It had been less than a month since Cynobria’s first visit to the Armies in Shadow that she once again found herself flying for the grey snow-capped peaks of the Roche, her parents in her wake. She bounded down the secret tunnel leading into the hideout, so lost in her anticipation she nearly collided with a dragon heading out.

  ‘My oh my, Brie,’ he said, taking a step back. ‘Are you that excited to see me?’

  Taroquel.

  She frowned. She was excited—both for him and the rest—but… why was he here? Was he leaving? She looked up at him, only now noticing a harness tied around him, an ensemble of various bags and gear strapped to it in most conveniently reachable places. ‘I…’

  ‘You know,’ said Taroquel, grinning mischievously, fangs glinting in the tunnel’s scant light, ‘if Licci was here she’d say you have bad taste, but as it is, I’m flattered.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ she asked to somehow anchor herself. Taroquel’s strange bearing was messing with her, but she was determined to show it as little as possible.

  ‘Already out,’ he said easily. ‘I had to stay a bit behind to gear up, so you got a very lucky timing there. Or unlucky, I suppose, if you came to see me.’ He winked.

  She looked at him dumbly. Much as the last time she had seen Taroquel he looked like he might have been any dragon she passed in the air, now the impression shattered like dropped glass. The harness might have been the fulcrum of that change, but it was not the change entire—where before his demeanour served to affect an easy gravity around him, now he carried himself with a purposeful air, confidence honed into sharp competence. He no longer appeared as any neighbour—Taroquel was now a soldier.

  Always had been, she reminded herself. She would do well to remember that.

  Still, when he said, ‘We’re going away on a mission,’ as though it was the most normal thing possible, Cynobria felt as though she were struck on the snout. She made an effort not to let it show.

  ‘How long will you be out?’

  ‘A few days, perhaps,’ he said. Her heart sank. She tried to speak, but Taroquel was faster. ‘Hey, I know I’m the best part of the Armies, but I’m sure you can find someone at least half as interesting as me.’ He patted her on the shoulder. Then he said, ‘I have to go. Take care!’ and before she had a chance to reply he slipped past her and up the tunnel, and was gone as the rock of the hidden passage of the Roche slid into place behind him.

  Cynobria should have been more enthused about her second visit to the Armies’ hideout, but with Taroquel and the others gone she found it difficult to fan the flame of her excitement. It was odd—the last time she had brimmed with unspent curiosity, and she knew not of the dragons she would meet. And yet without Taroquel, Elomer, Lidique and Trnth she found she could do little more than wander aimlessly through the labyrinthine corridors of the mountainous compound.

  In her distracted amble—alone again as her parents went about their own work—she found herself in a part of the base she had not seen previously. This was nothing strange—the place was huge, and she couldn’t have explored even a quarter of it on her previous visit, yet something about it stoked her curiosity, if only a little.

  A strange quiet permeated this space. At no point had she passed a doorway that would forbid or dissuade her entry, nor had any dragon stopped her, and yet she felt this part was not for her to be in.

  Cynobria pressed on.

  The passage looked at once less used and better cared-for than the rest of the hideout. The floor and walls were polished grey stone, scantly lit, and the white wooden doors, spaced much farther apart than in other corridors, were carved with swirling patterns that almost brought to mind the word “ornate”. Nowhere had she seen a speck of dirt or dust.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Cynobria stilled at the voice, a sudden urge to flee sparking inside her. Instead, she turned round, trying to locate the speaker, and found her in a doorway a little back, a small snout peeking through the ajar door.

  A hatchling, four or five years of age.

  A Cavrian.

  Cynobria’s breath caught and her mind reeled, but there was no mistaking it. Though young, the hatchling had the Cavrians’ sturdy build, and her scales were either white or grey—it was hard to tell in the shadows—streaked all around with asymmetric golden patterns.

