y heart pounds erratically as I walk past First and Second Wings’
dragons with the rest of my squad two days later for flight
maneuvers.
Kaori stands in front of Fourth Wing, shifting his weight nervously
beside Varrish, who watches me with a focus that makes my skin crawl, like
he’s mentally tabulating how many strikes he’s going to make me wield in
punishment for not producing Andarna. And the way Solas lurks behind
him, his one golden eye narrowed on me, makes me wonder if Varrish will
even wait until tomorrow.
Because obviously, from his angle, he can see that she isn’t here, and
worse, he looks happy about it.
I made it to twenty-seven strikes in an hour this morning with Carr
before my temperature spiked, and he seemed disappointed. That makes
two of us, considering I didn’t hit a single point I aimed for. My arms feel
like dead weight after all that wielding. If Varrish forces me up to that
mountainside again today, I’m not sure I’ll come down.
“There is something off about that orange,” Rhiannon notes, adjusting
the strap of her flight goggles as we approach Third Wing.
“You mean, like the fact that he torched Third Squad without a second
thought?” Ridoc questions, buttoning his flight jacket.
“And Varrish seems so…controlled.” Sawyer stretches his arm across
his chest. “Kind of uptight, you know?”
Unlike me, Sawyer’s only seen him at the surface level. I breathe in
through my nose and out through my mouth, fighting off the nausea that
threatens to expel my breakfast.
“It’s definitely an odd pairing,” Rhi agrees as we reach Claw Section’s
dragons. There aren’t any third-years on the field today, leaving more than
enough room for the second-year dragons to spread out, but gods forbid
Tairn not stand in the front row like the star of the show. I can already see
his head above the others from here, and I’m pretty sure I just heard him
chuff a sigh of annoyance.
Varrish’s mouth quirks into a polished smile at me, but the glint in his
eyes makes the hold I have on my Archives doors weaken, trickling power
into my system in preparation to fight.
“And what’s the deal with the way he stares at you?” Sawyer asks,
shifting beside me to block Varrish’s view. “He’s always smiling at you
like…” He shakes his head. “I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“Like he knows something you don’t,” Rhi finishes, giving the Red
Clubtail from First Squad a wide berth as we pass. “Is there some history
with your mom, maybe? Some bad blood?”
“Not that I know of.” They don’t even know the half of it, but how could
they when I haven’t told them? “But he’s obsessed with Andarna.” There,
there’s some of the truth.
“She all right?” Sawyer asks. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“She’s been resting a lot.” I prepare myself for the utter misery of full
leathers in the stagnant late-summer heat, then start buttoning as we
approach Tairn. “She can keep up with simple maneuvers, but the stuff
we’re doing now? Formation flights and timed rolls? There’s no point in
putting her through this kind of stuff.” Selective truths.
“Makes sense.” Sawyer nudges me with his elbow. “See you up there!”
“You look a little queasy,” Rhi notes once the guys are out of earshot.
“Everything all right?”
“I’m fine.” I force a quick grin and try to think of anything besides how
much it’s going to hurt when Varrish gets ahold of me. “Varrish looks eerily
delighted that Andarna isn’t here.”
“I will handle this.”
“Right. Of course you are.” Rhi’s mouth curves into a sad glimpse of a
smile before she turns away, heading for Feirge, who waits on Tairn’s other
side.
“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing the bridge of my nose. No matter what I say
right now, it’s always the wrong thing. “She’s never going to forgive me for
keeping all this from her once she finds out.”
“She will,” he says, his head lowering slightly, but he doesn’t dip his
shoulder even as I reach his front left claw. “Humans have the memories of
gnats. Dragons hold grudges.”
“I’m going to forget you said that,” I tease back.
“Be alert.” His head swivels and I turn, unsheathing a dagger in the
same moment.
“Surely you wouldn’t think of attacking a professor, would you,
Sorrengail?” Varrish glances at my weapon, keeping that same mask of a
smile in place. “Let alone a vice commandant.”
