“Absolutely not!” one general shouts loud enough that I can hear her all the way from the little medical station that’s been set up at the end of the bleachers for riders. It’s nothing but a row of a dozen tables and some flown-in supplies to tide us over until we can get to the Healer Quadrant, but at least the pain medication is taking effect.
Two dragons. I have…two dragons.
The generals have been screaming at each other for the last half hour, long enough for a chill to settle in the night air and for an instructor I’ve never met to sew up both sides of my arm.
Lucky for me, Tynan mostly sliced through muscle but didn’t sever it.
Unlucky for me, Jack is getting his shoulder examined about a dozen feet away. He strutted over from the back of an Orange Scorpiontail to record his bond with the roll-keeper, who’d kept doing her job regardless of the generals arguing on the dais behind her.
Jack hasn’t quit staring at Tairn across the field.
“How is that?” Professor Kaori asks quietly, tightening the straps around my splinted ankle. There are about a million other questions in his slashing, dark eyes, but he keeps them to himself.
“Hurts like hell.” The swelling made it nearly impossible to get my boot back on without loosening every single lace to its widest position, but at least I didn’t have to crawl across the field like a girl from Second Wing who had broken her leg during dismount. She’s seven tables back, crying softly as the rider field medics try to set her leg.
“You’ll be focused on strengthening your bonds and riding in the next couple of months, so as long as you don’t have trouble mounting or dismounting”-his head tilts as he ties off the straps of my splint-“which, after what I saw, I don’t think you will-this sprain should heal before your next round of challenges.” Two lines deepen between his brow. “Or I can call Nolon-”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ll heal.” “If you’re sure?” He obviously isn’t.
“Every eye in this valley is on me and my dragon-dragons,” I correct myself. “I can’t afford to appear weak.” He frowns but nods.
“Do you know who made it out of my squad?” I ask, fear knotting my throat. Please let Rhiannon be alive. And Trina. And Ridoc. And Sawyer. All of them.
“I haven’t seen Trina or Tynan,” Professor Kaori answers slowly, like he’s trying to soften a blow. It doesn’t.
“Tynan won’t be coming,” I whisper, guilt gnawing at my stomach.
“That is not your kill to take credit for,” Tairn mentally growls.
“I see,” Professor Kaori murmurs.
“What the hell do you mean you think it needs surgery?” Jack bellows from my left.
“I mean, it looks like the weapon severed a couple of ligaments, but we’ll have to get you to the healers to be sure,” the other instructor says, his voice infinitely patient as he secures Jack’s sling.
I look Jack straight in those evil eyes and smile. I’m done being scared of him. He ran back in that meadow.
Rage mottles his cheeks in the mage light, and he swings his feet over the end of his table and charges toward me. “You!”
“I what?” I slip off the end of my table and leave my hands loose by the sheaths at my thighs.
Professor Kaori’s eyebrows jump as he glances between us. “You?” he murmurs.
“Me,” I answer, keeping my focus on Jack.
But Professor Kaori moves between us, throwing his palm out at Jack. “I wouldn’t get any closer to her.”
“Hiding behind our instructors now, Sorrengail?” Jack’s uninjured fist curls.
“I didn’t hide out there, and I’m not hiding here.” I raise my chin. “I’m not the one who ran.”
“She doesn’t need to hide behind me when she’s bonded to the most powerful dragon of your year,” Professor Kaori warns Jack, whose eyes narrow on me. “Your orange is a good choice, Barlowe. Baide, right? He’s had four other riders before you.” Jack nods.
Professor Kaori looks back over his shoulder at the line of dragons. “As aggressive as Baide might be, from the way Tairn’s looking at you, he’ll have no problem scorching your bones into the earth if you take another step toward his rider.”
Jack stares at me in disbelief. “You?”
“Me.” The throbbing in my ankle is down to a manageable, dull ache, even standing on it.
He shakes his head, and the look in his eyes transforms from shock, to envy, to fear as he pivots toward the professor. “I don’t know what she told you about what happened out there-”
“Nothing.” The instructor folds his arms across his chest. “Is there something I need to know?”
Jack pales, going white as a sheet in the mage light as another injured first-year hobbles over, blood streaming from his thigh and torso.
“Everyone who needs to know already knows.” I lock eyes with Jack.
