For maximum potential, riders should be stationed close to their villages if possible. Nothing is a more effective motivator than seeing one’s home on fire.
—Tactics part II, a Personal Memoir by Lieutenant Lyron Panchek
“How many?” I ask Tairn as we race down the steps.
Doors open on every floor we pass, and people pour out of their rooms, most still tugging on their uniforms. Only a small percentage are in black.
“A few dozen. Hard to tell with the weather. Twenty minutes out, maybe less. I’m on my way to you.”
“Andarna—” I start as Xaden makes it into our bedroom first.
“Do not tell me to stay put!” she shouts. “I can scorch the dark wielders.”
I’ll take yelling at me over silence any day.
“Guard the wardstone.” I dart around Xaden as he shoves his arms into his flight jacket, then grab my own out of the armoire. Fuck, I’m in sparring gear and lack armor, but it will have to do. At least my boots are on.
Within minutes, we’re both armed and running down the hall, into a growing crowd.
“How many on patrol?” Xaden shouts to Brennan when we make it to the foyer.
“Six,” Brennan answers, buttoning his flight jacket. “The horde outflew the two on the Dralor route, and the other four are twenty minutes due west.”
Well, that’s the wrong fucking direction for what we need.
“If they outflew two dragons, they have to be greenfire wyvern,” I say, looking up as a conglomeration of riders, infantry, and my own squadmates races in our direction with thundering bootsteps.
“Noted. Riders in residence?” Xaden asks, his gaze sweeping over the staircases as I weave my hair into a simple three-strand braid to keep it out of my way.
“Fifteen retired, ten active—with you, eleven,” Brennan replies. “Taking over all outposts in Tyrrendor from Navarrian riders left us undermanned.”
“Suri?” Xaden scans the foyer.
“In Tirvainne.” Brennan flinches. “And Ulices—”
“In Lewellen,” Xaden finishes. “So neither of the generals of my army are present.”
“Correct,” Brennan confirms.
His army. My fingers stall in my hair as it hits me. Xaden isn’t the ranking officer here, but he’s in command. The weight of that responsibility would buckle my knees, but he simply nods at my brother’s catastrophic news.
“That’s irksome.” Xaden looks up the stairs. “All right. We work with what we have. Felix, keep the first-years safe and your eye on that one.” His finger swings toward Aaric. “Infantry, get to your posts and take out any wyvern we drive to the ground. Riders, run faster.” He pivots toward Brennan, and the others scurry to follow orders. “Thoughts?”
“Wards are still up here, or we would feel it.” Brennan tilts his head.
I tie off the end of my braid.
“Considering the stone’s in the backyard, that’s not saying much,” Xaden replies.
“They haven’t spotted any venin among the patrol flight,” Brennan adds as Rhi reaches my side, Imogen close on her heels. “But it’s fucking huge, so they must be expecting to breach the city walls. Their course was noted as due west.”
Aaric pauses on the landing above, his brow furrowing before Felix practically shoves him down the hall.
“If I’m them, I’m flying in small-batch waves to test the barrier of the wards,” Brennan continues. “My recommendation is to station the officers two to five miles east, put the squad of…older riders at the city gates, and assign the cadets to the wardstone as a last defense.”
Holy shit does this feel familiar, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled with how the last time played out.
Xaden’s jaw ticks and his gaze darts back and forth for a second as he thinks. “I’ll join the officers,” he tells Brennan, and my heart jolts. “The older riders might be skilled, but half don’t fly—”
“I’m your best weapon,” I interject. “If you won’t put me on the first line, then station me at the gates.”
“Absolutely not!” Brennan snaps, leveling a horrified look at me.
“She’s right.” Xaden grimaces, then schools his features. “Split the retired riders. Half to the wardstone, half throughout the city in case civilians need to flee for the caves. You’re on the wall, Cadet Sorrengail.”
“Send all of us,” Rhi adds. “It’s not like second- and third-years haven’t seen combat. If it’s fight and die or don’t fight and die, we’d rather fight.”
Xaden nods. “Only those who are willing.”
“We’re willing,” Dain answers from the step beside Bodhi.
Every second- and third-year crowded near them nods.
“Fine. Aetos, your wing, your command,” Xaden says, and Brennan takes off to relay orders. Wind gusts through the front door as people rush out to take their positions.
“Third-years, you’re with me at the east gate to the city. Second-years, you’re with Matthias at the north. Work in pairs,” Dain orders.
“I’m here,” Tairn announces. “Enemy is ten minutes out.”
Holy shit. That’s the closest any wyvern has come to Aretia.
“I’m coming with you.” Bodhi jumps the last two steps, landing beside Xaden.
“You’re staying with the first-years,” Xaden immediately counters.
What? My eyebrows fly upward.