A low growl works up Tairn’s throat, and he curls his lip just enough to
bare the tips of his fangs.
“I attack anyone foolish enough to sneak up behind me this year.” I roll
my shoulder back and lift my chin.
“Hmm.” He leans to the side and looks past Tairn’s foreleg. “No little
feathertail with you today?”
“Obviously.” Fear slides down my spine.
“How unfortunate.” He sighs, then turns his back on me, his boots
crunching in the dry grass as he heads toward Solas. “There will be no
maneuvers for you today, Sorrengail.”
My stomach rolls. “I’m sorry?”
Tairn shifts sideways, sweeping his foreleg around me so I stand under
his chest scales.
“Not yet,” Varrish says over his shoulder, his brow puckering for a
second as he notices Tairn’s stance. “But you will be. Warnings have
apparently not worked, and I am hereby charging you with dereliction of
duty for your dragon’s refusal to appear for maneuvers. You will mount and
fly to your training location with Professor Carr to receive your
punishment.”
“That will not be happening.” Tairn’s head lowers fully, and his body
crouches into a defensive position.
“What is going on?” Rhi asks, her gaze jumping between Varrish and me
as she walks back over to me.
“Obviously, her first punishment wasn’t enough to teach your
subordinate, Squad Leader Matthias, so she requires another.” He blinks,
tilting his head. “And as the vice commandant, I don’t owe you an
explanation. Now mount up for maneuvers before you’re punished
alongside her.”
“There will be no punishment!” Tairn roars, and from the abrupt head
jerks of the dragons on the field, including Solas, everyone heard him. “It is
not within your power to summon a dragon.”
It takes a second for thoughts to relay through riders, and Varrish
stiffens. “Your dragon may not fall under my command, Sorrengail, but you
do. So unless you’d like to further explore that delicate space between
burnout and death, you will mount and present yourself—”
“Even the smallest dragon does not answer to the most powerful of
humans, which you are not.” Tairn snaps his teeth, the sound carrying over
the valley.
Feirge’s head draws back, and her golden eyes widen.
“Andarna does not answer to you.” Tairn stalks forward, his head and
chest so low to the ground that he nearly touches my hair, and Varrish
retreats. “I do not answer to you.”
Oh shit. This could go very bad very quickly.
“But you”—Varrish points at me—“answer to me!”
“Does she?” Tairn lunges forward, bypassing Varrish entirely and
surging toward Solas with an ear-shattering roar, his morningstar tail
lashing the air above me. Solas whips his head toward the ground to guard
his most vulnerable area—his neck—but Tairn is faster, bigger, and far
stronger. He’s already there, his enormous jaw locked around Solas’s throat.
I gasp as Tairn’s massive fangs sink between the joints of Solas’s scales,
piercing his neck, and Kaori sprints to get out of the battleground.
Varrish turns and stiffens as crimson rivulets run over Solas’s orange
neck scales, dripping off several of the ridges.
“Tairn…” What will the Empyrean do to him if he kills Solas?
“Only a rider can be the vice commandant of Basgiath,” Tairn warns,
and Solas lets out a sound that’s half roar, half shriek. “Without a dragon,
you are no rider.”
Oh gods. My heart lurches, the beat rushing to a gallop.
“Fine!” Varrish shouts, his fists balled at his side. “She will not pay a
price for her dragon’s refusal to attend.”
“Not good enough.” Tairn’s teeth reach the edges of Solas’s scales as I
watch in slack-jawed horror. “This is about you.”
Solas half roars, causing his blood to pour even faster down his exposed
neck as he whips his tail toward Tairn, but he’s half Tairn’s size and has no
hope of making contact, thank Dunne.
“All right!” Varrish staggers forward, and for a second, I feel sorry for
him. “All right,” he repeats, putting his hands up. “Humans have no
authority to summon dragons.”
