The only thing more stubborn than a dragon is its rider.

—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind

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“What’s the issue?” I walk back to the carnage surrounding our dragons.

“He does not wake,” Tairn announces, and Cuir lowers his green snout to Teine’s.

Oh shit. Fear comes racing back.

“We have to get him off this field before Theophanie returns.” Bodhi studies the clouds.

“Can Garrick get Teine up the cliffs?” I ask.

“Under normal circumstances? Yes.” Bodhi winces. “But he’s already exhausted from walking all over the Continent in the last few hours. There’s no chance.”

“The plan is going to shit fast.” And we’re miles away from everyone except the lethal dark wielder who wants to kill us. But there’s another option. My head swings to Tairn. “You’re the only one strong enough to get him out of here. You can carry him if you use the chains.”

“I will not leave you on this field—” he growls.

“If I leave, everything falls apart. Dragonkind protects its own, even above a bonded rider,” I remind him.

His eyes narrow, and steam billows from his nostrils. “Do not lecture me on the laws of my kind or you will learn how comfortable I am breaking them.”

Cuir quickly removes himself.

“Please,” I beg Tairn. “If not for Teine’s own sake, then for Mira’s. I’ve already lost Andarna. I can’t lose my sister, too. Do not ask me to find that strength or I will fail you. I will fail us both.”

A snarl rips from his throat and metal clangs as he positions himself over Teine, gripping the four ends of chain wrapped around his torso in his claws. “You will not move from this field,” he orders.

“Thank you.” Wind gusts across the side of my face as his wings beat harder than I’ve ever seen, and Teine’s limp body slowly rises from the field. His shadow engulfs me as he flies overhead, carrying Teine toward the safety of the cliffs.

“Bold strategy,” Bodhi notes, watching them depart. “Sending our biggest dragon away is definitely not going to bite us in the ass.”

“He’ll be back.” I look up to the sky and slowly rotate to better survey the space, but there’s no sign of Theophanie or the wyvern she prefers. My heart starts to pound. I’m not fond of being the prey.

Breathing out slowly, I deny the impulse to check the city skyline for Xaden. This doesn’t work if I can’t focus here, now. I force myself to cut off all thoughts of the others and step into the headspace where I am no longer a sister, a friend, or a lover. I exist only as a rider, a weapon.

“You want to wait to start hunting our silver-haired friend?” Bodhi says as Cuir stalks toward us, wyvern blood dripping from the tip of his swordtail.

“We don’t have to hunt.” I strap my conduit to my wrist, then reach over my shoulder and flip the cap open on my quiver. “As long as I’m here, she’ll come.” And I’ll get the chance to kill her before she attacks anyone else I love.

“Waiting feels…anticlimactic.” He puts his back to mine.

“Always does.” Simultaneously torturous, too, like the moment in flight when Tairn’s muscles shift beneath me and I know I’m about to lose my stomach in a dive, or those long minutes on the ridgeline above Basgiath, waiting for the horde to arrive. “You think this will work?”

“Has to. Magic requires balance, right?”

“It’s the oldest rule there is.” Theophanie walks out from behind the carcass of a wyvern. “But once a century or so we get a chance to skew the scales in our favor, and I will prove myself to him this time.”

We whip toward her, shoulder to shoulder, and I reach for Tairn’s power, but barely a trickle answers the call.

Shit. Tairn’s out of range. It’s not going to be a quick jaunt to haul Teine the many miles to the wards and up ten thousand feet, either. But Mira’s safe, and that’s what matters. Bodhi and I can keep ourselves alive.

“Where the fuck did she come from?” Bodhi whispers, drawing his sword.

“She’s fast,” I reply just as softly, remembering how she disappeared from the brig at Basgiath.

“There’re only a few of us who are faster,” Theophanie replies, walking along the carcass of the wyvern, grazing the ridges at its back as she saunters toward us. “Older, too.”

My lips part. She heard us from twenty feet away.

“Pity you had to kill them.” She clucks her tongue. “They take forever to generate. Are you ready to tip the balance, Violet?”

Having two lightning wielders on any side wouldn’t just tip a balance; it would destroy it.

The same as shadows.

Cuir lowers his head and growls at Bodhi’s right.

“I’m ready to kill you.” I reach for a dagger out of reflex and throw so hard my shoulder pops but thankfully doesn’t subluxate.

Theophanie waves her gnarled fingers, and the blade falls aside before it reaches the halfway mark. “Disappointing. Have you learned nothing since the last time you tried that? No need to be embarrassed, though. We’ll work on it. I’ll be happy to mentor you.”

