Page 82 of Wings of Destruction

I stop. The quick drop of my stomach now reverses and everything inside of me soars higher. Not only a response, but a back and forth. Insight matching insight.

I grab Illonia’s pendant, closing my eyes against the awkward sensation in my lower abdomen. Something as small as an answer shouldn’t be enough to make me feel this way. But it’s not just a few scribbles in a looping script. It’s so much more than that.

The sapphire warms in my hands.

It’s hope distilled into ink and parchment. Knowledge that flows like lifeblood through my veins.

For the first time since the flames, I feel truly alive.

I’m someone worthy of consideration rather than a woman designed to blend into the background, acknowledged only for the strength in my hands. And what that means for the cleanliness of this place.

I flip to another chapter.

“Dragon armor is certainly burdensome,” I read aloud. My eyes skip over the lines. “It adds weight but is effective against all but a direct piercing of a unicorn horn in one of the connection points. Hydra and basilisk venom cannot penetrate the armor.”

Another dubious laugh slips free.

The owner of the book had some good observations and if I’m able to carry on this secret conversation longer, then I’ll learn more. I tuck each new tidbit of knowledge away. And soon I’ll be able to prove to both of those gilded parasites that they made a mistake in keeping me alive.

They won’t know it until I glide a knife through their ribs. Then I’ll swallow the surprise in their eyes before the light winks out.

I drop the pendant.

Sudden fear coils up inside of me, poised to strike. I swallow it down and tilt my head until it touches the wall.

Fear makes me weak.

Fear makes me docile and biddable and if I let it, DragonSpear and the people living like insects in the walls will mold me into whatever they need me to be.

It won’t matter what I want.

It only matters what good I can offer to this place that demands more life to power it.

My stomach sinks further as I scan through the notes in the first three chapters.

“Dragons aren’t the only powerful ones. All mounts choose their riders based on what is seen inside their heads,” I whisper.

But dragons were the only ones capable of burning an entire village to cinders in a single swoop. The power radiating off that pale beast extended throughout the entirety of Fallkirk from mountain to mountain.

If they were all as massive, the kingdom would be doomed.

“Maybe it would be different if every dragon rider I met wasn’t a greedy dreg-heap.” The word makes me smile.

I glance at the door at the slightest brush of sound. My nerves are on high alert, but the door is closed. There isn’t enough light in the hallway to send shadows of warning. I hold my breath but when the quiet lands heavier, I release it bit by bit.

I study the questions and the fantasy conversations I’d concocted in my head falter. The answers I get are nothing like the ones I’d convinced myself I’d receive.

There’s a reason they keep this room locked. If anyone found this book and the scribbles between me and the author⁠—

I shake my head. “Focus, Morgan.”

My demand falls flat.

What would Mother say about this whole business? She’d be angry, first of all, at my being forced to scrub toilets rather than learn. She’d rage against the way the administrators squashed my self-expression, my mind squandered on menial tasks designed to degrade.

She was never one for slavery.

Even in our village, everyone pulled their weight together. Mother insisted we all help each other—whether it was during harvest, or when someone fell ill, we were a community. People supported their neighbors, not servants.