  She looked up at Cynobria and said again, in equal measure anxious and curious, ‘Who are you?’ and Cynobria thought her heart might stop.

  It was not for the hatchling’s words, or the tone with which she spoke. It were her eyes.

  An unmistakable violet of Tarange, not the Cavrians’ yellow.

  ‘I…’ she said, and that was all she managed before another voice cu in:

  ‘Do not trouble yourself with her, Orielle. She got lost and will be leaving shortly.’

  Cynobria spun. She knew that voice, and sure enough there stood the second-in-command of the Armies in Shadow, the Cavrian Mistress Oonagh, staring down at Cynobria with an expression that bordered between neutrality, boredom and mild contempt.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t…’ she started, then stopped. She wasn’t sure what she didn’t. She ducked her head in apology and only then noticed something—someone—thus far hidden in the shadows.

  Another hatchling trailed behind the large Cavrian.

  He was a scrawny thing, thin as though his bones were little more than sticks. His scales were a dark violet with flecks of lavender on the frills, snout, tail and belly, marking a close resemblance to Jagrav. He looked to be the same age as Orielle even if next to her he appeared much smaller. Half of his snout wore a frown so deep it seemed permanently etched there, the other half covered by a mask, and the air around him seemed abuzz with vague, barely discernible wrongness.

  ‘This area is off-limits,’ said Mistress Oonagh evenly, and then, as though the matter required no further comment, ‘Come, Péadar.’ She pushed open the door Orielle had been peeking through and entered, Péadar in her wake.

  Cynobria dared not so much as glance inside. She hastily made her way back to the compound proper.

  Orielle… Cynobria knew that name. Jagrav, when she had asked him, had mentioned Orielle was his daughter, and her parents had talked of a hatchling of that name a few years back. She was a crossbreed, then—half-Tarangean, half-Cavrian. Cynobria had wondered what happened when dragons of two different races crossed. Orielle was her answer.

  What about Péadar, though? She hadn’t recalled him being mentioned, but he was with Mistress Oonagh, and bore a striking resemblance to Jagrav. Oddly, he looked to be no hybrid, but a pure Tarangean. Why?

  The sounds of fighting drew her in. By now she had returned to the part of the compound she could explore, and she stopped at the entry to a training centre. The same one in which she had met Taroquel. At least she thought so—it was difficult to be sure.

  Almost drowned out by the sounds of struggling was the incessant, monotone ringing of their accessing. The room was almost full, but Cynobria hadn’t come here to spar. Taroquel had given her enough last time. Instead, she made her way deeper into the hall, between the mats on which the dragons fought.

  The ringing grew stronger.

  She tried to focus on it, and it almost hurt her head to do so. She growled in frustration at the cacophony assaulting her ears, laid them flat against her head, but it did little to lessen the din. Here a dragon, shrouded by a dark, flowing cloud, was attacking his opponent. There another (the guard from last time—Baterge?) was pinning the next to the ground; the dragon’s eyes were glowing, and a wind was billowing onto Baterge, but she made no notice of it. All around was fighting, and all around was sound, and she had to will herself not to roar for silence, not to leap into the fight and claw and tear and bite and syphon out the thrumming blaze that threatened to spill with every heartbeat.

  She grit her teeth and tried to sharpen her focus on a single dragon—the one pinned by Baterge. The wind she produced was probably made by kunzite—were it charoite, like Taroquel’s, her blows would have had more substance to them. Cynobria distilled the ringing from the chaos of the training centre until it was all she could hear. Her head hurt. Then she turned to another dragon, the one who had produced the dark cloud. As his ringing filled her ears, she could almost swear it was…

  Someone ran into Cynobria, pushed away from their mat, and in a flash her ears exploded with a ringing blare. Scale touched scale and all was sound and from her throat a roar tore out—vicious, raw.

  She vaguely registered falling. Felt dizzy. Dragons were crowding around her, speaking, shouting, but she couldn’t make out words. All the same, nondescript din.