My eyes flare. Was this the path the priestess foresaw for me? Not their mentorship but Theophanie’s?

“Fuck,” Bodhi mutters. “That’s another problem.”

Probably makes the arrows at my back useless, too. Awesome. I’ll have to get up close and personal to kill her.

“Odd choice of companion, seeing that you reek of his kin.” The veins beside her eyes pulse and she appraises Bodhi, her pace completely unhurried as she strolls toward the head of the dead wyvern. “Tell me, do you not grow tired of being a less-powerful version of your cousin?”

“I’m not the one out here trying to prove myself,” Bodhi counters, his head tilting in the same way Xaden’s does when sizing up an opponent.

No sword. No staff. She’s unarmed with the exception of a row of blades at her hip. I search her stride for weakness and find none. She’s faster, too, which means I’ll get one shot.

“Witty.” Her smile cracks another line in her lips. “You’re almost done waiting. He’ll be gone soon. The crown will be yours.”

Come on, get closer.

“We don’t have a crown.” Bodhi switches his sword to his left hand, freeing his right. “You don’t know me well enough to try and fuck with my head. I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted—protecting my cousin, my province.”

“And her.” She pauses just in front of the wyvern’s bloody snout and cuts her gaze to mine. “A weapon like you will only submit to someone stronger, so come, let’s get this farce over with so you can begin your real journey. He’s waiting.” Glee lights her smile.

“Berwyn?” I guess.

“As if I would answer to that fool? I think not.” She glances skyward. “Pity you sent your dragon away, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of power beneath your feet. Now, show me what my patience has bought.” She lifts her arms as the breeze picks up, sweeping off the cliffs at our back.

No more stalling, then. Here we go. As long as Bodhi counters her signet, we can end her before Tairn even gets back.

Bodhi raises his right hand and turns it as though clasping a doorknob none of us can see. The sky darkens and wind gusts, and though no lightning strikes, the temperature and humidity rise in a way I’ve only ever felt around one other person.

Theophanie’s smile sharpens.

Gravity shifts, and my perception of everything changes.

“It’s working.” A smile tugs at Bodhi’s mouth.

“It’s not,” I whisper, all the hope leaving my body like water out of a bathtub drain. “You can’t counter her. You have to go. Now.” I palm the next blade. Maybe I can’t throw it, but I’m not going down defenseless, either. I can hold out until Tairn returns.

“There’s no lightning,” Bodhi argues, his knuckles whitening on the pommel of his sword.

“I was wrong. She’s not a lightning wielder.” It had struck in both battles, and I’d conflated its presence with hers when it was simply a byproduct of her true signet. She hadn’t controlled the lightning during their assault on Suniva.

She’d controlled the very thing causing it.

“Of course I’m not.” Theophanie flicks a finger, and the clouds above us begin to rotate. “There is only one exception to the rule, Violet Sorrengail. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be you. If it was going to be one of her daughters, I’d have bet on your sister.”

“Amari help us.” Bodhi’s hand slowly lowers, and his gaze jumps skyward. “She isn’t the dark wielder version of you.”

“No.” I shake my head as the next gust of wind nearly pitches me forward. I’ve prepared for the wrong fight. I know the feel of lightning charging, recognize the crackle in the air just before it strikes. I understand the limits, the boundaries of wielding it. Each strike requires its own burst of energy, and once it’s over, it’s done. But what Theophanie’s doing will take on a life of its own and carry forward long after she’s given it her power.

This is so much worse than battling myself.

“She’s their answer to my mother.” Saying it out loud snaps the shock from my system, and my mind begins to race. Only Aimsir’s exhaustion or a physical illness weakened Mom. Not even the strongest wind wielder could diminish Mom’s storms.

“She was the answer to me,” Theophanie hisses, and the clouds start to swirl.

The tornado. My chest clenches. My mother had never accomplished that particular feat. No wonder I hadn’t recognized Theophanie for what she is—I’d never met a more powerful storm wielder than Mom. Until now.

“You have to get out of here.” I shove at Bodhi’s arm. “Go before Cuir can’t launch in the wind!”

“My signet is always the balance,” Bodhi argues, lifting his hand as the wind rises to a constant roar at our backs. “I can stop her!”

“You can’t!” I push again, and this time he stumbles sideways. “Your signet must only work on our magic, not theirs. Now go! You promised Xaden!”

“Come with me!” he shouts.

Somehow, Theophanie knows you’ll try to save everyone… Brennan’s words fill my head.

“I can’t.” If I go, she’ll follow, and we’ll lose. If I stay, I can be the distraction the others need.

