Kraisa ignores the other passengers staring at her as she steps onto the rickety ferry. They think what everyone will think: that her dragon is dead. But Kalanthi is alive. Kraisa brushes her hand over the emerald scales at her hairline, in stark relief against her bright red mop of hair. The image of a staring corpse blazes into her mind. She can’t shut it out so near the Roost, so near Kal. The only way to make the gruesome thoughts stop is to get far, far away from her dragon.

The Roost disappears into the distance, dragons swooping into their dens, riders clinging to their necks. She’ll never ride Kalanthi again. She’ll never see Kalanthi again. If only she’d been assigned to another task, any other task. But she’d been thrilled with her first assignment. How could she have known that it would end like this?

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