Ledger of the Taken
Brother Osric was waiting for him at the chapel door, as if he had been standing there all night.
The old archivist was bald and white-bearded, with round spectacles hanging from a chain, and he leaned on his cane like it was the only thing holding up the morning. His eyes went straight to Rowan's bandaged hand.
"Don't let them light the flame under that hand, boy," he said softly. "Not today."
Rowan's mouth went dry. "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do. Come inside. Quickly."
* * *
The chapel cellar smelled of damp stone and old paper. Osric lit a single candle and unlocked an iron box hidden behind a shelf of hymnals. From it he drew one yellowed page, handling it as gently as a sleeping bird.
It was a drawing. A dragon and a woman stood side by side on a cliff, the dragon's wing curved over the woman's shoulders like a cloak. Not a monster. Not a slave. Two friends watching a sunrise. Around the edges ran the same clawed, flame-shaped letters as the paper in Rowan's shirt.
"This is a page of the Ashen Codex," Osric said. "One of the last. The Order burns every copy it finds."
"What does it say?"
"I can read a little. Not enough." Osric's hand trembled. "And it isn't the time, Rowan. Not yet."
Rowan pulled out the folded paper. "Then what about this? Someone dropped it last night. Climbing out of your archive window."
Osric took the paper, looked at it, and went pale in a way Rowan had never seen a person go pale.
"Ilse," he whispered. "This is Ilse Morrow's hand. But Ilse is dead—"
"She was my mother."
They both turned.
The girl from last night stood at the top of the cellar stairs. She came down them without asking, braid swinging, amber eyes hard.
"I copied that from her notes," she said. "I want it back. And I want what I came for."
"Talia," Osric breathed. "You're Ilse's girl. You were so small when she wrote to me—"
"I'm not small now." She held out her hand, and Rowan gave the paper back. "My brother Teo was taken at the spring Trial in Dawnspire. Five months ago. Nobody will tell me where he is. Mother always said every garrison keeps a copy of the Ledger of the Taken. So. Where is it?"
Osric closed his eyes. "The records room. Beneath the commander's office. But the key—"
"I don't need a key," Talia said. "I need a crowbar and ten minutes." She glanced sideways at Rowan. "And maybe someone who knows the garrison."
"Why would I help you?" Rowan asked. "You pulled a knife on me."
"You grabbed my wrist with a hand that was hotter than a stove." Her voice dropped. "If they find out what you are, you'll be in that ledger too. Don't you want to know what happens to people like us?"
Us. She'd said it like she meant it.
Rowan looked at Osric. The old man said nothing at all, and that was answer enough.
* * *
At midmorning the Dawnday parade began, and the whole garrison poured into the square to watch. Drums. Banners. Soldiers in silver breastplates marching behind a painted wooden dragon with its head hanging on a stick.
Rowan and Talia went the other way.
He knew which window of the commander's office had a broken latch, because he'd forged the replacement nobody had installed yet. Talia was through it before he'd finished pointing. The records room below was a cramped space of shelves and dust. She moved along them fast, fingers skimming the spines, lips moving as she read.
"Here." She dragged down a thick black book stamped with the sunburst. Ledger of the Taken — Northern Provinces.
Page after page of names. Ages. Dates. Delivered to the Sanctuary, Dawnspire.
"They're all fifteen or sixteen," Rowan said quietly.
"Look at the numbers." Talia ran a finger down the yearly totals. "Twelve, a few decades ago. Twenty. Thirty-one. Every year it goes up. Like someone needs more." She flipped to the back, where the newest pages were bound in from the capital, and stopped.
Teo Morrow, 15. Spring Trial, Dawnspire. Delivered to the Sanctuary.
She didn't cry. Her jaw just went very tight.
"He's alive," Rowan said. "It says delivered, not—"
"It doesn't say anything." She turned back further, searching, and paused at an older page. "Year 290. This one's strange. Not a child." Her finger rested on a line. M. Rook, adult. Concealed Scaleborn. Delivered to the Sanctuary. Record sealed by order of the Regent.
"Rook," Rowan repeated. "Is that a family?"
"No idea." Talia tore both pages out, clean along the binding, and slid them into her map case. When she saw his face, she shrugged. "What? They stole my brother. I can steal paper."
* * *
They slipped out through the supply yard, and Rowan pulled her down behind a wagon when a pair of guards came past.
