't the lazy, dismissive flick of smoke from before. It was a full-throated, window-rattling roar that sent Cedric stumbling backward, his face gone white. The ground shook. Several of the younger children in the crowd began to cry.

Elara walked forward, and no one stopped her.

She climbed the steps to the platform, her boots leaving small smears of stable filth on the polished stone. Lady Voss watched her approach, her expression unreadable. The headmaster's eyes were the color of winter slate, and they flickered with something Elara couldn't name—surprise, perhaps. Or worry.

Elara stopped in front of Ignis.

He was enormous up close. His head was level with hers, and his eyes were pools of molten gold, filled with ancient knowing. She could feel the heat of him, radiating like a banked fire, and the faint smell of smoke and embers and something deep and mineral, like stone warmed by the sun.

She'd seen this dragon every day for two years. She'd groomed his claws and mucked his cavern and left him warm rabbits from the kitchen. She knew him as well as she knew the creak of her own back after a long day of shoveling.

But she'd never stood this close.

"Your rider," Voss said, the words clipped and formal, "should be of noble blood."

Ignis's tail swept out, knocking a decorative urn from the platform. It shattered against the flagstones with a crash.

"Or," Voss amended, her jaw tight, "perhaps not."

The great dragon lowered his head—slowly, deliberately—until his brow pressed against Elara's chest. The touch was surprisingly gentle, the scales warm and smooth. She felt the tug again, the warmth spreading through her, and she understood. He was choosing her. Him, the oldest, the proudest, the one who had rejected everyone for nine years. He was choosing the stable girl.

"Why?" she whispered, so low only the dragon could hear.

Ignis made a sound—not a growl, not quite a purr. A rumble that seemed to travel straight through her bones.

*They try too hard,* she heard, clear as a bell in her mind. *You just talked to me.*

She hadn't realized she was crying until she tasted salt on her lips.

"Elara." Voss's voice cut through the moment. "The bonding will proceed. You will be enrolled at the Dragonhold Academy as a probationary student."

"Probationary?" The word came out of Elara's mouth before she could stop it.

"You have no noble blood, no training, no education in the arts of dragon-riding." Voss's tone was steel wrapped in silk. "You will have one term to prove you belong. If you fail—" She gestured at Ignis, who had not moved from his position, his head still pressed gently to Elara's chest. "—you will not be permitted to bond."

"So I'd lose him." It wasn't a question.

Voss's eyes flickered. "You never had him. The Academy forbids half-bonds. If you cannot meet our standards, Ignis will remain unclaimed."

Somewhere behind her, Elara heard Cedric's voice, sharp with fury and humiliation. "This is a farce. A *stable hand* riding the greatest dragon in the realm? She doesn't know the first thing about—"

"Which is precisely why," Voss interrupted, "she has the entire term to learn. The trial will be rigorous." She looked at Elara, and something in her expression softened, just a fraction. "You will fly your first bonding flight tomorrow at dawn, weather permitting. Report to the north landing at first light."

The crowd erupted. Voices tangled over each other—outrage, disbelief, a few stray notes of laughter. Elara caught fragments as she stood there, trembling, with a dragon's head against her chest.

"…utter scandal…"

"…probably seduced the beast with stable tricks…"

"…she'll kill herself, and it'll serve the family right…"

Cedric pushed through the crowd to stand at the base of the platform, his golden hair gleaming, his face a mask of aristocratic fury. "Ignis made a mistake today." His voice was loud enough to carry. "A prodigy is wasted on a gutter girl who cannot even read. She'll break within the week, and when she does, I'll be the one to get her back to the stables where she belongs."

Ignis didn't move, but Elara felt the rumble in his chest—a low vibration of warning.

She lifted her chin, meeting Cedric's eyes.

"We'll see," she said.