“Guess we’re done for the night,” Kaori says as a line of dragons flies in, only visible by their silhouettes in the darkness. “The senior riders are back.
You two should return to your dragons.”
Jack huffs and marches off across the field.
I glance at the generals still gathered in heated discussion on the dais. “Professor Kaori, has anyone ever bonded two dragons?” If anyone knows, it’s the professor of Dragonkind.
He turns with me to face the arguing leadership. “You would be the first. Not sure why they’re fighting about it, though. The decision won’t be up to them.”
“It won’t?” Wind gusts as dozens of dragons land on the opposite side of the first-years, rows of mage lights hanging between them.
“Nothing about who dragons choose is up to humans,” Kaori assures me. “We only like to maintain the illusion that we’re in control. Something tells me they’ve just been waiting for the others to make it back before they meet.”
“The leadership?” My brow furrows.
Kaori shakes his head. “The dragons.”
The dragons are going to meet? “Thank you for tending to my ankle. I’d better get back over there.” I offer him a tentative smile and head across the dimly lit field to Tairn and Andarna, feeling the weight of every stare in the valley as I stop and stand between the two dragons.
“You two are causing a ruckus, you know.” I look at Andarna, then glance up at Tairn before turning around to face the field like the other firstyears. “They’re not going to let us do this.” Oh shit, what if they make me choose?
My stomach plummets.
“It’s up to the Empyrean to decide,” Tairn says, but there’s an edge of tension in his tone. “Don’t leave the field. This might take a while.”
“What might-” My question dies on my tongue as the biggest dragon I’ve ever seen, even larger than Tairn, stalks toward us from the opening to the valley. Each dragon it passes walks into the center of the field and
follows after, gathering dozens as it walks. “Is that…” “Codagh,” Tairn answers.
General Melgren’s dragon.
I make out the patchy holes in his battle-scarred wings as he comes closer, his golden gaze focused on Tairn in a way that makes me nauseous. He growls, low in his throat, turning those sinister eyes on me.
Tairn rumbles his own growl, stepping forward so I’m between his massive claws.
There’s zero doubt I’m the subject of both disgruntled snarls.
“Yep! We’re talking about you!” Andarna says as the line passes by, and she joins.
“Stay close to the wingleader until we return,” Tairn orders.
Surely he meant to say squad leader. “You heard what I said.” Or not.
I glance around and spot Xaden standing across the field, his arms crossed and legs spread as he stares at Tairn.
The riders are eerily silent as the dragons empty the meadow, taking flight in a steady stream near the end and landing halfway up the southernmost peak in a shadowy grouping I can barely define in the moonlight.
The second the last of the dragons flies off, chaos erupts. First-years swarm the center of the field, where I happen to be standing, shouting in exuberance and searching for their friends. My eyes scan the crowd, hoping for some glimpse of-
“Rhi!” I shout, spotting Rhiannon in the mob and limping her way.
“Violet!” She crushes me into a hug, pulling away when I wince at the fresh pain in my arm. “What happened?”
“Tynan’s sword.” I barely get the answer out of my mouth before I’m snatched off my feet by Ridoc, who spins me around, my feet flying out in front of me.
“Look who rode in on the baddest motherfucker around!” “Put her down!” Rhiannon chides. “She’s bleeding!” “Oh shit, sorry,” Ridoc says, and my feet find the ground.
“It’s fine.” There’s fresh blood on the bandage, but I don’t think I’ve torn my stitches. And painkillers are awesome. “Are you all right? Who did you guys bond?”
“The Green Daggertail!” Rhiannon grins. “Feirge. And it was just… easy.” She sighs. “I saw her and just knew.”
“Aotrom,” Ridoc says with pride. “Brown Swordtail.”
“Sliseag!” Sawyer throws his arms around Rhiannon’s and Ridoc’s shoulders. “Red Swordtail!” We all cheer, and I’m swept into his hug next.
Out of all of us, I’m happiest for him, for all he’s had to endure to get here.
“Trina?” I ask as he lets me go.
One by one, they shake their heads, looking to the others for answers. An impossible heaviness settles in my heart, and I search for any other reason. “I mean…there’s a possibility she’s just unbonded, right?”
Sawyer shakes his head, sorrow slackening his shoulders. “I saw her fall from the back of an Orange Clubtail.” My heart sinks.
