Conscription rates are hereby doubled for each province until further notice.
—Public Notice 634.23 Transcribed by Percival Fitzgibbons
We fly northwest at dawn.
Aotrom clutches Trager’s body in his foreclaw.
Tairn carries Sila.
The ocean turns the blackest shade of blue I’ve ever seen as we soar over deep waters, leaving the safety of the trade routes and the major isles behind in hopes the map has been drawn correctly.
When night falls and the ocean only reveals the reflection of the moon, fear sours my belly. If we’ve erred, the dragons will be able to turn around and fly for Zehyllna, but the gryphons won’t make it.
There’s every chance that choosing to bury Trager and Sila on a minor isle will cause us to bury the others unless they consent to being carried.
By the middle of the night, I’m ready to give up and order our return when Tairn spots land.
Thank you, Amari.
Not sure I’ll ever pray to Zihnal again.
The perimeter sweep of the tiny isle and its one, hollow-tipped peak takes approximately ten minutes, and after we’re sure it’s uninhabited, we land on a northern beach nearly as wide as Tairn’s wingspan.
It could be a trick of the moonlight, but I’m pretty sure the sand is black.
Power ripples through me and energy crackles along my skin with about half the intensity that it does in Navarre.
We’ve found magic. And more than there was on Zehyllna, too.
The group seeks out fresh water from a nearby stream that runs through the beach, ensure the riot is hydrated, then make quick work of gathering wood from the edges of the jungle.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck as we carry load after load to the high point of the wide beach, halfway between the tide line and the forest behind us.
Once the pyre is built, we stand shoulder to shoulder, our backs to the jungle as Aotrom lowers his head and sets the wood ablaze. The fire lights up the night, and heat washes over my face.
Maren’s shoulders shake, and Cat hooks her arm through her best friend’s as she stares into the flames.
My throat tightens at the pain in their faces, and Xaden laces our fingers.
“Silaraine and Trager Karis,” Drake says from the left, his voice booming over the roar of the bright fire and the crashing ocean waves behind it. “With honor, love, and gratitude, we commend your souls to Malek.”
And so it’s done.
We make camp close to the stream, and the fliers take turns keeping watch over the fire through the night. By morning, the flames rise no higher than a few inches.
I fill waterskins at the stream with Ridoc, and when we walk back to camp, we find the others in a somber discussion.
“I think we’re off course,” Drake says, fighting to hold the map with one hand and the squirmy kitten in the other. The paper’s been folded so many times, holes have worn through the corners.
“Give me that.” To my surprise, Mira takes the kitten, not the map, cradling it against her chest with one hand.
“Her name is Broccoli, not that,” he mutters.
She looks at him like he’s sprouted whiskers. “You named a kitten Broccoli?”
“No one really wants broccoli, but it’s good for you, so seems fitting to me.” He shrugs. “Now, that’s clearly remnants of an old volcano”—he gestures to the peak high above us—“and the first marker for any such formation is here.” His finger swipes over the detailed painting of a small archipelago on the northeast side of the minor isles.
I start comparing landmarks.
“We didn’t fly that far,” Xaden notes, folding his arms across his chest and studying the map.
“Why not Carrots?” Mira asks, scratching under the kitten’s chin. “She’s orange.”
“Just to frustrate you, Sorrengail,” Drake answers, glancing up from the map.
She scoffs. “I’d guess we’re somewhere around here”—Mira taps an area of open ocean farther south—“and the map just doesn’t show it. We haven’t exactly been sending cartographers out this far.”
“I can see another isle from the edge of the point.” Aaric nods up the beach. “Molvic can make out two past it.”
“Tairn?” I ask down our singular bond, letting Andarna sleep. She’s utterly exhausted, and her wing trembled more than usual on the flight here.
“We are at the southern tip of an island chain of volcanic formations,” he answers from high above us. “It does not match anything on the map, though there is another mass of land an hour’s flight due west with what appears to be sizable cliffs.”
I squeeze in next to Mira and examine the map, then locate the isle fitting Tairn’s description, noting the mapmaker’s symbol for cliffs. Then I track east with my finger and find only open water. “Pretty sure we’re here, from what Tairn can see.” I lift my head and look past Maren’s shoulder out over the open water. “I’m guessing there are hundreds of islands out this way, not just the couple dozen the mapmakers recorded.”
“And you think we should search them all?” Drake asks, incredulity puckering his forehead.
I look to Mira, but she just shrugs. “Not my call.”
Xaden watches me just like he did last year, like he knows the answer but wants me to find it on my own.
“As many as we can today.” I straighten my shoulders, and his mouth twitches upward. “We break into five groups. Maren and Cat take the unmapped islands to the north. Drake and Dain take this quadrant.” I point to the nearest isles to our west, taking the gryphons’ exhaustion into account. “Aaric and Mira, you go here; Xaden and Garrick, you take these; and Ridoc and I will take this section.” I drag my finger to an eastern chain about two hours away. When I look up, everyone is staring at me. “What? I kept the gryphons close and paired dragons with similar flight strengths”—my gaze finds Xaden’s, and he’s not amused with my group pairings—“except for ours. Tairn and Sgaeyl have the best chance of staying in contact when separated if the rest of these islands have the same level of magic. It’s better for the group if they split for the day.”
He arches his scarred brow.
“Just you and me today, honey bear.” Garrick swings his arm over Xaden’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he leans in and whispers. “I’ll take good care of you.” He flashes a dimple.
“Sun should set a little after six, which gives us nine hours.” I nod, pretty damned satisfied with this. “Meet back here before nightfall. If we find nothing, we go as a group toward the southeast isles tomorrow, then make the flight to Loysam.” Where we’ll have to resupply.