Rhiannon sidesteps until her arm brushes my shoulder, and Feirge
lowers her head, as do Aotrom and Sliseag. Hell, every dragon I can see in
my peripherals takes the same stance.
“Apologize,” Tairn demands, his voice low and sharp.
“I’m sorry!” Varrish’s voice breaks.
“Apologize to the one Andarna deemed worthy of her bond.”
I try to swallow, but my mouth has gone dry.
“Did he really just…” Rhiannon whispers.
“I think so.” I nod. “His apology isn’t necessary to me, Tairn. Really.
I’m happy to just not die today.”
“I
“It is necessary to me, Silver One.” His voice rumbles in my head. “I
speak for Andarna while she is in the Dreamless Sleep.”
Varrish pivots toward me, hatred and terror filling his gaze. “I am…
sorry. It is not in my authority to summon any dragon.”
“On your knees.”
Rhiannon sucks in a breath, and Varrish hits his knees. “You have my
most sincere apology—you and your dragon. Both of your dragons.”
“I accept.” My gaze darts frantically to Tairn’s. “I accept!” I shout just in
case he didn’t hear me mentally.
Tairn dislodges his jaw with a wet, sucking sound as his fangs slip free
of Solas’s neck, and he retreats with arrogant footfalls, not even bothering
to lower his head or protect his throat. Rhiannon and I fall into the shade as
Tairn blocks out the sun overhead.
And Varrish stares at me with a hatred so bitter I can taste it on the back
of my tongue as Solas launches behind him with a roar aimed in my
direction—or Tairn’s—leaving behind pools of blood on the grass below.
Only once Solas is clear of the flight field does Varrish rise to his feet, and I
don’t need words to hear him loud and clear as he sends one last, lethal look
my way and then strides for the end of the field and the Gauntlet steps.
“Problem solved.” Tairn’s head swivels, watching Solas’s flight path,
and the rest of the dragons in the field raise their heads again.
But my heartbeat doesn’t calm or even slow at the dread that curdles in
my stomach. Varrish may have been my enemy before, but I have a feeling
this just made Solas my nemesis.
thought for sure he’d cancel your leave after Tairn nearly slayed
Solas,” Rhiannon says, walking the path toward the flight field with me
three nights later.
“Me too,” I admit as the bells chime a quarter before midnight. “I’m
sure when Solas is healed, he’ll be right back in my face. Or worse.”
“It’s been a couple of days.” She glances over at me, and even though
there are only a few feet between us, the distance feels insurmountable.
“Are you really going to make me use some of those new interrogation
tactics we’re learning to pry the truth out of you? Would you rather I go
with the empathetic or more directly confrontational approach?”
“About?” I nudge her shoulder.
She shakes her head in frustration. “About Varrish’s little comment that
you’d already been punished once before?”
“Oh. Right.” I take a deep breath and focus on my footsteps as we near
the Gauntlet. “A few weeks ago, he got mad that Andarna wasn’t feeling up
to maneuvers and used my signet training as punishment.”
“He what?” Her voice raises. “Why wouldn’t you tell us that?”
“Because I didn’t want you targeted.” It’s the simplest truth.
“And he’s been targeting you?” She sounds incredulous.
“He doesn’t like not getting his way.” I adjust my pack on my shoulders
and grimace as we approach the stairs alongside the Gauntlet. This is going
to hurt like hell. I subluxated my knee yesterday during a challenge, but at
least I won. “You really don’t have to walk all the way out here with me.
It’s late.” I change the subject before she can dig deeper about Varrish.
“I don’t mind. I feel like I never see you anymore.”
Gods, I feel so fucking guilty. And frustrated. And…lonely. I miss my
friends.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can think to say. “Hard to believe that the first-
years are about to start training on this thing.” I look out over the Gauntlet,
the five ascents of obstacles the first-years will have to complete in order to
get to Presentation.