“Tynan?” Ridoc asks, his gaze jumping between us.
“Tairn killed him,” I say softly. “In his defense, Tynan had already run me through once.” I gesture to the wound on my arm. “And he was trying to
-”
“He tried what?”
I’m spun around by the shoulders and yanked against a chest. Dain. My arms wind around his back and hold fast as I breathe deeply.
“Damn it. Violet. Just…damn.” He squeezes me tight, then pushes me to arm’s length. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I assure him, but that doesn’t quell the worry in his eyes. I’m not sure anything ever will. “But we’re all that’s left of our squad’s firstyears.”
Dain’s gaze rises to look at the others, and he nods. “Four out of nine. That’s”-his jaw ticks once-“to be expected. The dragons are currently holding a meeting of the Empyrean-their leadership. Stay here until they return,” he says to the others before looking down at me. “You come with me.”
It’s probably my mother, beckoning me through him. Surely she’ll want to see me with everything that’s going on. I glance across the field, but it’s not Mom I find watching me but Xaden, his expression unreadable.
When Dain takes my hand and tugs, I turn away from Xaden, following Dain to the opposite edge of the field, where we’re hidden in shadow. Guess it’s not about Mom.
“What the actual fuck happened out there? Because I’ve got Cath telling me that not only did Tairn choose you but so did the small one-Adarn?” His fingers lace with mine, panic swirling in his brown eyes.
“Andarna,” I correct him, a smile playing on my lips at the thought of the small golden dragon.
“They’re going to make you choose.” His expression hardens, and the certainty there makes me recoil.
“I’m not choosing.” I shake my head, disengaging our hands. “No human has ever chosen, and I’m not about to be the first.” And who the hell is Dain to tell me that?
“You are.” He rips his hand over his hair, and his composure slips. “You have to trust me. You do trust me, right?”
“Of course I do-”
“Then you have to choose Andarna.” He nods as if his decree equals a decision made. “The gold one is the safest choice of the two.”
Why, because Tairn is…Tairn? Does Dain think I’m too weak for a dragon as strong as Tairn?
My mouth opens, then shuts like a fish out of water as I search for any reply that isn’t fuck off. There’s no way in hell I’m rejecting Tairn. But my heart won’t let me reject Andarna, either.
“Are they going to make me choose?” I think in their direction.
There’s no response, and where I’ve felt an…extension in my mind, of who I am, stretching my mental boundaries since Tairn first spoke to me in that field, there’s nothing now.
I’m cut off. Don’t panic.
“I’m not choosing,” I repeat, softer this time. What if I can’t have either of them? What if they’ve broken some sacred rule and now we’ll all be punished?
“You are. And it has to be Andarna.” He grips my shoulders and leans in, an edge of urgency in his tone. “I know she’s too small to bear a rider-”
“That hasn’t been tested,” I say defensively even though I know it’s true. The physics just don’t match up.
“And it doesn’t matter. It will mean that you won’t be able to ride with a wing, but they’ll probably make you a permanent instructor here like
Kaori.”
“That’s because his signet power makes him indispensable as a teacher, not because his dragon can’t fly,” I argue. “And even he had the requisite four years with a combat wing before he was put behind a desk.”
Dain looks away, and I can almost see the gears in his mind turning as he calculates…what? My risk? My choice? My freedom? “Even if you take Andarna into combat, there’s only a chance you’ll be killed. You take Tairn, and Xaden will get you killed. You think Melgren is terrifying? I’ve been here for a year longer than you have, Vi. At least you know what you’re getting when it comes to Melgren. Xaden isn’t only twice as ruthless, but he’s dangerously unpredictable.”
I blink. “Wait. What are you saying?”
“They’re a mated pair, Tairn and Sgaeyl. The strongest bonded pair in centuries.”
My mind whirs. Mated pairs can’t be separated for long or their health diminishes, so they’re always stationed together. Always. Which means-oh gods.
“Just…tell me how it happened.” He must see me fumbling because his voice softens.
So I do. I tell him about Jack and his band of murderous friends hunting Andarna. I tell him about falling, and the field, and Xaden watching, Xaden…shockingly protecting me with his warning when Oren was at my back. He had the perfect opportunity to end me without it tipping his scales, and he chose to help. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
“Xaden was there,” Dain says quietly, but the gentleness leaches from his voice.