  Someone hoisted her up, led her away. She didn’t protest.

  ‘You have to stop landing here every time you visit.’

  Cynobria groaned as consciousness less so returned than broke down the door to her mind without knocking first. All around there was a strong smell, part-plant, part-chemical. She blinked open her eyes, then noticed a familiar blur that soon resolved itself into a familiar snout with a familiar voice.

  ‘I would have said… No, ah, hmm…’ said Trnth, and then, after some pause, added, ‘No, I can’t think of any witty quips like Taro or Lidique.’

  She remembered her talk with Taroquel, how long their mission would take, and all at once felt cold. She sat up, disregarding any lingering pain, and said, wings flapping out of control. ‘How long have I been out?’

  ‘Woah, woah, take it easy!’ Trnth was next to her in an instant, trying to make her lie back down. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I…’ Cynobria hesitated. Her head hurt, but her thoughts were returning to normal. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. Then she looked at Trnth again. ‘How long?’

  ‘You’ve barely been out. You were mostly dazed, without anything major being wrong.’

  She let him guide her back onto the cot, though her heart was still beating too fast. A few other dragons lay on nearby beds, but she paid them little mind. ‘But Taroquel said…’

  ‘Hm? Oh, you saw him?’ Trnth smiled slightly. ‘Yes, he’s gone, as are Elomer and Lidique. About a week, I think. It’s just me, sorry.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and then, realising how it came out, added quickly, ‘I thought you all went.’

  ‘Ah, no,’ said Trnth. ‘I am a medic-in-training here. I don’t do field work.’ He tilted his head. ‘Taro didn’t say?’ Cynobria shook hers at that and Trnth’s expression grew sour. ‘Figured.’ He sighed. ‘Well, either way, only I am here, which still isn’t much, all things considered.’

  Last time Cynobria had visited Trnth had barely talked while Taroquel and Lidique, sometimes Elomer, had added to the conversation. Without them it seemed as though he talked too much, like he wanted to desperately fill the silence between them.

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  She said, ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  Trnth frowned. ‘You are?’

  Cynobria sent him a smile, hoping it came out reassuring enough. ‘Of course.’ She clambered down from the cot, and this time he didn’t stop her. ‘It’s nice to have a familiar snout to talk to. Which, speaking of, would you mind if I asked a few questions about your language?’

  Vyly was easier to learn than she had thought it might be, though it still proved a difficult task. Fortunately, much like with Hayar, she had access to a speaker—this time even the luxury of a native—and she was going to use that full force. As her visits to the Armies in Shadow grew more frequent, she had much more time to press Trnth.

  ‘An apple fell far from the tree,’ she said in what she hoped was correct Lhyn— one of the Vyly languages spoken by Trnth’s home community. It had been a few months since she started her lessons with him, and even those were infrequent as she could only get his help when she visited the Armies in Shadow. She had books at home, sure, but they hardly compared to having a teacher who could answer her questions—and was glad to do so.

  ‘Almost correct,’ said Trnth, smiling proudly. ‘Your accent is unmistakably not Vyly, but that is nothing strange. Frankly, you’re doing better than any foreigner I’ve heard try. Which, admittedly, is not very much.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘you used the word for orchard instead of tree.’

  Cynobria groaned. ‘Wrong tone?’

  Trnth nodded. ‘You used rising, but it should simply be high.’

  ‘Eh,’ said Taroquel from where he lounged on a nest of gaudy cushions, ‘close enough.’

  ‘No!’ both Cynobria and Trnth said in near-perfect unison, rounding on Taroquel, making him and Lidique laugh.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Elomer. He didn’t bother to raise his head from a small device he was fiddling with. ‘He’s being characteristically ignorant.’

  ‘I’m practical,’ said Taroquel with mock-hurt.

  Lidique punched him gently. ‘Practically an idiot, you meant to say.’