“More like dying on it.” She bites out the words.
“That, too.” My knee protests every step, threatening to buckle with
each stair I climb, but the wrap holds it in place as I limp upward, my hand
dragging along the rough stone that lines the staircase on either side.
“It’s fucking pointless.” She shakes her head. “Just another way to weed
out the weaker—or worse, the unlucky.”
“It’s not.” As much as I hate to admit it, the Gauntlet has its place here.
“Seriously?” She reaches the top of the stairs and waits for me.
“Seriously.” I begin the walk down the flight field. “It made me look at
everything differently. I couldn’t climb it in the same way you did, the
others did, so I had to find another way. It taught me that I could find
another way and still survive.” The moment on Tairn’s back, fighting that
venin, plays through my mind, and my hand curls around empty air as if
still clutching that dagger.
“I just don’t think it’s worth the lives it costs. Most of what happens here
isn’t.”
“It is.” My rebuttal is quiet.
“How can you say that?” She halts, turning toward me. “You were right
there when Aurelie fell. Is there any part of you that thinks she would have
been a liability to the wing had she survived to Threshing? She was a
legacy!”
I look up at the star-filled sky and take a breath before facing her. “No. I
think she would have been a phenomenal rider. Better than me, that’s for
sure. But I also know that…” I can’t get the words out. They lodge in my
throat, held captive by the memory of Aurelie’s eyes widening in that
second before she fell.
“I wish that for once you would just say whatever you’re thinking. I
never know anymore.”
“You don’t want to know.” It’s the most truthful I’ve been with her since
returning.
“I really do, Violet! It’s just us out here. Talk to me!”
“Talk to you,” I repeat, like it’s really that simple, and feel something
inside me snap under the weight of both our frustrations. “Fine. Yes, it’s
awful that Aurelie fell. That she died. But I think I’m a better rider for
having been there, having watched her fall to her death and known that if I
didn’t get my ass moving, I was going to be next.”
“That’s…horrible.” Rhiannon’s lips part, and she looks at me like she’s
never seen me before.
“So is everything waiting out there for us.” I swing my arms out. “That
stupid fucking Gauntlet isn’t just about physically climbing it. It’s about
overcoming the fear that we can’t. It’s about climbing after we see it kill
our friends. Parapet, Gauntlet, Presentation—they seem excessive when
we’re here, but they prepare us for something way worse when we leave.
And until you…” I shake my head. “You don’t know what it’s like out
there, Rhi. You can’t understand.”
“Of course I don’t know,” she retorts, her body tensing more with every
word. “You won’t talk to me! You’re running with Imogen, or locked away
reading, or spending every possible Saturday with Riorson. And that’s fine,
I want you to get whatever support you need, but you’re sure as hell not
talking to me, so how would you expect me to know anything? Don’t
forget, Liam was my friend, too!”
“You weren’t there!” My anger slips from the box I painstakingly built
for it, and power whips through me, scalding my veins. “You didn’t hold
him, watch the light fade out of his eyes, knowing that there wasn’t a
physical thing wrong with him but he was dying because Deigh lay
eviscerated just a few feet away. Nothing I did in those moments before
mattered! Gods, I held on to him so tightly!” My hands curl into fists, my
nails biting into my palms. “My shoulders almost dislocated, he was so
damned heavy, but I held on! And it didn’t matter!” Rage burns my throat,
devouring me whole. “You haven’t seen what’s out there! What makes me
run every fucking morning!”
“Vi,” she whispers, her posture sagging.
“And the look on his face?” My voice breaks and my eyes burn with the
memory of Liam’s head in my hands. “You don’t see it every time you try
to sleep. You don’t hear him begging you to take care of Sloane. You sure
as hell don’t hear Deigh scream…” I lace my fingers on top of my head and
look away, waging war with the grief, the pain, the never-ending guilt, and
as usual, I lose. There’s only that box and the blessed emptiness I know is
achievable if I can get a little control, but the words won’t stop coming. It’s
like my mouth has disassociated from my brain and my emotions are
running the show.