“Yes.” I nod. “But he left after Tairn showed up.”
“Xaden was there when you defended Andarna, and then Tairn just… showed up?” he asks slowly.
“Yes. That’s what I just said.” Was the timeline confusing him? “What are you getting at?”
“Don’t you see what happened? What Xaden’s done?” His grip tightens. Thank gods for the dragon-scale armor, or I might have bruises tomorrow.
“Please, do tell me what it is you think I’ve done.” A shape emerges from the shadows, and my pulse quickens as Xaden steps into the moonlight, darkness falling off him like a discarded veil.
Heat rushes through every vein, wakes every nerve ending. I hate the reaction of my body to the sight of him, but I can’t deny it. His appeal is so fucking inconvenient.
“You manipulated Threshing.” Dain’s hands drop from my shoulders, and he turns to face our wingleader, the set of his shoulders rigid as he puts himself between us.
Oh shit, that’s a huge allegation to hurl.
“Dain, that’s…” Paranoid. I sidestep Dain’s back. If Xaden was going to kill me, he wouldn’t have waited this long to do it. He’s had every possible opportunity, and yet I’m still standing here. Bonded. To his dragon’s mate.
Xaden’s not going to kill me. The realization makes my chest tighten, makes me reexamine everything that happened in that field, makes my sense of gravity shift beneath my feet.
“Is that an official accusation?” Xaden looks at Dain like a hindrance, an annoyance.
“Did you step in?” Dain demands.
“Did I what?” Xaden arches a dark brow and levels a look on Dain that would make a lesser person wither. “Did I see her outnumbered and already wounded? Did I think her bravery was as admirable as it was fucking reckless?” He turns that stare on me, and I feel the impact all the way to my toes.
“And I would do it again.” I raise my chin.
“Well-the-fuck-aware,” Xaden roars, losing his temper for the first time since I met him on Parapet.
I pull in a quick breath, and Xaden does the same, as if he’s just as shocked by his outburst as I am.
“Did I see her fight off three bigger cadets?” His glare pivots to Dain. “Because the answer to all of those is yes. But you’re asking the wrong question, Aetos. What you should be asking is if Sgaeyl saw it, too.” Dain swallows and looks away, obviously rethinking his position.
“His mate told him,” I whisper. Sgaeyl called for Tairn.
“She’s never been a fan of bullies,” Xaden says to me. “But don’t mistake it as an act of kindness toward you. She’s fond of the little dragon.
Unfortunately, Tairn chose you all on his own.” “Fuck,” Dain mutters.
“My thought exactly.” Xaden shakes his head at Dain. “Sorrengail is the last person on the Continent I’d ever want to be chained to me. I didn’t do this.”
Ouch. It takes all the willpower in my body not to reach for my chest and make sure he didn’t just rip my heart out from behind my ribs, which makes absolutely zero sense, since I feel the same way about him. He’s the son of the Great Betrayer. His father was directly responsible for Brennan’s death.
“And even if I had.” Xaden moves toward Dain, towering over him. “Would you really level that accusation knowing it would have been what saved the woman you call your best friend?”
My gaze flies to Dain, and a silent, damning moment passes. It’s a simple question, and yet I find myself holding my breath for his answer. What do I really mean to him?
“There are…rules.” Dain tilts his chin to look Xaden in the eyes.
“And out of curiosity, would you have, let’s say, bent those rules to save your precious little Violet in that field?” His voice ices over as he studies Dain’s expression with rapt fascination.
Xaden had taken a step. Right before Tairn landed, he’d moved…toward me.
Dain’s jaw flexes, and I see the war in his eyes.
“That’s unfair to ask him.” I move to Dain’s side as the sound of whipping wings interrupts the night. The dragons are flying back. They’ve made their decision.
“I’m ordering you to answer, squad leader.” Xaden doesn’t even spare me a glance.
Dain swallows, his eyes slamming shut. “No. I wouldn’t have.”
My heart hits the ground. I’ve always known deep down that Dain valued rule and order more than relationships, more than me, but to have it so cruelly displayed cuts deeper than Tynan’s sword.
Xaden scoffs.
