Weird, but all right. I can watch the orange glare at cadets out of his one good eye.
“A third of you will be dead by next July. If you want to wear rider black, then you earn it!” Dain shouts, his voice rising with each word. “You earn it every single day!”
Cath digs his red claws into the masonry and leans over Dain’s head, swinging his swordtail behind him in a serpentine motion as he blows a hot breath of steam over the crowd that sours my stomach. Dain really needs to check Cath’s teeth, because there has to be a bone stuck in there decaying or something.
Cries sound in the courtyard, and a first-year to the right—Tail Section— breaks out of formation and sprints back toward the parapet, racing through the aisles between cadets.
No, no, no.
“We have a runner,” Ridoc mutters.
“Shit.” I cringe, my heart sinking as two others from Third Wing decide to follow his example, their arms pumping wildly as they make a break for it from First Squad of their Tail Section. This isn’t going to end well.
“Looks contagious,” Quinn adds as they race by.
“Fuck, they actually think they’ll make it.” Imogen sighs, her shoulders drooping.
The trio nearly collides directly behind the center of our wing—our section— then bolt toward the opening in the courtyard wall where the parapet lies.
“Eyes on Solas!” Tairn shouts.
I look forward again, watching Solas narrow his one eye to a slit and swivel his head as he draws a full, rumbling breath. Lead fills my chest as I glance back over my shoulder and glimpse the runners nearing the parapet. The dragons didn’t let them get that far last year.
He’s toying with them, and at this angle…
Oh shit.
Solas extends his neck, tilts his head horrifyingly low, and curls his tongue, fire churning up his throat—
“Get down!” I shout, lunging for Sloane and tackling her to the ground as fire blasts overhead, the flames so close that heat singes every patch of exposed skin on my body.
To Sloane’s credit, she doesn’t cry out as I cover as much of her body as I can, curling over her, but the soul-rending screams behind us are unmistakable. I open my eyes long enough to see Aaric laying flat over the redhead under the endless stream of fire.
Tairn’s roar fills my head as lava licks along my arched back.
A scream musters at the base of my throat, but I can’t breathe in this inferno, let alone give it voice.
As quickly as it struck, the heat dissipates, and I fill my lungs with precious oxygen, gasping for breath before shoving off the gravel to my feet. I turn to face the aftermath as the other second-and third-years around me rise.
Those at the back of our section who acted when I shouted are alive.
Those who didn’t, aren’t.
Solas took out the runners, one of our first-years, and at least half of Third Squad.
Chaos erupts.
“Silver One!” Tairn demands.
“I’m alive!” I shout back at Tairn, but I know he can feel the pain my adrenaline is masking. The smell—gods, the smell of sulfur and the burned flesh of the dead cadets makes bile rise in my throat.
“Vi, your back…” Nadine whispers, reaching for me and withdrawing her hand. “It’s torched.”
“How bad is it?” I tug at the front of my uniform, and it comes off in my hand, the fabric burned clean through at my back. The armor beneath my uniform stays in place at least.
Ridoc runs his hands over the flattened, singed peaks of his hair, and my gaze darts around, checking on everyone else next. I note that Quinn and Imogen are safe behind us, already rushing to help Third Squad.
Sawyer. Rhiannon. Ridoc. Nadine. We all exchange quick looks that ask and answer the same question. We’re all intact.
I let out a long breath, my head dizzy with relief.
“It didn’t…it didn’t burn through your armor,” Nadine says.
“Good.” Thank gods for dragon scales.
“Are you hurt?” I ask Sloane as she stumbles, staring in shock at the carnage of Third Squad as Aaric helps the redhead to her feet. “Sloane! Are you hurt?”
“No.” She isn’t shaking her head as much as she is flat-out trembling.
“Get back into formation!” Panchek’s voice amplifies over the mayhem. “Riders do not balk at fire!”
The fuck we don’t. Whoever didn’t balk is dead.
Dain’s wide eyes meet mine. He’s either as surprised by what happened as I am or a really good actor. All the wingleaders must be, because they look equally stricken.
Looking back at what remains of Third Squad, I see Imogen staring at a pile of cinder. As if she can feel me staring, she slowly drags her numbed gaze to mine.
“Now!” Panchek demands.
She staggers forward and I meet her halfway, grabbing hold of her elbows. “Imogen?”
“Ciaran,” she whispers. “Ciaran’s dead.”
Gravity, logic, whatever it is that keeps me grounded shifts. There’s no way that was…intentional, is there? “Imogen—”
“Don’t say it,” she warns, glancing around us.
We make it back into formation as Major Varrish moves to the front of the dais, appearing completely unfazed that his dragon just took out riders who hadn’t broken formation, some of them bonded.
“It is not only the first-years who earn their leathers at Basgiath!” he shouts, and I swear he’s speaking directly to me. “The wings are only as strong as their weakest rider!”
Rage overwhelms my senses, scalding hot and undeniably not mine.
A girl with blackish-blue hair two rows ahead makes a run for it, running from our squad, and my heart stops when Solas leans forward again despite a snap from Cath on the right, the orange’s mouth opening.
Oh. Gods.
I’m considering tackling her to the ground myself when a set of wingbeats as familiar as my own heartbeat sounds behind me. And the anger consuming my every breath, overruling my emotions, turns to something deadlier—wrath.
Tairn lands on the wall behind us, his wings flaring so wide one nearly touches the dormitory as he takes out the top row of stones next to the parapet. First-years scream, running for their lives.
“Tairn!” I shout with more than a little relief, but there’s no breaking through the absolute fury coursing through him. My attention whips back and forth between Tairn and the dragons behind the dais.
The wingleaders’ dragons all rear back, including Cath, but Solas holds his ground, his tongue curling when Tairn’s chest expands.
“You do not have the right to burn what is mine.” His words consume all my mental pathways as Tairn lets loose an earth-shattering roar in Solas’s direction. Everyone slams their hands over their ears, including me, my entire body vibrating with the sound, hot air blasting the back of my neck.
The wingleaders’ dragons take a step to the side of the wall as the roar ends, away from the Orange Daggertail, but Solas stands firm, his eye narrowing to a golden slit.
“Holy shit,” Nadine whispers.
That about sums it up.
Tairn extends his neck forward, high above our squad, then snaps his teeth together loudly in Solas’s direction in a clear threat.
My heart races so fast it practically hums.
Solas lets loose a short, rasping snarl, then swings his head in a serpentine motion. His claws grip and ungrip the edge of the wall, and I hold my breath until he launches skyward, his wings beating quickly as he retreats.
Tairn lifts his head, watching the flight before he turns his attention to the dais and exhales a sulfur-laced gust of steam, blowing Varrish’s thick black hair.
“I think he got the message,” I say to Tairn.
“If Solas comes near you again, he knows I will devour his human whole and let him rot within me while his heart still beats, and then I’ll take the eye I so graciously left him.”
“That’s…graphic.” I’m not touching the question of their history with waves of anger still rolling off Tairn like a thunderstorm.