“Then I’ll fight beside—” Bodhi starts, but Cuir wraps two talons around his midsection and launches before he can finish. His green wings beat in giant sweeps as he carries a loudly protesting Bodhi from the field, heading south. No doubt he’ll clear the wind before ascending the cliffs.

Tyrrendor’s succession is safe, but there’s no time to feel even an ounce of relief.

A howling gust of wind forces me forward, and I fall to my hands and knees in the grass, narrowly missing the conduit that dangles from my wrist. Something groans behind me, and I look over my shoulder just in time to watch a tree taller than Tairn lean in my direction from the edge of the field, pausing at an obscene angle before it’s completely uprooted.

Oh shit. I push to my feet and throw my body weight to the left, racing to get clear. The wind takes me down again in less than ten steps, and my stomach lurches as the tree plummets toward me. My feet slip over a group of loose rocks, but my boots hold my ankles in place as I scramble for another few feet of distance.

The tree crashes, hitting the ground with the force of a dragon. Heart pounding, I stare at the branch lying less than an arm’s reach away.

“Channel, and we’ll walk away together!” she promises, her voice rising over the wind even though the tree has hidden her from me.

Come to think of it, the tree has also hidden me, at least until she shifts position.

I need to work fast.

The wind is too strong to make a straight shot possible—it will fly right past her without some weight to it. I grab a dagger, lift my flight jacket, and slice a strip of cloth from the bottom of my uniform. The wind fights to rip the fabric away, so I stick it between my teeth and bite down, then sheathe the blade. Faster. I need to move faster. Reaching over my shoulder, I grip the maorsite-tipped arrow’s shaft as tightly as possible, then pull it free from the stabilizing quiver and drag it in front of me.

The wind dies slightly as I tie the arrow to a conduit-size rock from the field.

“Reach for the power and wield!” Theophanie steps into view twenty feet ahead of me.

I rise up on my knees and throw the rock as hard as I can with the wind.

The gale carries it, but Theophanie knocks it off course three-quarters of the way there. “Have you still learned nothing?” It lands a couple of feet to her right.

And explodes.

Dirt, grass, and rock fly, and the impact flings Theophanie half a wing length through the air. The wind dies before she smacks into the ground.

Thank gods the storm isn’t strong enough to hold without her yet. I surge to my feet and charge, drawing my last alloy-hilted dagger. I can’t risk losing it in a throw.

Grass clings to her braid as she shoves herself upright, and her eyes struggle to focus as I flip the dagger parallel with my wrist and hurl myself at her. My knees hit the ground a second before I swing.

She catches my forearm and squeezes with a strength that threatens to crush the bone. “Enough!”

A debilitating wave of pain crashes over me, but I hold on to the dagger like my friends’ lives depend on it, then pull a black-handled knife from my left and stab down, embedding the blade in her thigh.

Her lips crack as she screams, but instead of releasing my forearm or removing the knife from her thigh, she grasps my throat and drives me backward, slamming my spine against the ground. My eyes widen and I wait for the explosives in my quiver to kill us both, but the cushion somehow sustains the impact.

“Foolish woman.” She rams her knee into my stomach and forces the air right out of me.

I struggle for the next breath, but it comes, and she pins my other hand to the ground with a speed I could never beat.

“Your mother knew at your age that she was no match for me. That’s why she hid behind those wards. Perhaps you should have followed her example.” Theophanie’s jagged nails dig into my skin and the veins beside her eyes bulge as she looks south. “A few seem to have gotten by. Whatever will you do?”

I follow her line of sight, and every muscle in my body locks to keep from thrashing. A horde of wyvern has cut north, bypassing the city and flying straight into the valley that leads to the Medaro Pass. I should be there…but then I couldn’t keep her here.

Dunne, be with them. I look away and find Theophanie staring at me, her eerie red eyes so close she consumes my vision.

“The horde is hungry. How many innocents climb the pass? A thousand? Two? You can still save them. Reach for it. Take the power at your fingertips.” She flips my hand so my palm presses into the grass, and I consciously keep my senses closed. “So stubborn. It must be killing you, realizing you don’t have every answer, aren’t the solution to every problem. You’re just another lightning wielder, mortally incapable of being everywhere at once.” The metal eases from my throat. “Go ahead. It will be entertaining to watch you try.”

I glance south just long enough to witness the horde disappearing into the valley. “You’re right. I can’t be everywhere.” Theophanie’s eyes widen as I arch my neck against the blade. “I don’t have to be.”

When push comes to shove, I’m not the best of us.

She is.