Dain immediately jerks his head toward mine. “It would have killed me to watch something happen to you, Vi, but the rules-”
“It’s all right,” I force out, touching his shoulder, but it isn’t.
“The dragons are returning,” Xaden says as the first of them lands on the illuminated field. “Get back to formation, squad leader.”
Dain rips his gaze from mine and walks away, blending into the crowd of hurried riders and their dragons.
“Why would you do that to him?” I hurl at Xaden, then shake my head. I don’t care why. “Forget it,” I mutter, then march off, heading back toward the spot where Tairn told me to wait.
“Because you put too much faith in him,” Xaden answers anyway, catching up to me without even lengthening his stride. “And knowing who to trust is the only thing that will keep you alive-keep us alive-not only in the quadrant but after graduation.”
“There is no us,” I say, dodging a rider as she races past. Dragons land left and right, the ground trembling with the force of the riot’s movement. I’ve never seen so many dragons at flight in the same moment.
“Oh, I think you’ll find that’s no longer the case,” Xaden murmurs next to me, gripping my elbow and yanking me out of the path of another rider running from the other direction.
Yesterday, he would have let me run headfirst into him.
Hell, he might have even pushed me.
“Tairn’s bonds are so powerful, both to mate and rider, because he’s so powerful. Losing his last rider nearly killed him, which, in turn, nearly killed Sgaeyl. Mated pairs’ lives are-”
“Interdependent, I know that.” We move forward until we’re dead center in the line of riders. If I wasn’t so aggravated by Xaden’s callous attitude toward Dain, I would take the time to admire just how spectacular it is to see hundreds of dragons land all around us. Or maybe I’d question how the man next to me manages to consume all the air in the massive field.
“Each time a dragon chooses a rider, that bond is stronger than the last, which means that if you die, Violence, it sets off a chain of events that potentially ends with me dying, too.” His expression is immovable marble, but the anger in his eyes leaves me breathless. It’s pure…rage. “So yeah, unfortunately for everyone involved, there’s now an us if the Empyrean lets
Tairn’s choice stand.” Oh. Gods.
I’m tethered to Xaden Riorson.
“And now that Tairn is in play, that other cadets know he’s willing to bond…” He sighs, annoyance rippling over his features, his strong jaw working as he looks away.
“That’s why Tairn told me to stay with you,” I whisper as the consequences of today’s actions settle in my churning stomach. “Because of the unbonded.” There are at least three dozen of them standing on the opposite side of the field, watching us with avarice in their eyes-including Oren Seifert.
“The unbonded are going to try to kill you in hopes they’ll get Tairn to bond them.” Xaden shakes his head at Garrick as he approaches, and the section leader glances between us, his mouth set in a firm line before retreating across the field. “Tairn is one of the strongest dragons on the Continent, and the vast power he channels is about to be yours. The next few months, the unbonded will try to kill a newly paired rider while the bond is weak, while they still have a chance of that dragon changing its mind and picking them so they’re not set back a full year. And for Tairn? They’ll do just about anything.” He sighs again like it’s his new full-time job. “There are forty-one unbonded riders for which you are now target number one.” He holds up a single finger.
“And Tairn thinks you’ll play bodyguard.” I snort. “Little does he know just how much you dislike me.”
“He knows exactly how much I value my own life,” Xaden retorts, glancing down my body. “You’re freakishly calm for someone who just heard she’s about to be hunted.”
“It’s a typical Wednesday for me.” I shrug, ignoring the way his gaze heats my skin. “And honestly, being hunted by forty-one people is a lot less intimidating than constantly watching dark corners for you.”
A breeze hits my back as Andarna lands behind me, followed by a gust of wind and shuddering ground when it’s Tairn.
Without another word, Xaden rips his gaze from mine and walks away, cutting a slightly diagonal path across the field to where Sgaeyl overshadows the other wingleaders’ dragons.
“Tell me it’s going to be all right,” I murmur toward Andarna and Tairn.
“It is how it should be,” Tairn answers, his voice gruff and bored at the same time.
“You didn’t answer before.” Fine, it sounds a little accusatory.
“Humans can’t know what’s said within the Empyrean,” Andarna answers. “It’s a rule.”
So every rider was blocked, not just me. The thought is oddly comforting. Also, the whole Empyrean is a new term for me today. Kaori must be in heaven tonight with all the dragon politics coming to light. What did they decide?
