"Wouldn't it be much faster if you'd just sign it for me?"

Meya frowned at the pile of rag paper, then at Coris, who still looked deadly serious.

"If you want to work for me, you must be literate." His kind voice had grown sharp and curt, "If you want to go far in life, you must be literate. You just got caught because you can't read, and you still have the galls to be lazy?"

Meya opened her mouth to argue, then sighed when she realized there was no coming back from that. Sure of victory, Coris dipped his quill in his inkwell and drew up a piece of paper.

"Tell me your true name."

Meya heaved a tortured sigh, then nodded in resignation.

"May-lah Awn-ya Hild." She recited dully, then blew out another sigh. "It's Glennian. You won't be able to spell it anyway."

Coris was unperturbed; he seemed to have reverted to his good mood.

"Fortunately, I happen to be a Runes enthusiast, with an enormous..."

Coris twisted around to the bookshelf behind his desk, running his hand over numerous leather-bound, gold-gilded spines. With a long, tapered finger, he hooked out a thick book, then whirled back and displayed it proudly,

"Rune Glossary."

Meya turned sharply away, hoping her curtain of fake golden locks would hide her burning cheeks, but it wasn't quick enough. Coris blinked, surprised, then hitched up a sly grin.

"You are one randy lass, Meya Hild."

Meya whipped around and glared as the well-endowed lad snickered in triumph. Falling back against his chair's backrest, Coris selected another book, then straightened up and laid them on the desk.

"Do you know the meaning of your name?" He asked as he lifted the thick cover of the glossary, then trawled his forefinger through the index, his tongue sticking out between his yellowed, chipped teeth. Meya couldn't help wondering if that had something to do with his damaged innards.

"Queen of May, and heavenly glow." She grudgingly obliged, then puffed out a moody breath. "Go with Meya, my liege. It's a lot easier."

"Since you're going to be learning all the letters anyway, wouldn't it make more sense to just go with the one with more letters?"

Meya couldn't argue with that. Her lower lip puckered out like a fish with an underbite, she sulked as she watched Coris rifle back and forth through the glossary, pausing every now and then to scribble a few runes on the linen.

Once done, he shunted the heavy glossary aside and pulled the second book towards him. Meya reckoned it was a Latakian-Glennian lexicon; Coris was writing down Latakian letters underneath the row of runes one by one.

Once the last rune had been transliterated, Coris pushed the book away then spun the parchment to face Meya.

"There you go. Your name."

Meya leaned in and studied the trail of shining, dark magenta ink, joining and looping and rising and falling to form words she didn't recognize.

Maelaith Aiyne Hild

Meya laid her calloused finger on the slightly damp ink, slowly tracing the intertwined letters. It was the first time in her life she had ever seen her full name in writing. It might just be Coris's penmanship, but Meya thought it looked very pretty.

"Perhaps you shouldn't be so harsh on it." Coris whispered. He gave a small smile when she looked up and met his eyes, then tilted his head, "It's a beautiful name. With a beautiful meaning. Lovingly crafted."

Meya couldn't help smiling in reply, as she felt an inexplicable warmth enveloping her heart. She'd always wished for a simple Latakian name that anyone could say and spell. That castle clerks wouldn't complain loudly about. That didn't underline the fact of her being a Greeneye. But, perhaps, having a unique, exotic name wasn't that bad, now that she thought of it.

Glennian seemed to be a beautiful language with beautiful letters full of mystique, and Meya was beginning to want to learn more.

"Have you met any other Greeneyes, Lord Coris? Do you know their true names?"

Meya looked up from the parchment, one finger still caressing her name. Coris shook his head, his expression downcast.

"Noble families aren't so noble in how they treat Greeneye children." He spited, his voice grave. "My friend Agnesia Graye has—had—a little sister—Persephia. She's a Greeneye. It's supposed to be a secret, so she's never given a Glennian name."

Agnesia Graye had a Greeneye sister? Meya leaned closer.

"A Greeneye Lady? What's she like?"

"I don't think I could describe her properly." Coris frowned as he fidgeted with his quill, uncomfortable. "We've never met at her nor my best."

It took Meya a beat to decipher the cryptic explanation.

"You mean she was bullied by her family, and you also bullied her like you bullied Zier?" She prodded, an eyebrow raised, then smirked when Coris nodded in defeat. "What did Lady Agnes say?"

Even after all that had transpired, Meya found it nigh impossible to be polite and respectful to Coris when they'd already slept together numerous times. Luckily, Coris was still sport; he gave her a wry smirk and a side-eye.

"You think I'd bully my crush's little sister when she was around to see?"

"Good to know my liege is definitely not a lying, cowardly bully." Meya stifled a barking laugh with difficulty.

"Hence the need for a contract." Coris cocked his head with an acknowledging grin, which Meya reciprocated. Silence fell as the two former fake-lovers caught themselves being overfamiliar. Meya toyed with a stray lock of hair. Coris spun his quill between his forefingers, then finally broke the spell.

"Tell me about your siblings."

"So you could use them as hostages?" Meya shot back, then went on with a laugh as Coris shook his head, "I have two big sisters that I'd trade for an adorable hug-sized piglet any day, so good luck with that."

"And I thought I'd hit rock bottom when Zier said he'd trade me for a busty wet nurse." Coris joked back.

