Called by the Dragon
Prologue

It was hot. Blistering hot. The sun had set halfway and Anzi was stillsweltering under her clothes. If the stiff wind rising from the directionof the horizon didn't carry off the heat, the desert rabbits and foxeswould hide in their burrows in dark underground shade, knowing it wasbetter to go hungry and try again tomorrow. And that would meannothing for Anzi to hunt.

Unacceptable. This was the final meal. Tomorrow, she would be on herway to the Imperial City, and there would be no more hunts. Tonighthad to be perfect, for both Baba and for Oza who had been crying sincemorning and hadn't stopped once. He was afraid. Not just because hehad to leave with her, but because Mama had been inconsolable andraging for hours now.

“Why are you taking them from me?” a woman moaned from within thethatched-roof mud hut. “O muk-hua, they're taking my children.”“Enough. They're mine, too. If you're going to be like this, I'll take youto the elders and have them put you back in the quiet house. You'llnever see Anzi or Oza again.”

After that, the woman fell silent, and Anzi prepared to dart away overthe dirt and sand into the darkness, farther out into the desert fringes.She barely knew her mother. The woman was only allowed out of thequiet house on the other side of the village if her husband and theelders allowed it, and for the past ten years, Anzi had only been withher one day out of every month. She never knew what to say to thecrazy-eyed woman who stared at things that weren't there and babblednonsense things.

“Elder Bahren. Welcome to our home. I'm sorry for the noise.” Beforeshe could leave, Baba's voice slithered out of the hut like a snake. Hehad always been good at talking. The elders loved him because of that,which was why they forgave him for his insanity-riddled abomination ofa wife. “My daughter just left to hunt. We can sit down for a farewellmeal together in an hour.”

“Your Anzi is even more a skilled hunter than I know if she can replaceanything in this heat. But she’s always been blessed. Only ten wintersand so much promise. Her quick eyes and hands will be missed.”

“For the Empire, I can give over even my flesh and blood.”

“As we should. And your son?”

“They'll be coming to take them both together.”

“A surprise, him being Selected for service. So young.” The elder clickedhis tongue loud enough for Anzi to hear through the thin wall. “Youshouldn't have taken him to Anzi's Selection trials. They only noticedhim because he was in your arms when you came out to meet herafterward. I think it would have been better if they had waited until hewas older.”

“They say he has a gift. Better to give him over while he's still malleable.We live to serve.”

"Yes. But a shame you have no one else to carry on your name oncethey're gone. Still, an honorable legacy.”

Honorable legacy. That was what awaited her in the Imperial City. Shehad known all her life she was different from the other children. Faster.Stronger. More vicious and driven. Most of the villagers thought shehad an elder spirit in her. Some just thought she was frightening. Shedidn't know what to believe. All she knew was that that was the reasonshe was leaving in the morning with Imperial Army escorts, because sheran faster, jumped higher, hit harder than all the others at the annualSelection a month ago. She was meant for something greater, theproctors had said. Take her home, say your goodbyes. She is ours now.She wouldn't have been so apprehensive if they had left Oza alone.How could they do that? He was so young, just three years old. Whatcould they have seen in him to take him away before he had evenlearned his letters? He was small and scrawny and sickly, and he lost hisbreath whenever he walked too fast. He had already nearly died half adozen times since birth because of the choking sickness there was nocure for, and he would carry it all his life. He was mute, too, somethingthe other children used to bully him for. Used to. Before Anzi returnedthe favor in vicious kind and broke bones, drew blood, bit vulnerableflesh.

She had gone unpunished by the adults who never quite knew what todo with her. They still didn't. Most were glad she was leaving eventhough offered only encouraging condolences to Baba. She didn't care.After that incident a year ago, no one had bothered Oza again and thatwas all she cared about.

Like her, he was different, but in a different way. He needed to beprotected. He needed to be safe - but surely the Empire would care forhim better than she ever could. Her heart clenched, and she listened alittle longer to his crying from within the hut. So little time...Only three.How special must he be that they wanted him already?

When Elder Bahren and Baba talked about boring things next, sheslipped away. She had heard enough, and dinner would be late if shedelayed any longer. Baba had already bragged that she could hunteven in this heat, and she couldn't humiliate him. His dark desert eyesalways bore into her when he was unhappy in the worst of ways. Sheran silently over the mixed dirt and sand, heading for the nearestfavorable hunting spot. If she was lucky, she would come back withenough to stay his disappointment.