I glance at my mother, but she’s looking everywhere but my direction.
General Melgren moves toward the front of the dais, his uniform dripping in medals. Dain’s right in one way-the top general in our kingdom is terrifying. He’s never had an issue using infantry for fodder, and his cruelty when it comes to overseeing the interrogation-and execution- of prisoners is well-known, at least at my family’s dining room table. His enormous nightmare of a dragon takes up the entire space beside the dais, and a hush falls over the crowd as Melgren angles his hands in front of his face.
“Codagh has relayed that the dragons have spoken regarding the Sorrengail girl.” Lesser magic allows his voice to magically amplify over the field for all to hear.
Woman, I mentally correct him, my stomach knotting.
“While tradition has shown us that there is one rider for every dragon, there has never been a case of two dragons selecting the same rider, and therefore there is no dragon law against it,” he declares. “While we riders may not feel as though this is…equitable”-his tone implies that he’s one of them-“dragons make their own laws. Both Tairn and…” He looks over his shoulder and his aide rushes forward to whisper in his ear. “Andarna
have chosen Violet Sorrengail, and so their choice stands.”
The crowd murmurs, but my shoulders sag in acute relief. I don’t have to make an impossible choice.
“As it should be,” Tairn grumbles. “Humans have no say in the laws of dragons.”
Mom steps forward and makes the same gesture with her hands to project her voice, but I can’t concentrate on what she’s saying as she closes out the formal portion of the Threshing ceremony, promising the unbonded riders another chance next year. If they don’t manage to kill one of us while our bonds are weak in the next few months and try to bond our dragons themselves.
I belong to Tairn and Andarna…and, in some really fucked-up way… Xaden.
My scalp prickles, and I glance across the field at him.
As if sensing my gaze, he looks over and holds up a single finger. Target number one.
“Welcome to a family that knows no boundaries, no limits, and no end,” my mother finishes, and a cheer resounds around the field. “Riders, step forward.”
I look left and right in confusion, but so does every other rider.
“Five steps or so,” Tairn says.
I take them.
“Dragons, it is our honor as always,” Mom calls out. “Now we celebrate!”
Heat blasts my back, and I hiss in pain as riders on both sides of me cry out. My back feels like it’s on fucking fire, and yet everyone across the field is cheering raucously, some of them racing our way.
Other riders are caught up in embraces.
“You’ll like it,” Tairn promises. “It’s unique.”
The pain fades to a dull ache, and I glance over my shoulder. There’s a solid black…something peeking out from the vest. “I’ll like what?”
“Violet!” Dain reaches me, his smile wide as he cups my face. “You kept both of them!”
“I guess I did.” My lips curve. It’s all…surreal, all too much for one day.
“Where’s your…” He lets go and circles me. “Can I unlace this? Just the top?” he asks, tugging at the raised neck of the back of my vest.
I nod. A few pushes and pulls later, the crisp October air nips at the base of my neck.
“Holy shit. You have to see this.” “Tell the boy to move,” Tairn orders. “Tairn says you should move.” Dain steps out of the way.
Suddenly, my vision isn’t mine. I’m looking at my own back through… Andarna’s eyes. A back that has a glistening black relic of a dragon midflight stretching from shoulder to shoulder and, in the center, the silhouette of a shimmering golden one.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’m marked by their magic as a rider now, as their rider.
“We know,” Andarna answers.
I blink, and my vision is mine again, and Dain’s hands lace up my corset quickly, then are on my face, tipping it up toward his.
“You have to know that I would do anything to save you, Violet, to keep you safe,” he blurts, panic in his eyes. “What Riorson said…” He shakes his head.
“I know,” I say reassuringly, nodding even as something cracks in my heart. “You always want me safe.” He’d do anything. Except break the rules.
“You have to know how I feel about you.” His thumb strokes over my cheek, his eyes searching for something, and then his mouth is on mine.
His lips are soft, but the kiss is firm, and delight races up my spine. After years, Dain is finally kissing me.
The thrill is gone in less than a heartbeat. There’s no heat. No energy. No sharp slice of lust. Disappointment sours the moment, but not for Dain. He’s all smiles as he pulls away.
It was over in an instant.
It was everything I’ve ever wanted…except… Shit. I don’t want it anymore.