"I can handle Morel." Meya shook her head, "She's got a rotten mouth, but pretty much everyone in Crosset would develop temporary gum rot while talking to me. But Marin..."

Meya trailed off, feeling drained all of a sudden. After a pause, she heaved a miserable sigh.

"I'd give anything to be as pretty as her."

"Anything?" Coris challenged. Meya glanced up and met his keen, hard-to-read gaze. "Would it actually make things better if you were prettier?"

Meya imagined the scenario, then shook her head. True, she might have one thing less to complain about herself, but there was no telling if it would make any difference to Mum and Dad. Let alone the people of Crosset. What with her Song and her monstrous eyes.

"Well, if I were to choose, I'd rather not be born with glowing eyes, I guess." She concluded with a gloomy sigh, then remembered her disrupted discussion with Coris in the Town Hall.

"You said King Edward and Maxus Hadrian wanted to protect Greeneyes from being killed by Lattis, so they announced the Mining Ban. And you think Greeneyes are dragon riders?"

Coris nodded, but Meya shook her head.

"It doesn't make sense, my liege. Why would they want to protect people like me? We're nobody. And there are so few of us. Say, how does one even become a dragon rider? Is it inherited? Why am I the only Greeneye in my whole family, in my whole town? And Lady Persephia, too."

As Meya plowed on, Coris spun his quill, deep in thought.

"Are there other Greeneyes in your branch family? Cousins? Ancestors? Do you keep a family tree?"

"Dad did say there are some Greeneye Hilds and Claridens in other towns..."

Meya trailed off when a bell rang in her head. Grabbing a corner of the paper with her name on it, she asked in a rush.

"Can I draw on this?"

Coris blinked, then nodded. Before he could hand her the quill, Meya had already gone ahead and dipped her fingertip right into his inkwell, then painted on the margins.

"I found this seal on my father's old belt." She slid the paper to Coris, pointing with her magenta finger as she explained the blotchy doodle, "A dragon. The sea. Our family motto. We Shall Return."

"Duty and Atonement." Coris murmured his family motto, having made the same connection she stumbled upon in the Chapel, then looked up and met Meya's eyes, "You meant to say that the Hilds came from Everglen, like the Hadrians?"

"Yes, but it still doesn't make sense." Meya mussed up her hair, then clarified when Coris frowned, "If your ancestor Drinian actually hitched a ride on a dragon from Everglen, you should have Greeneye cousins somewhere, but you don't, do you?"

Coris chewed his lips, then shook his head.

"None that we know of, but they might have just been kept secret, like Persephia." He cocked his head, then added.

"Besides, Greeneyes are more common in Easthaven and Damerel. Stands to reason that most Glennians would have settled down near the eastern coast, and those in the far west are their descendants or stragglers."

"So all the dragons flew on to Nostra, while the Greeneye Glennian dragon riders settled down in eastern Latakia?" Meya attempted to summarize, but it only led to more questions.

"Why don't they all go to Nostra on their dragons? Or stay together in Latakia?"

Fed up with his hawk-feather quill, Coris had picked up Meya's Lattis coin and was fingering it absentmindedly as he thought. The sight reminded Meya of yet another mystery.

"Say...Lady Persephia. How does she hide her eyes?"

Coris started, then rolled his eyes skyward, trying to recall. He raised his hands and gestured at his wrist.

"She's got this..." He trailed away, his gaze unfocused, then his eyes widened in shock, and his voice became a mere rasp. "...bracelet..."

Meya raised an eyebrow. Coris looked as if he was petrified mid-sermon. She raised her hand hesitantly, then prodded his arm.

"Lord Coris?"

Coris snapped out of his trance. After a pause, he spun the paper back towards him, picked up his quill, and wrote large, separate letters.

"Here." He turned it back to Meya and handed her the quill. "Try tracing the letters one at a time. Make them as large as you want. You can write smaller once you're better at it."

Meya sat still, unsettled at the sudden change of subject, and annoyed at Coris's none-too-subtle attempt to keep her out of the know.

Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, Meya took the quill and hovered it over the parchment, unsure of where to start or even if she was holding the quill correctly. A dollop of ink splashed onto the parchment.

Coris noticed Meya crushing the feather in her five-finger choke-hold and realized his mistake. He rummaged in his drawer for an old charcoal pencil, then sprang up and circled the desk to her side.

"Start with the charcoal." He extracted the quill and replaced it with the pencil, a slab of charcoal wedged between two slabs of wood about the size of Meya's forefinger, then adjusted her grip.

"Start here. Drag up, down, up again, down again. Not bad. Let's try again..."

Paper after paper was littered with large, clumsy letters. The candle burned low as the hours went by. Coris had pulled his chair over to sit beside Meya as he guided her hand with his, their voices echoing each other as Meya recited the name and sounds of each letter.

By the time the light of dawn filtered through the curtains, Meya was already snoring, her right slack hand still supporting the pencil, her head full of golden locks resting against Coris's chest.

Coris stifled a yawn as he dropped the lid on the shapeless candle, putting out its dying light. He mustered up all the strength in his frail limbs, but he couldn't sweep the fair maiden off the ground and carry her to bed. With a disgruntled sigh, he fetched Meya's pillow from the bed and dragged over the red-and-gold blanket.

"You're not the rider, Meya." He whispered as he draped the thick down-stuffed silk over her wiry shoulders, his furrowed brows laden with the weight of the truth.

"You are the dragon."