  Everyone laughed. Taroquel included. And Cynobria too.

  Feyjountairoux left in the winter of that year.

  ‘You’re moving?’ asked Cynobria, failing to conceal her disappointment.

  Fey smiled sadly. ‘Look, if it was up to me, I’d’ve stayed—and you are included on the list of reasons—’ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. ‘—but as it is, I can’t help it. My parents are moving to my mother's new contract, and I am to apprentice at her place. And I am not staying by myself at barely nineteen and looking for something myself if I can help it.’

  ‘But…’ Cynobria wanted to protest, but knew it to be futile. She neither had a good reason to make Fey stay, nor should she try to convince her. Any notion to push that would be selfish. Fey might have been her only remaining friend—outside the Armies in Shadow at least—but that meant all the more Cynobria should want what was best for her—and best for Fey was to move.

  ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ said Fey by way of reassurance. ‘I know letters won’t be the same as seeing each other, but it’s something, isn’t it? I’ll still be in Tarange, too, so we may see each other over longer holidays. Besides, you still have Vin, Tain and Louie, don’t you?’

  ‘Do I?’ she asked, more sourly than she had intended, and realised, with sudden clarity, what Fey’s upcoming absence would mean. Gevine, Jartain and Oileau couldn’t be called friends any longer, and Yselle rarely so much as spoke to Cynobria beyond simple byes and greetings in the school’s halls. If Fey left, Cynorbia would be left with no one—no one besides her parents and the Armies in Shadow.

  …would that be so bad?

  She wasn’t joining—not fully, not yet—but her increasingly frequent visits to the hideout had developed a different goal than sating her initial curiosity. There, she felt like she belonged. There she could build something of her own, again, in the wake of her recent fractures.

  Fey couldn’t have known the details of Cynobria’s turmoil, but even so she said, ‘Hey, nothing of that.’ She lifted a claw. ‘We’ve still got half a year together. Let’s make the best of it, no?’

  Cynobria smiled, the expression almost dissolving into a grimace when she felt how fake it was. Half a year. And then…

  Cynobria jumped as Taroquel lunged at her. She swivelled in the air, but he was faster, or predicted her move, because he was upon her before she could even finish her turn, and she ended up pinned to the mat again.

  ‘That makes it ten,’ he said, ‘to zero.’

  ‘Alright,’ she huffed, annoyed, ‘can you let me go now?’

  ‘Hmm, I wonder,’ he shifted his weight on her, seemed to settle. ‘You’re rather comfy.’

  ‘Taro…’ she growled, trying to throw him off, anger rising inside her.

  ‘Oh,’ he said brightly, ‘you used the shorter form!’

  ‘GET OFF!’ she roared, and flexed her muscles to stand up. Taroquel tumbled off her with a yelp, but her anger was not spent. Before she could react it poured out in a blue flame, and by the time she was done half the mat they stood on was burned away, the floor underneath blackened, the mat nearby a little more than singed. She panted heavily. A crowd that by now fought no longer stared at her, and for a moment all she wished was that the fire had burned her away, too.

  ‘You need a way to deal with this,’ said Taroquel a few days later.

  They were alone in his quarters, which he shared with his brother, currently absent. The fact they had them surprised her, but they spent so much time in the base that it made sense. The room had a wide selection of large cushion-mattresses in various colours that were rather comfortable to lounge on, and continued the gaudy theme she had seen before. She chose a vivid red while Taro sprawled on a fuchsia embroidered with forget-me-nots.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cynobria said dryly. ‘I didn’t notice.’ She had paid for the mat, despite Jagrav’s insistence that it was fine. It wasn’t.

  ‘I mean it, Brie. This is getting dangerous. What if you hurt someone?’

  Any reply she might have had died in her throat. What Taroquel had said was the exact fear that had plagued her ever since the day she had burned Fey’s game. How such small events could keep haunting a dragon for years to come—except this wasn't an isolated case.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she said.

