They lift, retreating to the tips of my boots.
“Let the others know the gates are opening,” I tell Tairn.
“I will position myself accordingly.”
A full minute later, the guards throw open the gates, revealing the rest of our squad dismounting.
“Trust me, Mom. The battle you’re expecting isn’t at Samara: it’s here.” I explain my line of thinking in the few minutes it takes for my squadmates to reach us. “Someone is going to take down your wards.”
“Not possible, cadet.” She shakes her head as night descends in true around us. “They’re heavily guarded every moment of every day. The biggest threat to the wards would be you.”
“Let us check,” Xaden says at my back. “You know your daughters would never strip Navarre of its protection.”
“I know exactly who my daughters are. And the answer is no.” Her dismissal is curt. “You’re lucky to be alive crossing enemy airspace. Consider retaining your lives a personal gift.”
“I think not.” Mira’s gaze sweeps the courtyard. “This courtyard should be full at this hour with soldiers returning from mess, and yet I only count five soldiers. One captain and four cadets, and no, I’m not counting the healers in the corner. You’ve sent every available body to Samara, haven’t you?”
The temperature in the courtyard plummets from freezing to nearly unbreathable.
“The guards behind you have signets in mindwork, Mother. In fact, I’d bet money that the most powerful riders on campus are you and…who? Professor Carr?” Mira moves forward fearlessly. “Our forces can render aid or conquer. It’s your choice.”
Mom’s nostrils flare as tense seconds pass.
“If you won’t take them to the wards,” Dain says from somewhere behind me, “I will. My father showed me where they are last year.” Which is precisely why he’s with our squad.
“Who do you want to be? The general who saves Basgiath, or the one who loses it to the very cadets who rejected your lies?” I lift my chin.
“Black really does suit you, Violet.” It might be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.
“Like Captain Sorrengail said, it’s your choice. We’re wasting time,” I retort. With night fallen, it’s officially solstice.
Mom’s gaze jumps to Mira, then slides back to me. “By all means, let’s inspect the wards.”
My shoulders dip in relief, but I keep my power at the ready as we climb the steps into the administration building, swallowing the knot of apprehension in my throat as we approach Nolon.
“Violet—” he starts.
Just the sound of his voice makes bile rise in my throat.
“Stay the fuck away from Violet, and I’ll consider letting you live, if only to mend riders if there’s a battle coming,” Xaden warns the mender as we pass him near the entryway.
Mage lights glow above our heads as we walk into the familiar halls, a pair of healers scurrying by, coming from the direction of the mess hall where another group of cadets in pale blue peer out of the doorway.
“Chradh is worried,” Tairn remarks, his voice tense.
“What would Garrick’s dragon be worried about?” Xaden asks on the pathway shared by all four of us.
“Runes,” Sgaeyl answers.
That’s right. The Brown Scorpiontail found the lure in Resson because he’s highly sensitive to them. “Basgiath was built on runes,” I remind them.
“This is different. He senses the same energy that he detected in Resson.” Tairn’s tone shifts. “His rider officially has control of the dormitory with Devera.”
Garrick’s in place.
Mom leads us down the hallway and into the northwest turret, then descends the spiral staircase that reminds me so much of its southern counterpart that my breath catches at the scent of earth.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I hear the sound in my mind as clearly as if it were real, as if I were back in that interrogation chamber. Xaden’s hand takes mine, lacing his fingers through my own.
“You all right?” he asks, shadows wrapping around our joined hands, their touch as soft as velvet.
For a second, I debate playing it off, but I was the one who demanded full disclosure, so it only seems fair that I give it. “It smells like the interrogation chamber.”
“We’ll set that room on fire before we leave,” he promises.
At the base of the stairwell is…nothing. Just a circular room paved with the foundation stones.
Mom looks to Dain, and he walks past her, examining the pattern, then pushing on a rectangular stone at his shoulder height. It gives, and stone scrapes stone as a door swings open in the masonry, revealing a mage-lit tunnel so cramped it would give even the bravest person claustrophobia.
“Just like the Archives,” I tell Xaden.
Mom orders her accompanying soldiers to stand guard. In return, Rhiannon orders Sawyer and Imogen to guard them as we walk into the tunnel. Mom goes first.
“What happened to being guarded?” Xaden asks, walking ahead of me.
Mira’s at my back.
“The wards are guarded,” she says, turning sideways when the tunnel narrows even farther. “Wouldn’t you find it suspicious if guards were stationed at the bottom of an empty stairwell?” she challenges. “Sometimes the best defense is simple camouflage.”
I walk sideways, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, and try to pretend I’m somewhere—anywhere—else.
We’re going to have fun, you and I. Varrish’s words slide over me, and my heart rate jumps.
Xaden’s shadows expand from our hands to my waist, and the pressure there feels like his arm is around me, making it bearable to get through the passage for the twenty feet it takes to open up wide again. The tunnel runs for what looks like another fifty yards before ending at a glowing blue archway, and the hum of energy from what I assume is the wardstone vibrates my very bones, tenfold the intensity of the one at Aretia.
“See, it’s guar…” Mom’s words die, and we see them the same moment she does.
Two bodies in black uniforms lie on the ground, pools of their blood slowly expanding toward each other. Their eyes are open, but they’re glazed and vacant, freshly dead.
My heart lurches and the shadows fall away with Xaden’s hand as we both reach for weapons.
“Oh, shit,” Ridoc whispers as the others file through the bottleneck behind us, drawing swords, daggers, and battle-axes.
Metal slides against metal as Mom pulls her sword, then breaks into a run, sprinting down the tunnel.
“No chance you’d stay here if I—” Xaden starts.
“None,” I say over my shoulder, already racing after my mother down the long expanse. The vague sound of barked orders echoes off the tunnel walls as Mira catches up quickly, then passes me to run at my mother’s side while Xaden keeps pace with me.
“Do you know where the ward chamber opens to the sky?” I ask Tairn as my boots pound the stone floor of the corridor. It has to, if it’s constructed anything like Aretia.
“According to you, I cannot supply fire to more than one—” He pauses as though taking stock of my situation. “On my way.”
“No!” Mom’s shout sends chills down my spine as she and Mira make it to the chamber ahead of us, both charging left, weapons high.
The rest of us reach the chamber, and before I can assess the situation, Xaden’s shadows jerk me off my feet and into his chest as he spins us backward, pressing my spine against the wall of the archway as the points of an orange’s scorpiontail swing through the very place I’d been standing.
There’s a fucking dragon in there?
“Are you…” His eyes fly wide.
“Didn’t get me,” I assure him.
He nods, relief shifting his gaze from worried to alert, and we both turn into the entrance, quickly joined by Ridoc, Rhiannon, and Dain.