“Solid plan,” Mira says.
“We can’t go until the fire is out,” Maren says. “No one leaves an offering to Malek unattended.”
Cat shifts her weight restlessly, giving the impression that she needs to be anywhere but here.
“Ridoc and I will stay until it burns out.” I glance back at Andarna. Her breaths are deep and even as she sleeps at the edge of the jungle, her scales a shade blacker than the sand. “That will give Andarna another hour or so to rest. Any other questions? Comments? Concerns?”
“Good to me.” Drake folds the map, and the group breaks apart to ready their packs, leaving Xaden staring at me.
Ridoc glances between us. “I’m going…somewhere else.” He walks off toward the dying fire.
“You can’t tell me to lead and then get pissed at how I do it.” I shrug.
He crosses the distance between us, leans down, and kisses me, hard and quick. “Be back by nightfall, love.”
I grasp for his wrist, keeping him a second longer as I search his eyes. The flecks are still amber. “Are you all right?” I whisper. “There’s magic and no wards.”
“It’s…” He grimaces. “It’s tempting, and I don’t even need it. But I can feel the power beneath my feet, and while I can wield enough to do this—” A whisp of inky black shadow curls up my leg, around my torso, and caresses the side of my face. “It’s hard to know I could be at full strength if I just…” He swallows, and my grip tightens on his wrist. “But I won’t.”
“Not unless something triggers you.” Unease rides the heels of the retreating shadow, sliding down my body and leaving goose bumps in its wake. “That’s the other reason I sent you with Garrick.”
Xaden tenses. “In case I channel?”
I shake my head. “So you don’t. The last time you did, it was because of me. I’m a trigger.”
He flinches. “You’re not a trigger. You’re the only thing I can’t fathom losing. Wielding to protect you has always been an instinct, but now it’s…uncontrollable.”
“I know.” I study the healing cut along his arm, then lift his hand and kiss the center of his palm. “Which is why you’re going with Garrick. He carries serum, too.”
“All right.” He grips my waist. “I mean it when I say you own my soul. You’re the only place I feel completely like me anymore. You’re not a trigger,” he repeats, then steals another kiss and walks away. “See you tonight.”
“Tonight,” I call after him. “I love you.”
Warmth floods the bond in reply.
The teams launch, and Tairn stomps down the beach toward me with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t start with me.” I shake my head as Aotrom barrels past Tairn out to where the water covers his ankles, sprinting with his wings tucked tight. “She’ll be back tonight.”
“I’ll say the same when you’ve been unable to communicate with your mate for weeks and are then deprived by choice,” he grumbles, stalking into the woods. Swaying trees mark his passing.
“Humans don’t mate!” I call after him.
“Another sign of your inferiority.” Wood cracks in the distance.
“Curmudgeon,” I mutter, walking toward Ridoc standing at the edge of the water, where the waves don’t quite reach his boots.
“I heard that.”
Aotrom skids to a halt ten feet from Ridoc, driving his snout into the shallows and creating a wave that rushes up the beach and over Ridoc’s shins.
“Why are you such a dick?” Ridoc flings his arms out sideways. “I brought one pair of boots—”
I halt in front of where Andarna sleeps along the tree line. Like hell am I getting near the water. Not when Xaden already wrapped my ribs today.
Aotrom lifts his head, then sprays water through his teeth, completely soaking Ridoc from the tips of his hair to the toes of his boots.
Yikes. I cross my feet and sit, resting my back against Andarna’s shoulder.
“Not fair!” Ridoc wipes the drops from his eyes as Aotrom walks from the water up the beach and disappears into the woods. “I’m still winning. That doesn’t count!” he calls after his dragon. A pause, and he yells, “Because we’re on a mission!”
He shakes his head and slogs toward me, his boots squishing with every step.
“Do I even want to know?”
“He’s getting me back because I won the last round.” He flashes a grin. “I bought enough itching powder to fill a bucket, then dropped it between his scales on the back of his neck right after flight maneuvers a few weeks ago. He had to submerge his entire body in the river to avoid everyone in the Vale knowing I’d gotten the best of him.”
“You guys are weird.” I am suddenly very content with having bonded a grumpy old man, though I can’t say what Andarna will be like in twenty years.
“Are we?” Ridoc tugs at the laces of his boots. “Or are the rest of you the weird ones?” He shrugs, yanking off his boots and setting them in the sand in front of Andarna. “Hopefully they dry out a little before we need to go. I’m going to get some fresh clothes on.” He heads toward camp, then grabs his pack and walks into the woods.
“Don’t get any ideas,” I whisper to my sleeping dragon, laying my head back against her sun-warmed scales and closing my eyes.
The ground shudders.
“I swear to Amari, Tairn, if you spray me down with water—” The ground shudders again and again, and my eyes fly open.
Sand jumps. Water sprays. And in front of us lie fresh dragon tracks.
But neither Tairn nor Aotrom is here.
Apprehension climbs my spine and I rise slowly, favoring my ribs. I draw a dagger with my left hand, then turn my right palm skyward and open myself to Tairn’s power. It seeps into my veins and hums along my skin as I sidestep around Andarna’s shoulder to position myself in front of her neck, where she’s most vulnerable.
Heat gusts against my face, and the scent of sulfur permeates the air.
“Tairn?” I swing my gaze along the beach, but there’s nothing there, just the shimmer of the morning sun on the waves.
“I am busy with curmudgeonly things.”
My breath falters.
We didn’t find the irids; they found us.
We did it. They’re here.
Steam gusts across my face, and my stomach clenches. They’re here and really close with really big teeth.
The one directly in front of us flares their nostrils, and a sound like a slide whistle fills my head, pitching from low to painfully high in less than a heartbeat.
“Hello, human.”