  ‘Look.’ He stood up and came to rest next to her, on her vivid red mattress. ‘Wallowing will get you nowhere. You need to act.’ He bumped her snout with his.

  ‘How do you want me to act? I’ve tried to suppress it, to squash it down, but it only makes it more prone to exploding.’

  He shrugged. ‘Then don’t squash it.’

  She blinked. Frowned. Then blinked again, twice. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said simply. Firelight danced in his eyes, but with no mischief for its partner. ‘If it makes it worse, then don’t keep it caged until it overflows.’

  ‘So what? You want me to just let it out?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and before she could reply, ‘but do it in a controlled manner. Burn something that won’t be missed. Or too damaged.’ He looked at her with a grin. ‘How, do you reckon, would your fire work on stone?’

  Her parents weren’t pleased with Taroquel’s method. Though, truth be told, they weren’t pleased with much of what Taroquel said and did.

  ‘What is this?’ Mum roared, rushing to Cynobria as a patch of grass behind their home was flamed away.

  ‘Something to make the fire go away!’ she yelled back, and even as she did she could feel some of her tension dissipating with her flames. Her voice was hard, but calm. ‘Taroquel said it might work if I release it in a controlled manner. I wanted to try.’

  The calmness in her voice made her mother stop. ‘And?’ she asked, her jaw set tight.

  ‘It does help,’ said Cynobria, patting the flame out. ‘I… ugh, it’s still there, but it’s… less. I can manage it.’

  Mum began to speak, but stopped. She took a breath, then, and said, ‘Don’t listen to everything Taroquel says.’

  The anger threatened to flicker back into being. ‘Of course I don’t listen to everything. I’m not stupid. He’s rash. He’s impulsive. He can be annoying. He’s also resourceful and competent, and actually came up with an idea that works.’

  Their eyes locked in a silent duel. At length Melodia huffed. ‘Fine. But don’t burn anything that shouldn’t be.’

  Fey, as promised, left for the other side of the country not long after turning nineteen. Cynobria cried watching her go. Later, back home, grass got burned again.

  There were times when she would visit and Taroquel, Elomer and Lidique would be out on a mission, but Trnth was nearly always there—and the two times he was not the other three were present. Any time the two were alone they talked of Vyl—not just language, but culture, which Trnth loved to talk about, and his memories of home, and he asked questions about Cynobria’s homeland too.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said one time, and at her quizzical look he added, ‘for being so interested. It almost feels like going back home, in a way.’

  ‘I’m only trying to learn Lhyn.’

  He smiled. The noise of the messroom didn’t seem too oppressive then, somehow. ‘Still. You ask. You listen, even if you didn’t ask. And, besides’ he said, and then, in Lhyn, ‘it’s nice to use my native tongue.’

  Cynobria mirrored his smile and said, also in the tongue of Vyl, ‘I’m happy to provide.’

  ‘What about your parents?’ Cynobria asked.

  Taro lifted his head. ‘Hm?’

  ‘Your parents,’ Cynobria repeated. She resettled on the cushions, looked around the room. The two brothers’ shared space was rife with knick-knacks, more often than not a mess, and carried a cosy, lived-in quality. ‘You and Elomer live here. And sure, it’s not odd to leave the nest, but you’ve never even mentioned—’

  ‘They’re dead.’

  Cynobria stopped, the half-formed sentence lodging in her throat. She swallowed. Her claws twitched against the pillow and she had to still them lest they tore a hole. Her eyes couldn’t quite meet his.

  Taroquel shrugged. ‘This war has lasted long, claimed all too many good dragons. Ma and pa were one of the unlucky ones.’

