“Conscription Day is always the deadliest. Maybe that’s why the sunrise is especially beautiful this morning — because I know it might be my last.”
These are the opening words of the novel from the narration of its protagonist. Conscription Day is what the story is all about. Violet is being drafted to fight in one of those never-ending wars that mark both fiction and real life. It is the day when everybody who is twenty-years-old must finally choose which branch of military service they will enter. This being a fantasy novel, that means riding dragons rather than flying jets with animal nicknames. The potential for the day being her last is not just a drama queen moment. In addition to the danger presented by cadet training, Violet also suffers from a unique medical condition which makes her bones much more fragile and subject to fracturing. The state of the ligaments and tendons within that skeleton are not much better. This conditions leaves her in chronic pain so one might well expect that she would be exempt from any dangerous military service. Thanks to her own mother, a general, however, plans for a cushier assignment are tossed in favor of training Violet to ride dragons into war. So, really, from this point forward, she must awake with the realization that any day could be her last.
“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs — on the probabilities.”
Xaden is another cadet and a complicated potential love interest for Violet. Since her whole life is dependent upon calculating the probability of her condition putting her in danger of even greater misery than she experiences chronically, this should not really be a lesson that she has to learn. The quote also poses a question for readers to consider: the difference between possibility and probability. Often these two terms are used almost synonymously. Xaden is pointing out the significant distinguishing factor. The field of things which are possible is always large and verdant while those things that are probable make up a thin, rocky path right through the middle. The context of this quote turns out to be less significant than the subtext. Xaden’s warning about knowing the difference between what is possible and what is probable will eventually blossom into a situation in which Violet must move beyond the possibilities and toward the probabilities about which side of this great war is really her enemy. The side she is fighting against or the side she is fighting for.
“The sparring ring is where riders are made or broken. After all, no respectable dragon would choose a rider who cannot defend themselves, and no respectable cadet would allow such a threat to the wing to continue training.
Major Afendra’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant
(Unauthorized Edition)”
Every new chapter in the book is prefaced by a quote from an important text within this civilization in which the story is set. This is an efficient and time-honored tool for world building within the genre of fantasy novels. This particular example seems to be just another quote from another text, but it actually contains some important information as foreshadowing. Contextually, this is an important quote because it comes from a military training manual. Since the entire bulk of the narrative takes place during cadet training, it is an appropriate choice. And since the military service Violet enters is dragon riding, the information conveyed is also apt. This quote rises to a higher level of importance on the subtextual level with that very last part about how cadets are expected to respond in a defensive manner to any threat to the rest of their wing and how not to do so would disrespectable. While this is directed explicitly toward the practice ring, in real life the morality of respectability will prove to be far murkier.
