I sigh and watch Calvin’s hands just in case he decides to go for the shortsword sheathed at his side. It’s not a bad weapon, but they all carry them. There’s no variation for height or specialization. It’s all so…uniform.
Then again, we were pulled straight out of the hallway, so it’s not like Ridoc is carrying his preferred bow. Sawyer and Rhiannon are missing their favorite swords, too.
“Stop pissing him off on purpose,” Rhiannon says, glancing back at Ridoc as we start trudging up another hill. Maybe this one will give us a better vantage point than the last. “We’re going to need fresh water, or this is going to get ugly fast.”
Ridoc grins. “But it’s so much fun!”
She arches a brow.
“Fine.” He puts his hands up. “I’ll let him maintain his delusion of grandeur.”
“Oh, so you’ll listen to her—”
“She’s my squad leader. You’re not.”
“So, you only respect rider squad leaders,” Calvin prods.
Aoife furiously writes in her notebook.
“Shut it, Calvin,” a cadet from behind me says with more than a little exasperation.
“You want my respect? Earn it.” Ridoc shrugs. “Cross the parapet, climb the Gauntlet, survive Threshing, and then we’ll be on equal footing.”
“What, like we don’t go through some shit in the Infantry Quadrant?” someone behind us challenges.
“See her?” Sawyer says, and I swear I can feel him pointing at me. “She bonded not only one of the biggest fucking dragons on the Continent, but a second dragon, and then went into combat against the gryphons a couple of months ago and came out alive. You go through that kind of shit in your quadrant?”
The cadets around us fall silent. Even Aoife’s pencil remains poised above her notebook as she stares at me.
Awkward. And wrong. No one in our little group knows what we’re really against out there. And my silence? It’s starting to feel a lot less like self-preservation and more like I’m complicit.
“You’re a Sorrengail, aren’t you?” Mirabel asks. “The commanding general’s daughter?” She winces. “The hair kind of gives you away.”
“Yes.” There’s no use denying it.
“Your mother is terrifying,” she whispers.
The scribe glances between us before putting pencil to parchment again.
I nod. “That’s one of her more prominent qualities.”
“Hey, guys?” Brisa raises her voice behind us. “I think I know why it feels like we’re getting nowhere.”
“Why is that?” Rhiannon asks over her shoulder.
“Calvin’s right, but so are you. They gave us two different maps,” she says as the first of us crest the hill…and freeze.
Even my heartbeat comes to a standstill as Rhiannon throws up her hand to stop the rest of the group.
An Orange Club—nope, that’s a Scorpiontail—growls at us low in her throat from where she’s been lying in wait on the other side of the hill. Our heads tilt to follow the movement as she rises to her full height, dominating the skyline, her tail whipping behind her.
Baide. Jack Barlowe’s dragon. Or at least she was.
“Amari help us,” Calvin whispers, his panic palpable.
I drop my eyes in deference just like Kaori taught us as my pulse leaps and my brain fights the urge to panic. “Oranges are the most unpredictable. Eyes down. Do not run,” I whisper. “She’ll kill you if you run. Try not to show any fear.” Shit, this is what we should have been talking about instead of arguing about which quadrant is superior and which forest we’re in.
My chest tightens when my immediate instinct—to reach for Tairn—is denied. With any other dragon, I would bet against risking the anger of our dragons by torching us, but the cadets behind us are a whole other story. And since I killed Jack last year? All bets are off.
She has nothing to lose, and given the hot blast of steam that levels the grass and makes my face sticky, she remembers exactly who I am.
“Riders!” Rhiannon calls out. “Take the front!” She’s obviously thinking the same way. “Infantry, guard the healers and scribe!” She glances at me sideways, careful not to raise her eyes. “Violet, maybe you should—”
Keeping my head down, I push past Calvin to stand in the front, catching movement in my peripheral vision. “I’m not hiding.”
“What are you doing? It’s going to eat you,” one of the cadets behind us hisses.
I look over and see a healer, Dyre, a few feet to my right, staring straight at Baide, his mouth agape.
A growl rumbles up the orange’s throat, and I lunge, gripping the strap of Dyre’s medical pack and yanking him behind us, passing him to Ridoc, who quickly shoves him to safety and moves to my side.
“No, she’s not,” Sawyer says, moving forward with Ridoc so the infantry is behind us. “That’s why we’re taking the front.”
Baide swivels her head, then opens her mouth and curls her tongue, and I chance a quick glance, catching her hazy golden eyes narrowing to slits as she arches her neck, changing her angle instead of lowering her head to strike in the typical—
I inhale sharply. “Rhi, she’s going to blast right past us just like Solas.”
Rhi takes less than a second to assess and decide. “Second Wing,” she calls back. “Halt and cover the infantry where you are!”
Movement behind us ceases as Baide flexes her claws in the ground and swivels again, choosing a target.
“It’s… It’s…” Calvin babbles.
“Drop your eyes and shut up,” Rhi orders.
“Gods, they all smell scared,” Ridoc whispers from my right.
“Exactly how pissed at you do you think she is?” Sawyer asks me from Rhi’s left.
“She dropped a mountain on her rider.” Ridoc sighs like we’re all fucked, and I couldn’t agree more.
My heart leaps into my throat as Baide prowls backward, lowering her head to our level. It’s the perfect angle to torch us, but I resist the urge to look and keep my eyes trained on the grass in front of me.
Hot air gusts in our direction as she scents each of us, starting with Rhiannon and moving to Sawyer. There are a few muffled cries from the infantry cadets as she exhales a dank huff of steam, then breathes in again when directly in front of me.
I fight my racing heart. Last year, I might have accepted death. But this year…this year, I’m bonded to one of the deadliest dragons on the Continent.
That’s right. You might hate me, but I belong to Tairn.
And while there’s a good chance Tairn might die if I do, I’m not sure any dragon is willing to risk his wrath if he doesn’t. Baide draws back, then darts forward with an open jaw, snapping her teeth shut directly in front of my nose and pelting my face with saliva.
Holy. Shit.
Someone behind us screams, then fucking runs.
“No! Gwen!” Calvin shouts as Cadet Quiet breaks to the left, sprinting through the grass.
Baide’s head swings, tracking the movement, and my heart sinks as she drops her jaw, the side of her tongue visible ahead of me as it curls—
“Down!” Rhi shouts as the other squad leader, Tomas, runs after Gwen, catching her within a few strides and yanking her back by her uniform in the same way I’d snatched Dyre from the front, all but throwing her at Calvin as we drop as ordered. She stumbles to the ground at Calvin’s feet just as Baide’s nostrils flare.
Heat consumes the air around us at the same second my chest hits the ground, and I close my eyes like that can block out the sounds of screaming behind us.
“The Northern Esbens are believed to have been the hatching grounds of the orange dragon before unification, though, true to their unpredictable nature, they often chose new valleys in the same range,” I whisper as fire rages past, fighting to keep my heart from seizing.
I haven’t known this type of terror since Tairn began channeling, and definitely not since I manifested my signet.
The blast ceases, and Baide snaps her jaws shut, then swings her massive head in front of us one more time before crouching deeply and launching directly over us. I drop my gaze as her poison-barbed tail comes within a foot of me.
And then she’s gone.