Right. OK.
You're here because you've got questions.
Burning ones, I'd guess. Probably something like:
"How did Saya — cunning, clever, classically hot Saya — end up conscripted into the Sisterhood of the Red Dawn?"
And I get it. It's a fair question. I mean, one moment I'm seducing a merchant for silk and olives, the next I'm barefoot in a camp full of war-chanting, spear-polishing, ideology-spouting she-warriors with a collective hygiene policy and a disturbing fondness for drum solos.
Yes. That Sisterhood. The Amazons.
The one with the slogans.
The ones who believe motherhood is a logistical nuisance and men are a resource best managed like livestock.
The ones with the battle hymns and the shaved heads and the griffons.
So how did I get there?
Simple.
I was liberated.
No, no — don't look at me like that. That's what they call it. Liberation.
It's a beautiful word, really. Rolls right off the tongue. Has a heroic lilt to it. Liberation. Like it came with banners and flowers and grateful speeches.
In practice, it involved being dragged out of bed half-naked, the inn I was sleeping in set on fire, a lot of screaming, and a Shield-Bride with a bronze clipboard assigning me a future like she was sorting livestock at a market.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Because you're probably wondering the same thing I was wondering, in between getting slapped and handed a linen tunic that might've been previously used as a sail:
Where the fuck was the Dragon?
Great question.
And I asked it.
Out loud.
A lot.
No one answered. Not even the sky.
Because of course he wasn't there. Of course the great scaly bastard was napping in a barn somewhere with cheese in his belly and straw in his ears. I went to town for twenty minutes — okay, fine, two hours, but I had errands — and when I came back, the town was ash and I was marching in formation behind a woman who called herself Sister Harmony and smelled like blood, mint, and goat.
So yes.
He left me.
I mean, not left left. He wouldn't do that. Would he?
...Would he?
Anyway.
That's not the point. Or maybe it is.
Point is, I got "liberated." I got sorted. I got assigned to a Banner and given a motto and a rock and told to carry both with conviction.
Which brings us neatly to where this story really begins.
Now, before we dive face-first into the mud pit of my Amazon vacation, let me rewind a moment. Because none of this would've happened if everything hadn't been so godsdamn idyllic the night before.
Picture this:
An abandoned barn on the outskirts of a tiny lavender‑soaked town.
Petals drifting on warm air.
Fireflies doing their little glowing mating dance.
That golden-hour glow where even dung heaps look romantic.
Dragon sprawled across half the barn, snoring into a pile of hay he insisted was "structurally unsound," wings tucked in like an elderly aunt napping after too much wine. He'd eaten an entire wheel of cheese earlier and was in that happy food-coma state where even griffon riders could've tap-danced on his back and he wouldn't have noticed.
Me?
Restless.
Bored.
Horny.
(The holy trinity of poor decisions.)
So I slipped out. Just a quick visit to the inn, I told myself. A little fun. Maybe a drink. Maybe two. Maybe flirt with the locals while Dragon drooled into the hay.
One thing led to another — as things tend to do around me — and suddenly I found myself in the bed of the innkeeper's son. Cute boy. Strong arms. Bad at pacing. Good at enthusiasm. You know the type.
We were very busy investigating each other's structural integrity when the first screams hit.
But hold that thought.
Because before you start blaming the Dragon for not swooping in dramatically to save his favorite human disaster — don't. He has a... history with the Sisterhood.
Family history.
Apparently the Sisterhood of the Red Dawn has opinions about "great male serpents in the sky."
And by "opinions," I mean they have a centuries-long tradition of hunting dragons like prized stags. They've got chants about it. Polearm techniques. Matching tattoos.
And gryphons.
Did I mention the gryphons?
The Dragon did. Repeatedly. Whispered it like a curse.
"They ride gryphons, Saya. In squadrons. Squadrons."
He says the word like it personally offended him in a past life.
Also — small detail — the Sisterhood may or may not have been responsible for his uncle's death. The one from the stories. The legendary terror of the northern skies.
Depending on who you ask, they flayed him, boiled him, tanned him, and mounted his remains in their capital's taxidermy museum, where schoolchildren apparently take tours and learn about the importance of "discipline, courage, and not letting dragons ruin your irrigation systems."
So yes.
When the town burned and the Sisters marched in like a feminist thunderstorm of slogans and sharpened steel, Dragon stayed put.
Silent.
Hidden.
Terrified.
And I?
Well, I was busy being liberated.
It happened fast.
Too fast for something so loud.
They came at night. Always do. That's part of the strategy, I'm told. Hit them while they sleep, while their pants are off and their minds are soft. Works like a charm. The Sisterhood calls it "dismantling patriarchal fortifications."
Everyone else just calls it terror.
By dawn, the little town we'd conned into handing over their harvest festival silver was rubble. Men? Gone. Don't ask how. You don't want to know. Women? Lined up — soot-streaked, barefoot, wide-eyed, and silent.
That's when the sorting began.
Clipboard in hand, Shield-Bride in command. Tall, bronzed, her hair braided so tight it looked like wire. She walked the line like she was picking out fabrics. One tap of the staff to the left, two taps to the right. Sometimes she didn't tap at all.
"Too old. Assign to quartermaster support."
"Strong arms. Goat unit."
"Childbearing hips. Kitchen rotation."
"Pretty eyes. Shield-bearer trial."
It wasn't subtle. It wasn't fair. It was a living inventory.
One girl with a limp was dismissed with a sneer and told to report to waste management. Another, too small and quiet, was assigned to ideological reconditioning, which I later learned meant memorizing quotes until your brain dripped out of your ears.
And then came me.
Sweaty, barefoot, wearing a tunic that wasn't mine and clutching a pouch full of half-melted lip stain and emergency coin. I hadn't spoken yet. I was trying not to breathe.
She stopped in front of me. Looked me up and down like I was a particularly complicated puzzle with no obvious solution.
"Hmm," she said. "Steel waiting to bloom."
What does that even mean?
She tapped the bronze edge of her staff against my knee. "Fifth Cohort. Blue Banner. Fortitude trials."
Someone behind me muttered something about cheekbones. I pretended not to hear it.
And that was that.
No appeal. No option. No Dragon bursting through the sky to burn it all down and scream my name in righteous fury.
Just me. Cheekbones and all.
Welcome to the Sisterhood. Keep your mouth shut and your back straight. You'll be empowered before you know it.