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Chapter One
“Jaclan? Jaclan!”
The eight-year-old stopped spinning wildly on the browning grass and frowned at me. Seemed I interrupted vital business.
“What?”
“The clouds grow heavy. Bring in the sheets, please. Get Gisela to help you.”
“I don’t need help. I can do it myself.” Jaclan ran headfirst through the quilt, swinging and swiping his arms at the fabric, and ended up blinking and confused on the other side.
I hid a smile as I bounced the baby. Jac had been on this independent streak since he started school. No doubt his instructors were filling his head with stern words of how he would soon be the man of the household—tasked with using his magic to protect his mother and sisters, then one day his wife and daughters.
Jac tried again to tackle the quilt and ended up flat on the grass.
His instructors clearly hadn’t known him long enough. It’d be a while yet before this dreamy, clumsy boy untied from the apron strings, and what was wrong with that? A child should be a child. Not a protector. Not a provider.
My eyes drifted over his head to the sign once again plastered on our door. They narrowed.
And not a pawn.
“Ahh,” Savia cooed.
Shaking myself, I settled my squirmy sister in the sling and knelt down in the vegetable patch. It was doing well despite thesorry state of the rest of our small scratch of land. Meliora and I had been forced to ration our water through the dry season, sharing it with the patch. It paid off in enough green beans, radishes, carrots, and squash to make a vegetable soup that would actually fill our bellies that night.
I worked in a steady rhythm of weeding, digging, cleaning, and singing to the baby. My croons carried on the wind, covering the sounds coming through the window overhead.
Fat, stinging pellets of rain struck my back, signaling its final warning to go inside. I rose on aching knees with my basket of goods. Turning around, I found the sheets exactly where I put them and no Jac in sight.
Sighing, I dropped the basket and quickly took them down myself—running inside as the heavens opened. I paused only to rip that cursed sign from my front door. It’d be back again in a few days’ time, then that parchment would meet the same fate.
Jaclan sat at the table with my second-youngest sister and his twin, Gisela.
“—is the rune for water.” He stuck his tongue out, concentrating hard as he drew directly on our worn, splintered table. “See?”
Nodding, Gisela scrunched up her sweet, cherubic face, swiping her unruly golden curls out of the way as she copied him. A wave of such sadness hit me, I would’ve sworn it summoned the crack of thunder that struck that moment.
“Haeowen, look!” Gisela waved at me, bouncing in her seat.Haeowenas in honored sister. The young weren’t allowed to address those older than them by their given names. Not even within families. I didn’t care in the slightest and told her so, but even as a babe there was a seriousness about Gisela—the perfect balance to her wild twin.
She followed the rules. Did things in the right order. Asked permission before taking a step. She sought law, order, andstructure in our world of chaos, as if following the rules would one day bring rewards.
Eight years old was too young to shatter her dreams.
“Did I do it right? Is it good?”
A smile tugged on my lips. “That is the best water rune I’ve ever seen. You’re a natural, Gisela.”
My sweet sister beamed so wide, I saw all of her missing teeth. The smile was a dagger through my heart.
“I can’t wait until I go to school with Jac. He says they’re learning mind riding next week. I’ve gotten better. Look!” Gisela spun around, hand up and face scrunched. Not a second passed before a lump of fur and whiskers crawled out from under our threadbare couch.
I laughed as it bounded up to me. “So that was the mewling noise I heard last night. You and Jac said it was Savia.”
The kitten looked at me through too-intelligent eyes. Behind them, was Gisela. Or at least her mind and thoughts pushed into a smaller, weaker being. It was said her namesake, Gisela Raekin of legend, could meld her mind with her familiar and companion, a dragon.
I suspected that was why our Gisela was so taken with mind riding magic. She’d been practicing with the mice and other critters that have long shared our home, since she was practically in swaddling. Successfully melding her mind with an animal the size of a kitten was a grand accomplishment for a child her age. An accomplishment that would name her a prodigy to be praised in the same name as Gisela Raekin.
But the legend she admired was from a time when dragons still existed.
