“Known now as Guardians, the new regime’s dragonriders are lowborn, commoners, even former serfs. No longer the sons of dragonlords.”

As early as Chapter 1, the improvements made by the new regime are being explicitly outlined. Even someone with a background such as Lee’s understands the post-Revolution as a society of opportunity for advancement regardless of the class one originates from.

“She and I have trained together for as long as we’ve been in the Guardian program, and we’ve known each other since the orphanage before that. It’s a past life’s worth of memories that we’re both pretty good at not talking about.”

This passage illustrates the habit Lee and Annie have of avoiding talking about things of substance from their pasts. Lee prefers to avoid the truth of the atrocities his father committed as a dragonlord without checks to his power. Meanwhile, Annie prefers to pretend that Lee is not the son of the man who murdered her family. These characters must become comfortable with these topics and with their own realities as they experience coming-of-age.

“What he could. But much of it came naturally to me, Leo. Just as it will for you. We were born to rule, just as the peasants were born to serve.”

This passage depicts something Lee remembers his father telling him as a child—as Stormscourges, they are born to rule just as others are born to serve them. This exemplifies the problematic thought processes and power systems held by the elite of the former regime.