The wagon was stacked with small wooden crates, each padded with straw. One lid had cracked. Inside, rows of crystal vials glowed a deep, gleaming red, like cherry juice held up to a candle. Each crate was branded with a mark Rowan knew from the Trial banners: the seal of the Sanctuary.
"The Regent's tonic," one guard was saying. "Twelve crates, straight to Dawnspire. Handle them like eggs, the captain says, or it's your neck."
"What's even in it?"
"Medicine. The Lord Regent's been frail since he was young, they say. Keeps him strong."
They moved on. Talia stared after them.
Pinned to the wagon was a printed proclamation for the festival. Rowan read it without meaning to. By the hand of His Excellency Caddoc Veyne, Lord Regent of Aurendel, eighth heir of the blood of Aldric Vane, in the name of the Sleeping Throne. At the bottom, stamped in black wax, was the Regent's seal.
A sunburst, pressed down over a single broken wing.
Rowan had seen that seal before. It was carved on the ring of the stone Aldric in the square, the hand that held the sword.
"Veyne," Talia murmured. "Vane. They even spell it almost the same."
"He's the Hero-King's descendant. That's the point."
"Is it?" She looked at the red vials again, and her eyes narrowed in a way Rowan was starting to recognize. It meant she was thinking faster than anyone else in the room.
Then the iron tag at Rowan's throat went warm.
Not hot. Just warm, like a coin held in a fist. He touched it, confused.
Hoofbeats rang through the gate. A line of Dawnknights rode into the yard, silver armor so bright it hurt to look at, and at their head came a young knight on a white horse. Tall, broad-shouldered, fair hair cut close to the scalp. A thin scar split his right eyebrow. A silver locket swung at his throat.
"Who is that?" Rowan whispered.
"Cassian Rook," Talia breathed. "The Lantern. The youngest Knight-Hunter in the Order. He's the Regent's own ward." She went very still. "Rook."
Cassian swung down from his horse. His blue eyes swept the yard, calm and cold and missing nothing, and passed over the wagon where they hid.
As he walked past, the tag on Rowan's chest grew warmer still.
"By order of the Regent," Cassian called, "I will conduct this year's Trial personally. Every candidate will be present in the square at sunset. No exceptions."
* * *
The square was packed by sunset.
Lanterns glowed. Parents stood behind a rope, pale and quiet. On a stone table in front of the statue sat the silverflame brazier: a wide silver bowl filled with a strange grey oil, burning with a cold, white-silver fire.
Rowan stood in line with the other sixteen-year-olds. He'd tied the bandage tighter. His heart was banging.
In the crowd, he found Bram's black beard. Nell's straw hair beside it. And at the very back, half-hidden by a pillar, a single black braid.
Talia had stayed. He didn't know why that made it easier to breathe, but it did.
One by one, the candidates stepped up. One by one, they held their hands above the flame. Silver. Silver. Silver. Each time, a family in the crowd sagged with relief.
"Rowan Thale," Cassian read from his list. "Garrison foundling. Tag forty-seven."
Rowan walked to the table.
"Remove the bandage."
"It's a burn, sir. From the forge."
"Then it will not trouble the flame." Cassian's voice was not cruel. It was worse than cruel. It was fair. "Remove it."
Rowan unwound it slowly. He held his left hand over the silver fire and thought of cold things. River ice. Snow. Nothing.
Stay asleep, he begged whatever was inside him. Please. Just one more year.
The flame shivered.
Then it went gold.
Not a flicker, but all at once, a roaring column of molten gold light that shot up past his fingers and lit the whole square like a second sunset. The crowd gasped. Someone screamed. Rowan tried to pull back, but a burning, tearing pain ripped up his left arm, and he looked down and saw it.
Scales. Dark copper-red scales were blooming out of his skin, spreading from the one on his forearm like frost across a window. Over his elbow. Up toward his shoulder. They hurt like nothing had ever hurt, and they gleamed like armor in the golden light.
Across the square, the stone dragon wept its carved tears.
Cassian Rook drew his sword. His hand did not shake.
"Rowan Thale," he said, clear enough for the whole of Greywater to hear. "By the Dawn, you are Scaleborn."
Behind him, two knights came forward carrying a length of black chain that gleamed faintly red.
Dragonsteel.