Like it always did on the fringes of the Adaraat Desert, night fellunnaturally fast and draped the land in darkness. Within minutes, nearlyall light is gone, and only by the moon's glow did Anzi hope for prey.Her dark eyes flicked from side to side, waiting for signs of even thesmallest scurrying life from where she perched in the fork of a desertacacia tree. Her feet were off the ground so the underground dwellerswouldn't detect movement and flee from the surface, and she drew herhooded brown desert garb tight against her body to keep it frombillowing.

There. A twitch in the darkness, the first tantalizing promise of prey. Butwhen she leaped eight feet off the tree and darted over the sandy dirtto stab down on whatever had popped its head out of the scrubbygrowth, she froze with the short javelin poised over her head. She didn'trun or back away, but she held still as the shadowy thing pulled itselfacross the ground and moved closer to her with halting, jerkingwiggles. There were little frills on the head folded back flat against theserpentine neck, and a slender, pointed tongue darted out twice beforedisappearing again.

Ye gods. She had never seen a wyrm from up close before. Even the tinyones captured for sale back in the Imperial City market were stowed incages with iron bars so thick one could only see the tip of a snoutpoking out between them. This one was different. Too different. It wasenormous, and she wished it didn’t blend in so well with the nighttimewith its pitch black hide. The only comfort was that wyrms had weak,nearly vestigial limbs or none at all, and they only moved as fast as asnake. Anzi was faster than any snake out here in the sands and drygrass. Nothing to worry about.

Except this thing had to be at least three meters long and as widearound as a grown man. Maybe more. How did it make it all the wayout here? To be this size, it had to have come from deep desert whereonly the wyrmskin traders dared to go. She could scarcely believe ithadn't run into anyone with sharp flaying knives on its way here.

It twitched again and sighed with a tired chuff. It was no more than halfa meter away now, but it had stopped moving. Was it dying? No goodfor food since wyrmflesh was toxic, but if she harvested its hide, themoney would be good. Maybe she could just...

It snorted, lifted its head - and opened its eyes. She sucked in a knife-sharp gasp, staring into the brilliant gold hue of the irises surroundingvertical slit pupils. Glowing. They were glowing so brightly. So beautiful.So - perfect.

It would be unforgivable to let such a perfect, beautiful thing die.

The thought was so foreign and jarring that she had to blink hard towake herself from the reverie, but something wrapped tight around herheart and convinced her to stay, to linger. She didn't know what it wasexactly that made her kneel then, but in the next moment, her legswere folded up underneath her and she was holding up the creature'shead. Small, slender fingers stroked along pitch-black scales, smoothand cool.

There was such human intelligence in the unblinking eyes that thethought of doing them any harm cowed her. Nothing had ever cowedher before.

“I'll feed you,” she said. “But you need to go back after. You have tohide.”

And she did. Feed the thing, that is. She hunted well, better than sheever had, and she caught not only two foxes but two rabbits in no timeat all. But she still needed to take something home, and she explainedthat to the wyrm as if he could understand her.

He? It, she meant. Dragons shouldn't be he and she. They were beasts,dangerous beasts she should never get attached to. When he was doneeating - it, that is - she was stunned when it wriggled off the groundand stretched out short, spindly limbs. Small, but not vestigial. Theycould bear the body's whole weight. Not a wyrm - a dragon? But thatwas impossible. Dragons couldn't survive in the wild all alone. Theyneeded a rider, a human companion to take care of them. Everyoneknew this. Impossible.

But she said nothing as the creature struggled back onto its claws, andwhen it stared up at her, she jerked her chin in the direction of thedarkened desert.

“You need to go. If someone catches you, they'll skin you. You're dead.”It didn't move. It continued to stare up at her and captured her withthat spellbinding golden gaze, until at last she gathered her nerve tokick the dirt and scowl at it

“Go!” she exclaimed. “What are you waiting for.”

But she didn't want to let it go. There wassomething insane andconfusing and unspeakable happening inside her, and she didn't like it.Confusing was bad. Confusing was dangerous. And dragons in the wild- that was the most confusing thing she had ever heard of. And yet forsome reason she wanted so badly to let it go and keep it a secret, evenif that means it was doomed. Even if that meant she was committing acrime - because something told her that it had to happen this way.

It was a hypnotic urge that made her reach forward to stroke thecreature's dark frill again, fingers running along the webbing betweenthe flexible spines. She thought she felt it purring, but that couldn't beright. She ripped her hand away, suddenly frightened.

“I'll - be in trouble if I don't go home,” she stammered. It was the firsttime in her life she had felt so flustered, and she scrambled back ontoher feet so she could back away. Those eyes must be magic. She couldfeel them burning inside her like molten metal. “Go - go away. Don'tcome back.”

She fled and didn't look back.