“The fuck I am.” The absolute wrath on Bodhi’s face has me retreating a step. “I will be at your side—”
“You will be as deep within this house as possible.” Xaden gets right up in his face.
“Because I’m not a weapon like you are?” Bodhi argues. “Cuir and I are just as deadly in the air.”
“Because you’re first in line!” Xaden clasps the back of his cousin’s neck. “Neither of us have an heir. We’re all there is, Bodhi. I don’t have time to argue, and you will do as ordered. Our family just got Tyrrendor back, and we will not lose her because of your ego. Understood?”
Bodhi’s eyes narrow. “We’ll lose her because of yours. Understood.” He pivots and disappears into the crowd.
“That didn’t go well,” I mutter.
“Fuck,” Xaden says under his breath, then turns to me and leans into my space. “I love you more than this city. Do not die defending it.” He crushes his mouth to mine and kisses me quick and fierce.
Tyrrendor. Xaden. Our relationship. Me. It’s hard to love someone in power.
I pull back. “As motivational speeches go, that was not your best.” My gaze sweeps over his face, memorizing every line. “I love you. Stay out of the clouds, off the ice, and come back to me whole.”
He nods, his eyes flashing as he catches my meaning, and then he’s gone.
There’s no time to contemplate if that was our last kiss.
“Do not worry for him,” Tairn orders. “He wins no matter how this battle goes.”
“Don’t be an ass.” I follow Rhi and Cat toward the front door.
“Sorrengail!” Aaric shouts, and I look back over my shoulder to see him sprinting down the steps. “Wait!”
“Don’t have a lot of time here,” I reply, letting the other second-years pass.
“You have to protect Dunne’s temple.” Aaric runs across the foyer, followed by two exasperated guards.
“I have an entire city to protect.”
“The temple is outside the walls.” He glances toward the open door.
“If that’s where our orders—”
“No.” He shakes his head, then seems to fight for words. “You have to protect the temple.”
Is he fucking kidding me right now?
“Did you make some alliance I’m not aware of?” I ask, backing away. Singling out Zihnal’s temple in the spirit of alliance is something I could understand, but Dunne? So help me Malek, if another Navarrian aristocrat has been making deals behind my back, I’m going to lose my shit.
“It’s not—” he starts as a group of soldiers races past.
“Violet!” Rhiannon yells. “We have to fly!”
“Coming!” I call back over my shoulder before addressing Aaric. “Dunne’s temple attendants are skilled in protecting themselves.”
“It’s how you save Tyrrendor.” Aaric’s voice drops to a whisper.
“By favoring Dunne?” I shake my head. “The time to weigh in on strategy was about five minutes ago. Go be with your year-mates.” I leave without waiting for his response and join my year-mates filing through the doorway.
“Orders?” Sawyer asks, cracking his knuckles.
“Fliers at the base…” Rhi blinks, then looks over us quickly as we walk into the blustery vestiges of the dying storm. The rain has eased, but what it lacks in intensity, it makes up for with ice-cold chill. The courtyard is teeming with dragons and gryphons. They wait on the walls, on the ground, and in the street beyond the gate. “No. Fliers on top of the wall for easier maneuverability,” Rhiannon orders with a nod. “We’re splitting strengths, so Sorrengail and I will hover at a hundred feet. Everything above that is ours. Henrick and Gamlyn will cover from the ground to our sector,” she shouts over the wind. “Most of us have family here, so fight like it.”
We all nod in agreement, then split to mount.
I pull my flight goggles down and find Tairn front and center. “You couldn’t wait off to the side like the others?”
“No.” He dips his shoulder and I mount quickly, my boots keeping their grip despite his rain-slick scales. “You must get faster at reacting to attacks like these.”
“I can’t tell leadership to make decisions faster.” I settle into the wet saddle, then buckle the water-laden strap with quickly cramping hands.
“Then perhaps we need to make our own decisions,” Tairn grumbles, then launches without preamble or warning.
I’m thrown back in the seat as he catapults upward at a vertical trajectory, so close to Riorson House that I cringe, expecting to hear claw collide with stone.
“I am not an amateur,” Tairn reminds me as we crest the top of the house, then bank hard right to join the others as they take to the skies. His little maneuver may have pushed my heart through my spine, but it gave Feirge, Aotrom, and Sliseag time and space to launch northward out of the courtyard.
I ignore the instinct begging me to look east to catch another glimpse of Xaden, or even Sgaeyl’s wings. My focus is needed here and now. Xaden is more than capable of taking care of himself…as long as he doesn’t channel magic that isn’t his.
The city rushes underneath us as we soar toward the north gate. Infantry races through the mage light–illuminated streets to their positions. Civilians scurry from house to house. Temple attendants dart into their sanctuaries—except those who serve Zihnal. They’re on the front steps of their shrine, drinking as we pass over. Only when I verify that Rhiannon’s family has light shining through their windows do I scan the cloudy skies ahead of the northern wall.