“And as horrible as it might be, as callous as it might make me,
watching Aurelie fall, and Pryor burn, and even Jack-fucking-Barlowe get
crushed under my landslide prepared me for the moment I had to leave
Liam’s body on the ground and fight. If I’d sat there and mourned like I
wanted to, none of us would be here. Imogen, Bodhi, Xaden, Garrick—
everyone—we’d all be dead. There’s a reason they want us to watch our
friends die, Rhi.” I tap my chest with one finger. “We are the weapons, and
this place is the stone they use to sharpen us.” The energy in my body
dwindles, and the heat dissipates.
My stomach hollows out at the utter devastation on Rhiannon’s face.
Tairn’s wingbeats grow louder as he approaches, and the sound helps
settle my heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “And I’m glad you don’t know what it’s like.”
Blinking rapidly clears the blurriness from my eyes. “I’m grateful every
single day that you don’t have those memories, that you and Sawyer and
Ridoc weren’t there. I wouldn’t wish that day on my worst enemy, let alone
my closest friend, and even if I’m quiet lately, that’s what you still are—my
closest friend.” But friends tell the truth. Telling her will put her in danger,
but not telling her leaves her unprepared, just like we were. Shit. “And
you’re right. I should talk to you. You lost Liam, too. You have every right
to know—”
“No.” Tairn’s voice blasts through my head and wind gusts at my back a
second before he lands behind me. “Solas’s rider.”
“Good evening, Cadet Sorrengail,” Major Varrish says directly from our
left, mage lights popping on overhead as he walks around the boulders
where he and his guards have been waiting only a dozen feet away. “Cadet
Matthias. Sounds like I may have interrupted a discussion?”
His guards follow.
Oh gods. I almost—
“But you didn’t,” Tairn says.
“Sir?” Rhiannon’s eyes widen as her gaze swings from me to the vice
commandant.
“You know the drill, cadet.” He closes the distance between us and
points to the ground. “Or are you going to argue that you’re not under my
command at all now?”
Tairn lowers his head and rumbles a low growl.
Apprehension knots my throat, and I step to the side, taking Rhi out of
Varrish’s direct path. Indignation isn’t going to help, so I swing my pack
from my shoulders and open it, emptying the contents onto the ground.
Then I shake the open bag to show him that it’s empty. “Happy?”
“Not yet, but one day.” His smile makes my stomach churn. “I’m
patient.”
The rider finishes the search, taking a look inside my bag just to be sure
I actually emptied it before handing it back.
“Enjoy your leave while you have it.” Varrish nods, that smile still
frozen in place, and the three head off the field.
“Assholes.” I crouch down and Rhi matches the movement, helping me
repack the bag. “Thanks.”
“Is that normal?”
“Yes.” We stand once everything is tucked away. “Are we glad they
didn’t search you again tonight?”
“We are.”
“But…why?” Confusion lines her forehead. “What is going on? That
couldn’t have been about Andarna.”
“They’ll never fully trust Xaden’s last name.” With good reason. I sling
my pack over my shoulders and slip my arms through the straps. “I really
am sorry for exploding on you back there. There’s no excuse.”
“Don’t be.” She offers me a sad half smile. “I’d rather you scream at me
than pretend everything is all right with silence.”
At least there’s one truth I can give her.
“Nothing is all right.”
In the years after my father died, I forgot what it felt like to be loved.
Then I entered the quadrant and became the monster everyone needed
me to be, and I never regretted it. But then you gave those words to me,
and I remembered…and nearly lost you, too. I’m striving to be better
for you just like I promised, but I need you to know that monster is still
there, screaming to use every ruthless part of me to get your words
back.
—RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE OF LIEUTENANT XADEN RIORSON TO
CADET VIOLET SORRENGAIL
T
