“Hey!” the one in front growled, the stone nicking off his shins.

Piscalo gulped, dashing past the men and into the crowds that bustled at the base of the spire. “Sorry!” he said. The last thing he wanted to anger someone on bone detail. They were probably mad enough already at having drawn short lots. The other broods always brought their leftover bones to green spire to be ground up as fertilizer for the many plants that the green dasha cultivated. Rumor was that the gray's feast had been huge—despite what Piscalo had told Gresset, he had most definitely not attended—and judging from the size of that rib, it was true. They must have had the reds catch them a whole stone whale! Piscalo couldn’t help but lick his lips at the thought. The meat was said to be tender and juicy, with more than enough liver for everyone. Seeing the remains, he almost wished he could have gone!

Sprinting through the throng of people, he noticed half a dozen other pairs of men lugging equally large bones down to the pit. There was even one team of five who were carrying a massive lower jaw section studded with huge, flat teeth. He had always heard that the lumbering whales didn’t eat meat, but he could never quite imagine something so big only chewing on trees. As Piscalo whipped by the group, the largest of the team shot out a hand and caught him.

“Where are you off to in such a rush?” the bearded man asked, the corded muscle of his right arm seeming not to strain as he held aloft with one hand what the other four men were struggling to do with two.

“I don’t have to tell you,” Piscalo said as he tried to jerk away from the big man’s grasp. After a few worthless leaps and twists, he gave up with a huff. “Let me go!”

The bearded man leaned closer. “Going to see Misola?” he asked, and Piscalo made the mistake of hesitating. Trag was one of the gray clutch leaders—his badge of office a large, shed gray scale of Syldrae’s, which he used as a buckle for the gray brood sash he wore around his waist—and few things escaped his notice

“Ah, so you are sweet on her!” Trag said, straightening.

People turned at the clutch leader’s booming voice, and Piscalo tried to shrink away, cheeks red. Relations between dasha of different broods were usually frowned on, especially by the dragons, because it could lead to dasha wishing to leave the service of their current lord or lady to join whomever their partner served instead. Despite this, Trag’s large smile indicated that he found the possibility amusing not worrisome.

“No, NO!” Piscalo said, shaking his head vehemently, “I just have something to tell her, something…” He trailed off, not wanting to say anything more.

Trag’s beard quivered as he laughed while the other men looked miserable about the delay, sweat glistening on their faces. One even moved to set the jaw down, but a growl from another quickly stopped him. If they dropped it now, they probably wouldn’t be able to get it back up again.

“So tell her, lad!” Trag said, letting Piscalo go so abruptly that he would have fallen over if it hadn’t been for the press of people. “You’re only young once!”

The clutch leader started moving again, the other four men stumbling to catch up. Piscalo watched as the crowd folded around them, the white jaw seeming to surf on a sea of bobbing heads. When he was confident that they could no longer see him, he crossed his eyes and blew out his tongue. Trag needed to stop sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. After spraying a few seconds worth of spit at the clutch leader’s back, Piscalo continued on his way.

He took Granite Run through to Flat Lane, passing by a long brick steaming hall, some hanging gardens, and a series of sprawling goat pens. Piscalo saw two boys he knew, Bret and Fliss, both from the same clutch as him in green, shoving the wooly animals out of the way to scoop up their dung—though bone made for decent fertilizer, animal droppings were even better. He gave the boys a hoot and a grin. They grimaced back, crossing their eyes at him. Piscalo just smiled bigger, taking an exaggerated breath of fresh air. That brought their tongues out, which earned both a solid smack on the head from the blue herder who was watching over them.

Piscalo laughed as they turned to make excuses, zipping away. He crossed over Red Row, clay dust puffing with every footfall, and under Drip Stone, dodging between the hanging teeth of rock. He saw another boy his age crouched in one of the many corners of the tunnel. Piscalo didn’t know him, but the red sash the boy wore made it obvious that he was likely searching for scorpions and beetles to be fried for snacks. After all, the red brood was in charge of hunting and not all of them could bring down a stone whale!

Up the long and twisted path of Sharp Rise, Piscalo paused halfway to lean on a large stone. Using the bottom of his shirt, he wiped his brow and then settled back on the cool rock to enjoy the view. He was a fair bit higher than the bowl of stone that served as the common area for the five broods that lived within The Crown, and he could spot members from each milling about, the different colors of their waist sashes easily distinguishing them. His eyes were naturally drawn to those who wore only one long sleeve though, their other removed to show the long burn scar that Piscalo and the dragon brothers had imitated. All were on the right arm, except for yellow of course, who had to be different. Time had faded the color of many, but some had only begun the dyeing process—the esdeth—that would twist through all the dips and valleys of the scar, showing clearly against the burned skin the color of their brood. There were boys annoyingly younger than Piscalo with bare arms and a few had even started to be colored. The dyeing process would take years to finish, but when it was complete it would be a glorious thing, marking the individual as a full son or daughter of their brood.

