Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
The seventh "fuck" I kept in my head. Barely.
I sat on a rolled sleeping mat, knees tucked to chest, arms wrapped around shins, and tried not to breathe too deeply. The tent smelled like hemp, smoke, sweat, and the sour tang of communal regret. My regret, mostly.
The fabric walls barely muffled the sound of marching drills outside. Drumbeats. Chants. Whistles. Somewhere, someone was being shouted at for poor formation. Somewhere else, someone was vomiting. Or weeping. Or both.
I looked down at myself.
Short white skirt. Coarse linen. Hit mid-thigh and rode up if I so much as twitched. Leather belt, too wide, like everything else in this godsdamn place. White cape, also linen, pinned at one shoulder with a dull bronze brooch shaped like a triangle getting railed by a stick figure. Or maybe it was a flame. I didn't care.
I was barefoot.
No sandals until week three. That's what they said. Apparently, blisters were part of spiritual awakening. So was "communal modesty," which explained why my tits were nearly out and I shared a tent with six other girls. Not that they were here right now. Morning drills. I had "latrine duty," which was just code for "let's give the mouthy one some alone time with a bucket and the flies."
Also — blue nail polish.
Yes.
Blue.
Fucking.
Nail polish.
Apparently, vanity was fine if it matched your Banner. Practicality? Not so much.
Above my left tit, smeared with what had to be paint but smelled suspiciously like crushed mushrooms and ash, was the crude insignia of the Seventh Blue Banner, Fifth Cohort — a crooked tower with wings. I think it was supposed to represent fortitude. Or possibly diarrhea. Hard to tell. They slapped it on me during initiation while chanting something about the Matriarch-General's blazing virtue.
Right side of my head was shaved. Not buzzed — shaved. Like some twitchy initiate went at me with a flint knife and a grudge. The rest of my hair had been yanked into tight braids, two of them, hanging like sad ropes from behind my ear. One still had a twig in it.
I touched the stubble where my temple used to be.
Fuck.
Outside, the chant picked up:
"Steel is sister. Flesh is duty. Doubt is treason."
I mouthed the words without sound.
Because if I didn't, someone would hear.
And if they heard, I'd be back in formation, marching barefoot, with a rock in my hands and a ten-sister screaming about pelvic alignment.
Nope.
Not today.
Not yet.
I pressed my forehead against my knees, stared at the chipped blue polish on my toes, and whispered the only true prayer I knew.
"Dragon. You better be looking for me."
Then I bit my lip.
Because maybe I didn't want to know the answer.
I guess this is the part where I explain how exactly I ended up barefoot, blue-nailed, half-bald, and branded as a junior liberation enthusiast in the esteemed Sisters of Fortitude.
Short version?
I was liberated.
From patriarchy.
Of my own free will.
Air quotes. Massive ones. The kind you could see from orbit.
Alternative was impalement. So, you know. I volunteered. Enthusiastically.
Who would've thought the Sisterhood of the Red Fucking Dawn would make it this far south? One of their little "lightning raids," they called it. Terror raids, more like. That sweet little town where me and my big scaly bastard just had a lovely con picnic? Lavender fields? Sunshine? Aged cheese and cheap wine?
Yeah. Torched.
Middle of the night, they came. Like a sandstorm made of steel, slogans, and screaming. I was dreaming of figs and foot rubs. Then the world turned upside down.
The inn went up like tinder. That fat innkeeper's son, the one who winked at me over breakfast? Yeah. Let's just say I was real glad I wasn't a dude when the Sisters kicked in the door.
Carnage. Horror.
No, really. I'm not even going into detail.
Just—be thankful you've never heard a drum-girl chant while gutting a man like a fish. Because I have. And now I can't un-hear it.
By morning, the town was rubble, the men were… dealt with, and every female between twelve and menopause was standing in a line, wrapped in soot and trauma, while a Shield-Bride with a clipboard decided our futures.
Fat? Kitchen.
Limp? Goat herder.
Wrinkled? Pit latrine maintenance.
Me?
Apparently, I had the look of "steel waiting to bloom."
Also, "excellent cheekbone symmetry," according to the Cent-Maiden with the nose ring and the sociopathic gleam in her eye.
So now I'm Steel-of-Young-Womanhood, a proud junior initiate of the Seventh Blue Banner, Fifth Cohort, Sisters of Fortitude. Which is a long way of saying: cannon fodder with an ideological twist.
I am now, officially, a warrior against oppression.
Great.
I'm so empowered I could vomit.
Okay.
Don't get me wrong.
I respect the struggle.
Truly.
I've seen what men do when no one's watching. I've lived it. Fought it. Survived it.
This world? It's rotten. Twisted at the root.
Any sister swinging a sword at the balls of the patriarchy has my moral support.
But me?
I'm more of a whisper-poison-in-your-winecup girl.
A seduce-your-accountant type.
Stab-you-in-the-thigh-if-you-call-me-girl-again, sure.
But organized militant rebellion?
Not exactly my style.
I don't do banners and chants and marching in perfect lines with a sharp rock in my hand and no fucking sandals. I don't do 5 a.m. ideology readings or breastplate fittings or communal head shaving. Or blue nipple paint. Or "burning the relics of our male-tainted past." (They took my hair comb. Bastards.)
And now… now I'm tired. Not just bone-tired — soul-tired.
My throat's tight, and my eyes are starting to sting.
Gods, I hope the Dragon got away.
He's terrified of the Amazons. Won't admit it, of course, but I know.
They scare the scales off him. And not just because of the battle hymns and the mass sterilization policies.
It's the griffons.
He still gets twitchy when he hears distant screeching. Says one of their early crusades hunted a cousin of his across three valleys, flayed the poor bastard, and made a whole series of standard-issue battle drums from his hide.
Drums.
Not even a ceremonial rug or a fancy cloak. Drums.
And fireproof armor plates for one of their siege towers. He said they lined it with his cousin's belly scales. Called it "Fortitude."
So yeah. I hope the Dragon smelled lavender and noped out.
I left him curled up in an abandoned barn, belly full of cheese, wings tucked under rotting rafters. We had just wrapped up our latest act — him doing his big scary dragon routine, me crying on command, a couple of village elders handing over a sack of tarnished silver. We were planning our next move.
He was sleeping, dammit.
I went back into town to gossip, dig up leads, look for fresh meat with heavy coin purses and soft hearts. You know. Reconnaissance.
We had a new scam in the works.
Something with a false relic and a fake cult. He was going to pretend to be a demiurge of wind or some nonsense. I still had to write the gospel.
We had a plan.
Now… I've got blue nail polish, half a haircut, and a spear I don't know how to use.
And if he didn't run?
If he stayed… if he tried to fight them… if they caught him—
No.
Don't go there.
He's a coward. A proud, ancient, hyper-educated coward.
He ran.
He better have.