Next to the stage is a collection of food stalls, each with meals more decadent than the last. Fruit from Vyrinterra is expertly cut into flowers and skewered onto wooden sticks in colorful patterns. Fish sizzles nearby, blackened with savory seasonings. Children dart about in pairs, collecting discarded plates that are color-coded for each vendor. It’s a task I did myself when I was younger. They’ll be rewarded with a special thank-you note signed by the queen, but more importantly, it’s an early lesson on what it means to treat the city and your fellow Leonodai with respect. Here in the skies, we rely on one another.

A group of shadows passes overhead, and I look up. Ox and his friends swoop low and take their human forms off the side of the next street. Vera pays for her ring—a thin, silver band with a tiny triangle of blue—and catches my eye knowingly.

“Come on,” she says.

Be calm, I tell myself, but my limbs are already light with excitement and nervousness. I’ve trained for battle. I can handle talking to a warrior.

Just a dark-eyed, handsome, intelligent warrior.

Ox’s friend and one of Vera’s archery mentors, Luca, nods his greeting when he sees us. “Happy almost ceremony day, warriors-elect,” he says good-naturedly. “You feeling ready?”

“Ready to move out of the Underbelly,” Vera says, referring to the lowest level of the Warriors’ Hall. After tomorrow, we’ll move rooms up a level to make space for the next cohort. Despite all of the Warriors’ Hall being warm and well-lit, the nickname for the ground floor has stuck around for generations.

“Ah, I remember that feeling,” Luca replies. “It’s worth it, I promise.”

“It’d better be,” Vera quips. “I didn’t spend all those hours firing arrows at your crazy targets for nothing.”

“Inventive,” he says. “Inventive targets. Everyone loves that one I built that sends your targets at you.”

Vera groans, and as our friends keep talking, I give Ox a small, awkward wave. “Congrats on the race.”

He shrugs. “Could have done better.”

“You were second.”

“Which, technically, means I could have done better,” he replies.

“Skies, you’re difficult. Fine. Next time, do better.”

He laughs. “Will do, kind lady. It would have been nice to get a prize, though.”

“How about a dance later tonight?” I ask.

“I’d love nothing more.” He smiles, and a dimple on his right cheek makes my heart flip so wildly that I almost don’t hear him ask, “So, Rowan An’Talla, are you going back to the Hall?”

I exhale a laugh. Ox has an annoyingly endearing habit of calling me by my full name. “Not yet,” I say. “I want to go, you know, do festival things.”

“Well, would you like an escort?” he says, gently pulling me away from our friends.

“Don’t you want to go with Luca?”