Iamus was from a clan that bred its warriors to the highest standards of beauty and strength so they could go immediately to serve in the Lightweaver's army and bring her honor as well as victory. Like everyone else he hatched with, he expected to put his head on an altar and bleed himself dry so his spirit could ascend to that celestial arena, still vital and eager, with youth's brash energy.

But his clan sold him.

'I don't understand!' he said to the sprite who clung to his mane. 'How could they do this to me? How could they put me up for auction? I was born to serve the gods! Not to be traded away like cattle!'

'They needed money,' the sprite said, subdued. 'Or they could not have continued feeding the breeders and trainers and priests.'

'But... why me?' Iamus said, digging his claws into the dirt. 'I was the best of my generation! They didn't even get all that much for me, Lumos. Was it worth losing my sacrifice, to gain nine thousand pieces of gold? Nine thousand pieces! The Market clothiers won't even sell you a scarf for that!'

'I don't know,' Lumos said. And softer. 'I am sorry, my friend. I was so anticipating joining you in the battle in Heaven. Together we would have destroyed the Shade forever. I know it.'

Iamus sighed.

***

Iamus resented everything about his situation.

He was alive, when he had anticipated a glorious death and service in the afterlife to a worthy mistress... something unavailable to him in a clan that served a frivolous god.

He was encouraged to mate with dragonesses and produce offspring, a business he found messy and degrading, even when it wasn't with the necromancer who pined after him like a lovesick maid.

He was expected to do some useful function, like some mundane, earthbound creature--they even made him scratch for his own worms.

And the training he'd undergone to become a ferocious warrior angel had not equipped him to fight terrestrial creatures, against whom he was as clumsy as the most brutish of farmers.

He resented the last part most of all.

It was the dark scout Perendi who said, finally, "Look, Iamus, everyone knows you don't want to be here. Go, if you have to. But the Lair by the Sea gave you a home when your own clan sold you. Who do you think cares more about you?"

He wanted to snap at her that he hadn't given anyone permission to care about him. But the words wouldn't come. Much later, after she'd left him to watch over their hardening eggs, Iamus said to Lumos, "This wasn't the life I wanted."

His sprite, curled up on his back, answered, low, "Maybe none of us get the life we want."

Iamus set his head on his forelegs and stifled his sigh.

***

"Come to the Mire with us," Song had said. "You're apparently this great warrior. We could use some extra help."

Her tone was playful, but there was a challenge there. Even knowing how poorly his techniques were suited to the Beastlands' creatures, he couldn't not respond to it. So he went and it was humiliating and yet... neither Reina nor Song paid his clumsiness the least mind. They were too busy fighting at each others' sides, scrambling to protect one another from misfortunes, doctoring one another's scrapes. They tended to his with the same matter-of-factness. Maybe that was why he asked Song, after one such battle, "That move you do with both forelegs. How do you keep them from swiping at your belly when your arms are lifted?"

He asked Reina next about ambush techniques. They were good teachers; he could sense the generations of dragons they'd trained in how easily they handled him. He was--he thought ruefully--prickly and proud, so they ignored his mistakes until he was ready to discuss them, and when they did, they spoke to him as a peer even when he couldn't perform at their level. Accepting that instruction like the newest of dragonets could have been mortifying, but in this arena, at least, he had talent. Learning to kill mortal creatures was an added skillset, not a new one. Before long he was fighting as effectively as his companions, and they no longer coddled him. They took him to the Mire. The Kelp Beds. They took on enormous turtles, toads, rays.

The first time he brought down one of those giants after it had thrown both Reina and Song out of reach...

"That was good," Reina said as Song patched her up. "You handled it. We could have died."

Song snorted. "We never die." Reina shoved her and Song laughed. "No, she's right. You're a fierce one, Iamus. I'm glad you're on our team."

He spent several days hearing that in his head, over and over. I'm glad you're on our team.

***

"Hey, Iamus!" Song said, catching up to him. "Up for an expedition?"

"It's not our usual day, is it?" he answered.

"No," she said. "But we have a batch of new adults who want to serve the Gladekeeper, and someone needs to train them up. Reina usually does it with me, but she's busy today. She said you were capable of it. Can you come?"

He stared at her, mouth agape.

Him. Train dragons. To be exalted. Him. Who'd longed so much for exaltation. Training dragons for it...

"She said... I was capable?" was what came out of his mouth.

Song gaped a grin at him. "What she said was 'he can handle it.'" She cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "And you can. The two of us will be more than enough to keep these kids out of trouble. Show them the ropes. What do you say?"

"I... yes." Had that come out of him? "Yes, of course." He found his mouth stretching into an unfamiliar expression. He was... he was grinning at her. "We'll see how they like the mud."

"And the podids."

"And the psywurms trying to follow them home."

Song barked a laugh. "Shadowbinder, forfend! The last thing we need is more psywurms. They breed like rabbits. I'll get the newbies rounded up. Meet you at the perimeter!"

The sun warmed his back, the feathers and leathers of his wings, his crest. He flew, feeling as if he was spreading out, like a ray of light falling through a widening cloud. "Part of the team," he murmured.

Lumos, clinging to his mane, said, "It's very informal. Prosaic. The way they talk."

"It is," he agreed. And laughed. "I think I'm all right with it."