Whisper [Fourth Wing]

Chapter One

CONSCRIPTION DAY IS always the deadliest. Unless you enter the scribes. Or the healers. Maybe even the infantry. Scrap that, Conscription Day for the rider's quadrant is always the deadliest. There's normally what? Three or four hundred candidates all praying to get the chance to cross the parapet for the one ultimate reward. A dragon.

Of course, statistics say that at least fifteen percent of those candidates will slip on the parapet, get thrown off, or pass out halfway across from adrenaline and face their untimely deaths at the hands of the valley below. And it won't get any easier after that. The rest of them will be lucky to make it to Threshing let alone graduation. Then...they'll do it all again the next year and watch a new round of candidates fall the exact same way.

And that wasn't any easier as I was learning this morning.

The sun was rising above the horizon, shining beautifully in the sky and yet not an inch of my body was warm. Not my feet planted firmly on the ground in my rider's boots. Not my shoulders covered by the black cloak I'd brought out in case it got cold and not my cheeks which were flushed. I was freezing, shaking where I stood. Anyone would have thought that I was the one walking across the parapet not the candidates already filtering across.

My heart pounds in harmony with the ravine and its river below which whip against the stone walls of Basgiath. I wonder how many wagons they have down there this year. Five? Six? The parapet claimed about fifteen percent of rider candidates each year of which there were about three hundred and sixty cadets each year. That put about fifty-four cadets falling off that parapet and to their deaths. Damn. Every trial in this quadrant—including this one—is designed to test a cadet's ability to ride. If fifty-four cadets couldn't manage to walk the wing length of the slim stone bridge then how did they ever think they were going to keep their balance, let alone fight, on the back of a dragon? Is glory really worth the risk of being one of those fifty-four?

"Check it out." shouts a voice from over my shoulder and I turn to find pink hair bobbing through the crowd toward me. Imogen.

That girl would stick out in a crowd even without her half-shaved, half-pink hair. She was the loudest person I knew plus...she had that shimmering rebellion relic running up her forearm, all the way from her wrist to where it hid under her uniform. The two silver stars on her chest signal her rank as a second-year and the second wing patch on her shoulder matches my own.

As she comes closer to me, I notice the small dagger she's waving in front of her. It has a small red handle that I instantly recognize. Not many people had personalized daggers in here. "Isn't that Quinn's?" I ask with narrow eyes.

"Yep." Imogen smiles to herself, sliding the dagger into a slot in her belt and tapping it proudly. She looks up at me then and I can instantly see the mischief there. "She lost a bet. I got her dagger."

That wasn't just any dagger. That was Quinn's favorite dagger. She'd brought it with her from home. It was all she had.

"And what bet was that? You finally asking out Garrick because I think that's cheating, Imogen, given that you are involved." I cross my arms over my chest and raise my eyebrows at her.

Imogen had had a crush on Garrick forever. Quinn knew that. I knew that. The whole quadrant probably knew that except for Garrick. The dude may have been strong but he was as blind as a bat. We'd been trying to convince Imogen to just tell him since the start of last year but she'd said she didn't want to say anything if she was just going to die at Threshing anyway so we laid off her for a bit. Now, Threshing's gone, so have the War Games and we're back to the start of the year again and she still hasn't told him. I'm starting to think I should just tell her that Garrick likes her back and speed things along. It's getting tiresome watching her thirst after him and then complain about how he doesn't see her the same way.