“Have to love fighting in the dark,” I mutter, dragging my sleeve over my flight goggles to clear them.
“I’ve heard you have quite the solution to that,” Tairn counters.
Good point. I retrieve the conduit from my left pocket, fasten the strap at my wrist, and palm the glass orb. Then I crack open my Archives door.
Tairn’s power rushes in, heating my skin and my rain-chilled hands.
Energy hums in my veins, condenses in my chest, and when it crackles into the conduit, I lift my right hand to the sky and wield, splaying my fingers wide as I push the power upward and it erupts through me.
Lightning streaks through the cloud overhead, branching out in dozens of directions and illuminating the field for the length of two heartbeats.
Pairs of gray-winged wyvern fly toward us on dozens of different flight paths from dozens of different altitudes, disappearing into the darkness as the light collapses and thunder booms. Brennan was right about the wyvern flying in small batches to test the wards. He just failed to anticipate that they’d do so in such a wide arc, and it’s going to cost us.
“They aren’t in formation like Basgiath,” I note to Tairn as we reach the northern gate and climb to hold a hover with Feirge. Steam rises from my skin, but I keep my Archives door open, allowing the power to gather within me so I don’t have to reach for it next time.
“Either they’ve traded the security of formation in hopes smaller pairings will get through,” Tairn muses, “or they know you’re here and formations make a bigger target.”
“That would require one of the dark wielders to have escaped Basgiath.” I glance downward and see Sliseag and Aotrom land at the gates, a row of gryphons manning the walls above them.
“It would,” Tairn agrees, then rumbles low in his chest. “The officers have made contact.”
Xaden. Worry fights like hell to worm its way into my chest. “You’ll tell me if something…”
“You’d know,” Tairn replies, then snakes his head right toward Feirge. “Your squad leader requests light.”
I know Rhi isn’t talking about the glow from the orb, so I twist my hand upward and wield again. Heat whips through me and lightning strikes overhead, spreading through the cloud. I hold my fingers in their splayed position and push another wave of energy outward, prolonging the strike in a way I’ve never managed before.
Rain sizzles when it hits my cheeks, and I quickly count four pairs of wyvern flying in our direction unimpeded. My fingertips burn, and I drop my hand, effectively cutting the strike.
Thunder roars louder than any dragon I’ve come across.
“Impressive,” Tairn says.
“Impressive but foolish.” I wince, then hold the conduit over my right hand. Two blisters bubble the skin on the outside of my forefinger. “What are our orders?”
“The squad leader,” he growls, “incorrectly instructs to stick close to the walls, but it’s the wrong call. Your power should not be wielded in such proximity to civilians.”
“Not until I’m a hell of a lot better at controlling it,” I agree. “Relay that.”
“She hesitates.” Tairn’s head swivels toward Feirge. “We cannot afford to do so.”
Fuck. The last thing I want to do is go against Rhi or leave my squad, and now I’m the one hesitating because Tairn is right. “Go.” I breathe in deeply. “Tell them to stay back as ordered, but you and I have to go.”
“Agreed.” He launches forward. “A wind wielder has been assigned to bring moonlight. Now, ready yourself. We have two minutes until they’re on us.”
My heart begins to pound. “Did the officers’ line fall?”
“They circumnavigated it.” His head tilts again. “We’re taking the pair on the high left. Feirge has joined us.”
“Let’s go.” Fighting in pairs makes sense, but Rhi has never left the squad.
Tairn beats his wings in three consecutive hard pumps and we surge forward, gaining altitude immediately with Feirge close behind.
“It’s too dark ahead. I can’t see,” I warn Tairn. There’s a stark line of black to my left I know belongs to the mountains, but the farther we fly from the city lights, the fewer shapes I can spot in the sky ahead of us. Everything blurs in the dark.
And miles away toward the east, flames erupt in streams of orange…and green.
“We are the dark. Drop the conduit,” he orders.
“I won’t be able—” My chest clenches as magic ripples. We’ve passed the protections of the wards.
“Drop it!”
I release my fingers, and the orb falls to the end of its chain, the light dying as the glass thumps the back of my arm. There’s nothing left to do but make myself the smallest burden possible, so I grip the pommels and lie as flat as I can while smothering Tairn’s power. “Tell me you made it to the wardstone,” I call back to Andarna.
“It is well protected,” she promises, and her words lift the hair at the back of my neck.
“Are you at—” I start.
“Prepare!” Tairn orders.
We hit a fucking wall.
At least that’s how it feels as I hurtle forward, my momentum giving zero cares that Tairn has all but stopped in the sky. Claw and teeth collide with scale as I’m whipped backward, my weight driving into the seat.
