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There were no adequate words for how much Scribe Cadet Diesel’s fingertips hurt after re-tipping the three-hundred-and-ninety-seventh quill nib that week.
He didn’t understand. It couldn’t be hard to invent some kind of replacement for quills. He’d seen sketches and schematics for various invention ideas in one of the Archives Vaults a few months ago, and the idea of inventing a new kind of pen—one that didn’t require being powered by magic to function—had been swirling in the back of his mind ever since.
It was completely unfair that riders were the ones who got pens. For all the writing they weren’t doing.
Diesel had even fiddled with some discarded metal cutoff bits from the metallurgist rider who’d been holed up in the infirmary for ages with an amputated leg. Diesel had gone in under the pretense of collecting paperwork, conveniently dropped his papers beside the rider’s bed, and had smuggled out the metal shavings and bits under his robes.
Back in one of the tiny offices allotted to each advanced scribe cadet, Diesel spread the goods out on his desk. There had to be something he could do with these; he just wasn’t sure what. Gods, he wished he could use magic himself...allegedly it only took a tiny amount to power the riders’ pens.
A knock on the office door startled him from his thoughts. Who could that possibly be at this hour?
Diesel pushed himself to his feet and edged around the desk to the door. He pulled it open and blinked in surprise. A beautiful woman with wild golden curls wearing rider black stood there glaring at him. His stomach flipped. He’d always had a thing for blondes.
“Can I help you?” His voice, which had been a deep bass since he turned fourteen, always came out sounding like a growl no matter what he did.
“That’s Wingleader Yanny to you, Cadet!” the woman snapped. She was a Wingleader? He glanced at her shoulder and saw the telltale wingleader insignia beside the three silver stars marking her as a third-year rider. His insides burned like there was some kind of fuel running through his veins.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you stupid or just deaf?” she barked. “Yes, Wingleader. Say it.”
“Yes, Wingleader,” Diesel growled, as he thought to himself, I want to make her my family.
The wingleader pushed past him into the tiny office, glanced at the heaping pile of repaired quills in disgust, and pulled a rider pen out of her pocket. She leaned down and started writing. No ink. No drips. Diesel leaned in like he was a magnet and the pen was north.
Wingleader Yanny scrawled her signature on the requisition form, then straightened and shoved the paper at Diesel.
“RQ needs more pens,” she said archly, turned on a heel, and was gone in a swirl of pale curls.
Diesel glanced down. She’d left her pen on the desk.
Use me, he swore it whispered.
How? Gods, he cursed the day he decided to be a scribe.
Take the power you need, whispered the pen.
Diesel closed his eyes and, to his shock, felt a thread of power far below his feet. If he just reached for it...
Once his mind held it, he picked up the rider pen and wrote two words on a spare piece of paper.
Diesel laughed, a guttural, growling laugh. He was no longer just Scribe Cadet Diesel.
He was Venin Diesel.
He strode out, leaving the two words behind him on the page.
Fuck it.