To Saengo, the feathers are a mark of achievement. She wears them proudly. Even I’d felt a tiny spark of pride the day we became wyverns and earned our feathers, although the feeling faded quickly. I’d chosen gray ones to match my eyes. Kendara sometimes has a point when she calls me vain.

Now, though, I sometimes hate the sight of them and what they’ve come to symbolize. My place in Evewyn. My place in this Company. The insults I’ve had to tolerate, the penance I’ve had to endure, every slight the officits and people like Jonyah believe are my due because of my low station.

We stuff my things back into my satchel and secure it to Yandor’s saddle as the others ready to leave. The hatchlets re-form their lines, and everyone returns to their positions. Saengo offers me one of her rice balls, but I shake my head. I’m not hungry, and her food will have to last her through tomorrow when we make our return journey.

The cry of a falcon sounds overhead. Instead of up, I look at Saengo. Her eyes search the clouds, her brows pinched together. The tightness around her mouth relaxes when she spots what she’s looking for—Millie, her pet falcon. Pets are prohibited within the Queen’s Company, but Millie isn’t truly tame so the officits can only do so much.

Officit Boldis casts the sky an annoyed look and then barks, “Back in formation!”

The wyverns farther ahead quickly correct the lines as we begin to move again. Beneath their anger with me lies a barely contained restlessness.

For the last few weeks, all the fourth-years have shared a jumble of excitement and uncertainty over our upcoming graduation. Students like Saengo are usually posted within their own lands. Saengo actually received her assignment last week, to join the royal ranks stationed at Falcons Ridge, her family’s ancestral home. She submitted a request to have it changed.

However, students like me, with no allegiance to a particular lord, take a little longer to receive our postings. If the decision were up to Officit Boldis, he’d probably put me in the east. I’ve heard other fourth-years say that’s where the troublemakers get assigned.

Evewyn is a small kingdom, long and narrow like a sword blade. Two kingdoms lie east of us—the shaman-ruled Nuvalyn Empire to the northeast, and Kazahyn, home to the shadow-blessed, in the southeast. But soldiers assigned to the eastern border are met only by the Dead Wood.

The Dead Wood is a growing swath of impassable darkness that separates us from the other kingdoms, leaving open only the stretch of the northern grasslands between Evewyn and the Empire. According to other fourth-years, soldiers have been known to go mad staring at those cursed woods day after day.