Fireborne

Lee, Annie, Cor, and Power are summoned to the Inner Palace after collections are finished. Callipolis’s chief physician describes his findings: If resources are split equally, survival rates will be undesirable. However, if variation in ration size is permitted based on the metals test, losses can be contained to certain populations. The physician shows different calculations to Atreus, General Holmes, and the dragon riders which depict different survival rates based on the distribution of rations. When Lee and Annie question why every calculation shows Class Gold getting full rations, it becomes clear the elite are only looking out for themselves.

Atreus lowers the Gold rations to 80%, but Cor is unhappy with the decision to ration less to Irons, considering his sister is an Iron. Annie and Lee begin to wonder if they’re any better than the dragonlords and if the justification of their choices matters. Lee receives a message from Julia giving him one more chance to meet her. She will be at the Riversource of the Fer at sunrise on the first of the coming month. Lee visits Annie and requests to know how her family died. She agrees to discuss it tomorrow morning.

Lee and Annie suit up the next morning and fly to Annie’s home village, Holbin Hill. She shows him around her small home, tells him about her family, and describes how they survived the Famine. After her pregnant mother died, Annie’s father became angry believing that she would have survived if the dragonlords hadn’t taken their crops as tax. He began planning countermoves to the palace decrees Annie began to read to the villagers at town meetings. Eventually, Leon Stormscourge visited and accused her father of conspiracy. Holbin was attacked twice, the first a warning and the second after the villagers didn’t meet the next collection quota. Annie was sent to Albans Orphanage when the family who took her in couldn’t afford to feed her anymore.

Annie describes the execution of her family on the first attack. Leon Stormscourge had asked her father which child was his favorite but when he didn’t answer, her brother offered her to the dragonlord. Annie was taken outside, and Leon gave the order for his dragon to light the house on fire with her family inside. After they were gone, Leon held and comforted Annie. When Lee walks away to give Annie the space she requests, he discovers a woman’s necklace glinting in the knot of a nearby tree. He brings it to Annie, who recognizes it as her mother’s, and he places it around her neck. Lee tells Annie about being forced to watch his own family executed, too. After talking about the things they’ve spent a lifetime pretending to ignore, they return home feeling lighter.

When Annie and Lee return to the Palace, they are confronted by Power and Darius, who have learned of Lee’s true identity through the letter they found from Julia in Lee’s office. Power and Darius tackle them to the ground and remove their wristbands. Through her connection to Aela, Annie summons her dragon. Annie commands they be unhanded and hand over Julia’s letter and their wristbands or else Aela will fire on Power and Darius.

Aela escorts the four of them to the Inner Palace. Lee meets with Atreus, hands over Julia’s letter, and admits to his correspondence with the Pythians. He also makes clear he’s repeatedly refused their offer to work together and asks for mercy. After Lee meets with Atreus, Annie follows. She tells Atrius of her past with Lee’s father killing her family. Atreus decides Lee will be apprehended following charges of misconduct, and Annie will become acting Firstrider effective immediately. Afterward, Annie meets with her peers—Crissa, Cor, Rock, Duck, and Lotus. She reveals Lee’s identity to them, which is received with an array of emotions. In the following days, Power begins spreading gossip about Annie covering for Lee all along. The gossip threatens Annie’s ability to lead as Firstrider if she is not respected by her riders. Cor and Crissa take it upon themselves to defend Annie. Meanwhile, Lee is visited by Crissa, Lotus, and Duck; Cor and Rock don’t visit him.

Annie is called to Atreus’s office a week later. He outlines his decision for Lee and asks for Annie’s input; Annie agrees he should do it yet feels apologetic toward Lee. A day before the meeting Julia set in her letter, Atreus calls Lee to his office. He tasks Lee with a mission to prove he’s trustworthy: Take Pallor and meet with Julia as she wishes but return with the heads of her and her dragon, or don’t come back at all.

In a flashback, it’s revealed that the night Atreus killed Leon’s family, the order he gave to his soldier was not to take the boy to safety as Lee has always believed, but to take him into the hallway and slit his throat.

In the present day, Annie visits Lee in the cell he’s being held in. After spending a night together where they simply lie in each other’s arms and avoid speaking about the horrors to come, they prepare to face the day ahead. When Lee looks at Annie with longing as she rises to leave, she kisses him. Shortly after Annie leaves, Atreus comes to collect Lee. Lee is armed, and Atreus agrees to wait for him at Pytho’s Keep. Annie receives a message from the ministry that claims her presence is not needed on the Keep. Lee and Pallor arrive first at the Riversource. When Julia and Erinys arrive, they understand Lee is not willing to join their cause and prepare for battle. When afforded a killing shot, Lee takes it.

Meanwhile, Power discusses Atreus with Annie. He doesn’t believe Atreus is “willing to forgive the facts because of the feelings” (391). Power believes Atreus’s new system is not that anyone can be worthy, but about proving the dragonborn aren’t anymore. With this realization, Annie wakes the others to join her at Pytho’s Keep against the ministry’s orders. Annie sends Cor and Crissa to summon General Holmes and Miranda Hane. Annie asks Lotus to escort her to the home of Dora Mithrides—the honorary alderman on the Janiculum Council and wealthiest of Atreus’s supporters. Annie requests Dora come with her to Pytho’s Keep.

Holmes, Hane, and Mithrides are suspicious at the sight of Atreus at Pytho’s Keep with a retinue of soldiers, waiting for Lee to return. When Lee does, he presents the proof of Julia’s death despite his devastation. He reveals his true identity to the gathered witnesses and renounces it in order to prove his loyalty to Callipolis. Lee’s station as a Guardian is reinstated, but when he is offered Firstrider back, he instead insists the role remain with Annie.

In a flashback, the soldier tasked with ending Lee’s life instead tends to the boy’s wounds, takes him to an orphanage, and leaves him with the name Lee. He then retires to live a quiet life retired from the military.

In the present day, Annie becomes situated in her role as Firstrider. She schedules a meeting with General Holmes to discuss returning Julia Stormscourge’s body to New Pythos and a meeting with Miranda Hane to discuss the propaganda necessary to ensure Lee’s reinstatement in the corps. Annie receives a message from Dora Mithrides inviting her to tea. Mithrides warns Annie that Lee threatens everything Atreus is trying to build, and that Lee’s actions have shaken Atreus. Mithrides also shows interest in Annie and Lee’s futures in leadership.