“You’re lying!” Aura Beinhaven shouts, snapping my attention back to the current situation as she charges toward Dain, blade in hand.
Garrick steps into her path, drawing his sword. “I have no problem adding to my body count for the day, Beinhaven.”
Heaton draws their axe at the base of the steps, the purple flames dyed into their hair matching the shade of my pinkie finger, and faces the formation alongside Emery, who already has his sword ready with Cianna protecting his back.
Xaden was busy for the five days I spent in that cell. He came back with every graduate who bears a rebellion relic and a good share of their classmates. But not all.
“We’d better hurry this along.” I look up at Xaden. “The professors are going to be here any minute.” The distraction Bodhi engineered in the flight field bought us time to meet without teachers noticing, but not much, especially considering that Devera, Kaori, Carr, and Emetterio are among those on campus still.
“By all means,” Xaden replies, a look of boredom on his face. “Feel free to convince them.”
“Share the memory of Resson but nothing further,” I tell Tairn. “It’s the easiest way for them to all have the same information.”
“I loathe that idea.” He’s complained before that sharing memories outside of a mating bond isn’t exactly comfortable.
“Have a better one?”
Tairn grumbles, and I can see the moment it happens. There’s a ripple through formation of tilted heads and gasps.
“There we go.” I shift my weight to the less injured knee, and Xaden’s hand tightens around my waist, leaving his dominant arm free.
Xaden sighs. “I guess that’s one way to accomplish the goal, though I wish you’d left some parts out.”
Parts like Liam’s death.
“It’s true!” someone in Second Wing yells, stepping out of formation and stumbling in shock.
“What the hell are you talking about?” another shouts, looking at the rest in confusion.
“If your dragons don’t choose—” Dain starts, but his voice is overpowered by the outbreak of mayhem within the ranks.
“How’s it going there, wingleader?” Sarcasm drips from Xaden’s tone.
“You think you can do better?” Dain turns a slow glare his way.
“Can you stand on your own?” Xaden asks me.
I nod, grimacing through the sharp bites of protest all throughout my body as I straighten.
He steps forward, raises his arms, and shadows rush in from the wall at our back, engulfing the formation—and us—in complete darkness. There’s a glimmer of a caress across my cheek, right where it’s split to what feels like bone, and more than one cadet screams.
“Enough!” Xaden bellows, his voice amplified, shaking the very dais under our feet.
The courtyard falls silent.
Shadows recede in a rush, leaving more than one cadet gawking at Xaden.
“Fucking show-off,” Garrick mutters over his shoulder, still squared off with Aura.
A corner of Xaden’s mouth rises. “You are all riders!” he shouts. “All chosen, all threshed, all responsible for what happens next. Act like it! What Aetos has told you is the truth. Whether or not you choose to believe is up to you. If your dragon has chosen not to share what some have seen, then your choice has been made for you.”
Wingbeats fill the air, and a murmur rises among the formation. I lock eyes with Rhi where she stands at the head of our squad. She nods subtly toward the rotunda.
I glance that way and catch a trio of figures in cream, led by Jesinia, all carrying packs. Thank gods, they came. Now I just need three dragons willing to carry them.
“Already taken care of,” Tairn promises. “And only this once.”
This once is all we need to save their lives.
“Wars do not wait for your readiness,” Xaden continues, “and make no mistake about it—we are at war. A war in which we are outmatched not only in strength of signet but air superiority as a whole.”
“Is this your idea of a pep talk?”
“If they need to be roused, they shouldn’t be coming with us.”
Fair point.
“Whatever you decide in the next hour will determine the course—and perhaps the end—of your life. If you come with us, I cannot promise you’ll live. But if you stay, I guarantee you will die fighting for the wrong side. The venin will not stop at the border. They will drain every ounce of magic in Poromiel, and then they’ll come for the hatching grounds in the Vale.”
“If we go with you, they’ll hunt us down as traitors!” a voice from Third Wing calls out. “And we would be!”
“Defining yourself as a traitor requires declaring your allegiance,” Xaden counters. “And as for hunting us down...” His shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. “They won’t be able to find us.”
My heart starts to pound with the growing roar of wingbeats in the air.
The door to the Gauntlet and flight field flies open, and a dozen professors rush out, anger and shock lining their faces.
“What have you done?” Carr shouts, running for us, his wispy hair flying in all directions as he lifts his hands. “You’ll end us all, over who? People you’ve never met? I won’t allow it!”
“Bodhi!” Xaden orders as Carr reaches Third Wing.
Fire erupts from Carr’s hands, streaming toward the dais, and my stomach drops.
Time seems to slow as Bodhi steps forward and twists his hand like he’s turning a dial.
The fire dies, extinguishing like it was never there and leaving Carr staring at his hands.
“You taught us well, Professor,” Bodhi says, holding his hand in place. “Maybe a little too well.”
Damn.
“He can counter signets,” Xaden tells me.
Well, that’s fucking terrifying.
The rest of the professors look upward as dragons fill the skyline, their wings flaring on approach.
Green. Orange. Red. Brown. Blue. I look up, spotting Tairn’s rapid descent. Black.
Xaden grabs my waist as the walls shake under the weight of the mass landing. Claws dig in, shredding the masonry as dozens of dragons—maybe more—perch on every available space. Some fill the mountainside behind us, and others claim the top of the turrets in the quadrant, hovering like living sculptures.
“We won’t stop you,” Devera says to Xaden, then shifts to where her own dragon perches beside the parapet. “In fact, some of us have been waiting to join you.”
“Really?” Bodhi grins.
“Who do you think left the news about Zolya all over Battle Brief?” She nods.
A smile lifts my mouth. She’s exactly who I’ve always thought she is.
“We’re leaving within the hour,” Xaden calls out. “Your choice is as simple as it is personal. You can defend Navarre, or you can fight for the Continent.”
We’re in the air less than an hour later, flying south in the biggest riot I’ve ever seen: two hundred dragons and a hundred and one riders—nearly half the quadrant—strong. And more are coming, taking a slower route with hatchlings.
Tairn had lain in front of the dais and begrudgingly allowed Xaden to help me into the saddle, but we made it. He hooked onto Andarna, the smaller black dragon’s body frighteningly limp with sleep, and now we’re flying. I sleep most of the trip, too, draped across the front of my saddle, my body claiming the rest it sorely needs to knit itself back together.
It was too hectic to catch every face, but I’m proud that every single member of my squad is with us, even the first-years who are still fighting to keep their seats. They hold them into the morning and all throughout the next day, the riot pushing itself to the limit.
Marked ones take position at the edges of the flight formation, hiding us from Melgren’s sight should he decide to battle us, and we fly the least populated route possible, but it’s hard to disguise a veritable cloud of dragons, even at this altitude.
It must not have been just leadership that were pulled to the border. We don’t encounter a single patrol as we cross into Tyrrendor, flying high over the Cliffs of Dralor onto the plateau.
“We’re almost there,” Tairn tells me as we pass over the crystal waters of the Beatha River.