Garrick Maven burned the summons before he read it twice. The royal seal curled black in the hearth of his stone cottage, but he already knew the words. The dragon corps had accepted his application. He was to present himself at the capital gate by dusk tomorrow, ready to swear the rider's oath and begin training as a royal defender against the beasts that raided the border towns. That should have been the best day of his life. Instead he sat at his kitchen table and pressed his thumbs against the pointed tips of his ears until they hurt. A small blue drake landed on the table and butted its horned head against his wrist. Garrick scratched under its jaw. "They still have the old decree," he told it. "No fae blood in the corps. One look and they arrest me at the gate." He had spent forty years keeping the ears hidden under long hair, the slit pupils behind tinted lenses in town. He had trained in secret. He had learned to ride the wild drakes that nested above his roof. None of it mattered if a guard saw his face. Garrick went to the cupboard and took down a small wooden box. Inside lay a bracelet of braided brown cord, snug and plain, the last thing his mother had made before she died. She had told him it would hide what he was when he needed it hidden. He had never dared test it. He slid the bracelet onto his wrist and tightened the weave. The change moved up his arm like warm water. In the polished side of a copper pot he watched his ears round off. His pupils widened into human circles. The faint silver under his skin dulled to plain tan. He looked, for the first time in his life, like a man who could walk through the capital gate. The drake hissed and backed away from him. It did not know him now. A scrabbling sound came from the doorway. A silver puppy-shaped dragon nosed the door open, dragging a bundle of red vine-lilies in its teeth. Garrick had asked the flower woman in the village to send a gift ahead to the corps captain, a customary offering from new recruits. The pup had beaten the courier to it. Garrick knelt and took the flowers. The pup sniffed his changed hand, whined, then licked his palm anyway. Good. At least one creature still knew him. He stood and looked at the burning summons, at the blue drake on the rafter, at the cottage his parents had built. If the bracelet slipped, or its charm ran out inside the corps barracks, he would not be arrested at the gate. He would be executed in front of the men he wanted to fight beside. He tied the flowers to his saddle and started for the capital.

Garrick reached the capital gate at dusk and passed under it without a single guard turning his head. The braided cord on his wrist stayed warm against his skin. He kept his hand loose on the reins and rode straight to the training grounds, where the new recruits were being counted in by torchlight. The yard smelled of horse sweat and cold stone. Weathered platforms ringed a packed dirt circle. Wooden rings hung from chains for mounted drills. Recruits stood in a line along the low wall, saddlebags at their boots, waiting their turn at a table where a man in a gray corps coat checked each face. Garrick took his place near the end and set down the bundle of red vine-lilies he had brought as the customary offering. The recruit ahead of him, a farm boy with cracked hands, kept glancing at the flowers. "Rich gift," the boy muttered. "He won't smile at it. He never does." "Who?" "The inspector. Fought thirty years in the corps. They pulled him out of retirement to screen us. He's the one who wrote the fae clause into the oath." Garrick looked at the table. The inspector was thin and square-shouldered, with a scar that split one eyebrow. He held each recruit's chin and turned the face slowly toward the torch. He looked at the ears. He looked at the eyes. He took his time. The boy in front went up. The inspector grunted and waved him past. Garrick stepped forward. He set the flowers on the table. The inspector did not touch them. He took Garrick's chin between a thumb and finger and turned his face into the torchlight. Garrick kept his breath even. He thought about the warmth of the cord, then made himself stop thinking about it at all. "Older than most," the inspector said. "Yes, sir." "Country hands." "Yes, sir." The inspector tilted Garrick's head the other way. He stared at the ear a long moment. Then he let go. "Ride tomorrow at first bell," he said. "If you can't seat a corps drake by noon, you go home." He pushed the flowers back across the table without looking at them. "Keep those. I don't take gifts from men who haven't earned the coat." Garrick took the bundle and moved past the table into the recruit barracks line. His knees felt loose. He had passed. Inside the barracks he found a cot near the wall and sat. He turned his wrist under the blanket and looked at the cord. The weave had darkened along one edge, the color of wet bark. A single strand near the knot had frayed thin. He pressed the fray flat with his thumb. It sprang back up. First bell was at dawn. He had to seat a corps drake in front of the inspector, in daylight, with a bracelet that was already coming apart.

Garrick woke before first bell and walked to the training yard with the cord tight against his wrist. Frost lay on the weathered platforms. The inspector stood at the rail with a clipboard, watching handlers lead a green drake into the packed dirt circle. The drake's spiked tail dragged a line through the frost. Yellow slit eyes swept the recruits along the wall and stopped on Garrick. "Rivilin," one handler said, and spat. "Threw the last two. Good luck." Garrick climbed down into the ring. The drake lowered its head and let out a low sound from the back of its throat, not quite a growl. He kept his hands open and stopped six paces out. The saddle sat strapped between the shoulders. The reins hung loose over one horn. "Approach from the left," the inspector called. "Hand on the neck. Mount when it settles." Garrick stepped left. The drake turned its head to keep him in one eye. Up close, the yellow was split by a black slit that widened as the drake looked at his wrist. The cord had frayed further overnight. A thread lifted in the cold air. The drake huffed once, hot against Garrick's face. Then it did something the handlers did not see. It lowered its head to his shoulder and held there, still, so his ear was hidden against its jaw. Garrick understood. The drake had seen. The drake was covering him. He put his hand flat on the green neck. The scales were warm. He whispered, "Thank you." Rivilin snorted and knelt. Garrick swung up into the saddle in one motion and gathered the reins. The drake rose smoothly and walked the circle, then trotted, then took the low ring at a clean pace. Recruits along the wall stopped talking. The inspector wrote something on the clipboard and did not look up. Garrick brought the drake back to center and dismounted. His legs held. The inspector waved him out of the ring. "Seated," the inspector said. "Barracks. Oath at midday." Garrick walked past the rail. Rivilin watched him go, tail flicking once against the dirt. In the shadow of the platform he turned his wrist over. The cord had split along the darkened edge. Two more threads hung loose. He could feel the warmth in it thinning like a coal going gray. He had passed the test. At midday he would stand in front of the inspector again and swear the oath, the same oath that named his blood a crime. The bracelet would not last the afternoon. He pressed the frayed threads flat with his thumb and started toward the barracks.