  His tone was idle, conversational, as though he were talking about upcoming weather, but his eyes told a different story—they were hard, sharp, focused, and their hidden intensity made her heart an anxious drum. ‘Taro, I…’

  ‘Et.’ He lifted a claw to silence her.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Et et et. No. Shush,’ Taroquel said firmly, then lowered his head. He let out a deep breath, and when he met Cynobria’s eyes again, a smile was spread across his snout. ‘Look, Brie. That’s the past. No point to wallow in it. If it hurts, just let it go. Life’s easier this way. Now, can you promise you won’t ask about them again?’

  Cynobria blinked. ‘Alright. But—’

  ‘Great!’ He beamed. ‘Now, what do you say we go spar a bit? Let’s wash away this talk with a good round of hide-whopping.’

  And before Cynobria could reply Taro was already standing up, bounding out of the room in his dancelike step. As she followed, Cynobria couldn’t shake the impression that for all his sudden cheery demeanour, the hardness did not quite leave his violet eyes.

  She opened her jaws as though to spew fire and Taro instinctively jumped away. Cynorbia grinned and followed, relentless, snapping her jaws at him instead.

  All she could see was his grin, and then he spun, and whacked her head with his tail, sending her spinning. Dazed, she was easy prey, and in moments Taro was upon her.

  ‘That was good.’ He laughed as he pinned her underneath his wiry form. ‘You had me worried for a moment.’

  ‘Perhaps I should worry you more,’ she said, bringing flame to her jaws—not enough to make it spill, but enough that he could feel the heat.

  ‘Shhh…’ he teased, closing her snout with a forepaw.

  The year previously this would have made her snap and bathe everything she could in blue flame. As it was, either she grew used to Taro’s ways, his method worked wonders, or both.

  After the spar they met with the others in the mess. ‘Hello,’ she called in Lhyn over the chatty din.

  ‘Ah, Brie,’ said Taro, ‘you plan to be like the dragon from the tongue twister?’

  She turned to him, a frown on her snout. ‘What?’

  He assumed a serious expression and intoned, ‘Which language would a linguist speak if a linguist spoke all languages?’

  She had never heard that one before. It was fascinating how in her native tongue it would be so easy to say, yet in Tarangean this was, indeed, a mawful. It wasn’t correct—someone who spoke many languages was a polyglot, not a linguist, but in that moment she found she didn’t care. She merely said, ‘Hah! I might.’

  ‘That’s an ambitious plan,’ said Lidique.

  Funny, how those things were. Weaved tight into Taro’s group, with enough observation and practice, Cynobria had come to learn the patterns of interactions, the ebb and flow of conversation. Each dragon was different, but there were common things—expected replies, accepted moods. Eventually it became just another puzzle to be cracked—the right piece at the right time, the right words to the right dragon.

  ‘What can I say,’ said Cynobria, ‘I am a damn ambitious dragon.’

  She hadn't even noticed when she grew close with Taro. It was a gradual thing, less jumping into deep waters than a slow wade, which, considering how their acquaintance had started, was an odd change of pace. Yet, she could pinpoint no single moment when it bloomed. Or perhaps it was still a budding thing, but when he asked if they could court—in the most Taroquel way possible—she wasn’t going to refuse.

  Her recurring visits drew the attention of the second-in-command, Mistress Oonagh, who made no effort to hide it.

  While not a thing that happened on Cynobria’s every visit, more than once she found herself approached by the Cavrian. Wary and distrustful, she could not openly oppose or disrespect her, given her status in the Armies.

  What Cynobria initially took for disinterest or outright contempt, she learned was just the way Oonagh was. She affected a haughty air as though believing herself greater than anyone, but was it unfounded? The only one there who outranked her was Jagrav, and though his manner was more welcoming, Cynobria noticed Oonagh possessed some degree of respect towards him and never openly contradicted him, though whether it was obedience, martial agreement or some hidden ploy, she could not tell.

  ‘Be wary of her,’ said Mum one time, back home. ‘Even if you join.’

  Cynobria didn't need to be told twice. It didn’t escape her attention, though, that a “no” had morphed into an “if”.