Piscalo looked down at his own arm, haphazardly covered in rabbit skin and patches of sap. His brood would be calling to him soon. At least he hoped they would. The green ceremony was less than a moon turn away, corresponding to the eve of their lord’s hatching, and he prayed nightly that Old Gresset would finally put forward his nomination. Two years ago he’d been old enough for the burning, but the ancient wurm had kept him from the list. He thought for sure his lord had simply forgotten his age, but the following year had seen him passed over again. Now he was nearing his fifteenth naming day, and his arm was still bare like a child’s. Fifteen and scarless. If he turned sixteen and still wasn’t burned, he likely never would be. Some green dasha he knew didn’t care, but Piscalo most certainly did. He wanted to earn the honorific greenson and be able to call Gresset “father” instead of “my lord” and maybe even become a clutch leader one day.

If he couldn’t do those things, to Piscalo, he might as well be white.

He shuddered at the thought, trying not to look at the handful of white sashed people that trudged through the flow of colorfully belted dasha. Piscalo couldn’t help himself though and saw one get shoved out of the way by a passing group of young reds and another handed basket after basket of wicker until the boy toppled over and was soundly beaten by a blue woman for his clumsiness. They were the broodless. They were the white. They were nothing. A second chill ran through Piscalo, and he closed his eyes. They had no lord or lady dragon to watch over them, no brood brothers to laugh with, no sisters to tease. When they passed, they weren’t eaten by the dragons; they weren’t even allowed the final bliss of nourishing their great lord or lady. Instead, they were buried, buried, trapped under the cold and heavy earth for lesser things like worms and maggots to gnaw on.

His eyes snapped open because being in the dark suddenly made him feel like he had been stuffed into the ground. He stepped away from the rock, straightening tall, letting the wind play with his hair. His heart was skipping fast but it was no longer from running. The sky was a deep blue, sketched with clouds. A mix of younglings tossed and turned in the breeze, most smaller than Jikkol or Zalc. There was even a bit of yellow far in the distance that might have been a lesser, but that was unlikely since yellows were notoriously temperamental about flying when any other brood was aloft.

Piscalo took a deep breath, starting to smile as the air hissed back out through his nose. He would be burned this calling. And in time green ink would complete his scar, showing to all that he was a full son of his brood. After today there could be no doubt. Though his face had been to the floor, he had heard the hitch in Gresset’s voice. The great dragon worried that one of his own had been snatched away—and by Syldrae no less, who Gresset had been feuding with for longer than Piscalo had been alive! The fact that the story was false wouldn’t matter. The ghost of that worry would push Gresset to make sure that such a thing couldn't happen.

Piscalo grinned even larger. And if there was any doubt in his lord, if somehow the dragon’s anger outweighed his worry, the surprise waiting in his cave when he returned would surely convince him. Piscalo gave a whoop of a laugh—uncaring of the yellow and two green dasha who happened to pass by—because once his plan was fully hatched, Gresset would have no choice but to put his name forward. By clutch, his lord might even burn him today!

Piscalo suddenly grew still, mouth snapping shut as his last thought echoed in his mind. Today. He could be burned today. His eyes dropped to his clothes. Sweat and grime from his face covered the bottom of his shirt, his sleeves were dirty, his sandals frayed, and he was still wearing rabbit. This could be the most important day of his life, and he was dressed like he was on dung duty!

He launched himself forward, rushing up Sharp Rise. He had been planning to brag to Misola because if he held still he’d fret himself to death worrying about whether the dragon brothers were doing everything right, but now he had to see her. His hair should be oiled and combed, and his teeth probably needed picking—they hadn’t been done in weeks, and he wasn’t getting burned with gristle or bug leg in his teeth. Piscalo glanced up as he ran.

“Clutch!”

The sun was just dipping past the abandoned white spire and it hadn’t even been near the tip when Gresset had taken off. Piscalo lifted his hand to tick off the time. His lord would be back in just a few fingers and the inevitable summons would come soon after. Piscalo’s legs became a blur as he pushed himself harder. Most other walkers heard him coming and so stepped out of the way of his mad dash. A few weren’t quite so lucky or as aware of their surroundings and so Piscalo careened off them like a hornet trapped in a jar with varying results: a bent blue got his stepping staff kicked right out from under him, and a rather plump gray woman spilled the water jug she had on her head. Even worse, a white almost toppled over the steeper edge of Sharp Rise but caught himself just in time on a scraggly bush. Not that Piscalo really noticed any of this, for Misola, Misola, Misola was the only thought in his head, over and over as his feet struck the path.