Gravity pulls from the left, and air rushes from the ground as my stomach rises. All I can do is hold tight and trust Tairn.
A shriek threatens to pierce my eardrums before it ends abruptly, only to be followed by the wet sound of flesh tearing, then a series of snaps. Tairn levels out and two wingbeats later, I hear a thud beneath us.
“It’s been ages since I’ve honored the color of my scale in such a manner,” Tairn declares with a pitch of pride.
“You blended in with the night.” Andarna scoffs. “Hardly an accomplishment.”
“You sound closer than you should be!” Why won’t she ever stay where she’s supposed to?
Tairn rumbles low in his chest, and fire streaks ahead of us. Feirge’s flame outlines the shape of the wyvern’s partner a second before she surges for its gray throat. The Green Daggertail’s body swings forward as her teeth sink into the wyvern’s neck.
The creature screams, and its wings beat frantically as it tries to escape.
“Hold tight.” Tairn increases his speed, and I do exactly as he orders, bracing for another impact. My body is going to hate me tomorrow if we survive the night. Clouds clear just enough for the moon to shine as Tairn flies straight at the flailing wyvern.
Tairn tucks his left wing as we skim by Feirge’s claws, passing so close that my eyes lock with Rhi’s for a scant second. Then I whip my head forward, and Tairn barrels into the wyvern’s barbed tail, opening his jaws and taking hold with his teeth.
Then he rolls.
Holy. Fucking. Nausea. I pitch forward with Tairn and the sky turns into ground. The saddle strap digs into my thighs as we flip, and small pinpricks of light blur beneath me—above me—I can’t even tell. They disappear before I can process the pull of gravity.
Bone snaps as the sky appears again, and Tairn lets go.
The wyvern falls, smashing into the ground a few seconds later.
“We broke its neck,” he announces, flaring his wings to halt our momentum.
My head swims, and my stomach threatens to release its contents. “Let’s never do that again.” I check to make sure Rhi’s all right, and she lifts a hand in acknowledgment.
“It was an effective maneuver,” Tairn argues. “The opposite force twisted the creature’s spine—”
“I get how it worked. Never again.” The moonlight makes it possible to scan the field fully, and my heart drops at the sight of piled wings near the north gate. I can’t differentiate among them in the dark, but I can make out the gaping hole in the top of the wall.
“Your year-mates have brought down two pairs themselves, but the bodies have caused destruction,” Tairn says in explanation. “The wards have not been reached by wyvern. They’ll continue to send waves to test the boundaries.” His head whips back and forth between the horde holding off to the east and those engaged in combat before them.
Xaden. My feelings get the best of me, and I reach down the bond. Instead of warm, shimmering shadow, I’m met with a wall of onyx ice so cold it burns to the touch.
I inhale sharply and throw up a shield. “Is Sgaeyl all—”
“She copes,” Tairn interrupts, his head snapping left. “Look below.”
The muscles along my stomach tense. Four wyvern skim the ground at dizzying speed, keeping low as if trying to get by undetected. I swing my gaze, projecting their flight path, and find Andarna waiting in front of a lone structure in a field beyond the walls, flicking her tail. Terror steals the breath from my lungs.
“Go!”
Tairn tucks his wings, and we dive.
Wind tears at my hair, and I fight gravity to palm the conduit. Then I forget the fall and focus only on the wyvern, power rushing back to my surface. I gather it, condense it, burn with it, then summon more and more until I am light and heat and energy itself.
“Not too much!” Tairn warns as I lift my right hand against the wind.
But how can it be too much when I am the very thing I wield?
I keep my eyes on the wyvern as we approach the inevitable point of intersection and spool power like thread as the ground flies up to meet us. We can stay ahead of them if we get there fast enough.
I just need five seconds. We have fifty feet of altitude on them and the same in distance.
Five. Tairn snaps his wings to slow our fall.
Four. The bones in my spine grind at the abrupt change in momentum, but he’s brought us close enough to see the tips of their clawed wings. And they’re only getting closer.
Three. My body burns as I twist in the saddle and wield, releasing the coil of energy with a flare of my hand in one heartbeat, then dragging it downward with two scalded fingertips in the next.
Two. Tairn beats his wings, lifting us as lightning rends the sky—and maybe time. Everything seems to move slower as I force my fingers apart, splitting the bolt in two. Heat devours my breath and pain becomes my entire existence as I direct the scorching blasts into the wyvern’s flight path.
One. The strike hits the lead pair, and they burst into flames, missing Tairn by a matter of feet as they fall out of formation in streaks of fire, revealing the remaining two.
And one carries a silver-haired rider.
Zero. Thunder shakes the alloy in the conduit, and my hand falls as Tairn drops onto the nearest wyvern.
The creature screeches, and the world spins in a flurry of black and gray wings.
Tairn bellows, and his pain replaces mine.
