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Her expression shifts, and something that looks a lot like hatred fills her eyes as she leans down, her voice quieting so that I’m the only one who hears her say, “I know what really happened. You got my brother killed. He died for you.”
He’d been so heavy that my shoulders had almost dislocated trying to keep him from falling. “Yes.” I can’t deny it and I don’t look away. “I’m so sorry—”
“Go straight to hell,” she whispers. “And I really mean that. I hope no one commends your soul to Malek. I hope he rejects it. Liam was worth a dozen of your kind, and I hope you spend eternity paying for what you cost me, what you cost all of us.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tairn says. “It was.” And if I don’t pull my shit together right now, I’ll fail Liam all over again. “Feel free to hate me,”
“Just do me a favor and put your fucking arms out so you don’t see Liam before I do. Do it for him. Not me.”
“What in the angry-Mairi was that about?” Rhiannon asks. I shake my head. I just…can’t.
“She made it,” I whisper up to Liam. Then I take the next name.
“Sloane Mairi to Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing.” Yes! My shoulders dip in pure relief.
Yeah. I got her brother killed. He was sworn to protect me, and he lost his dragon—and his life—keeping that promise. But I can’t say that any more than I can tell her there are venin beyond our borders.
“She blames me for Liam’s death,” I say quietly. “Let her stay. At least if she’s in the squad, Codex says she can’t kill me.”
“What do you know about Major Varrish’s orange? He looks…unstable.” And hungry. “Solas is there?” His tone sharpens. “Is Solas a one-eyed Orange Daggertail?” “Yes.” He doesn’t sound happy about it. “Do not take your eyes off him.”
“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.
Solas extends his neck, tilts his head horrifyingly low, and curls his tongue, fire churning up his throat— “Get down!”
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!”
“Vi, your back…” Nadine whispers, reaching for me and withdrawing her hand. “It’s torched.” “How bad is it?”
“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—”
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!”
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.”
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.
Tairn extends his neck forward, high above our squad, then snaps his teeth together loudly in Solas’s direction in a clear threat.
“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.”
“The warning should be effective. For now.” He retracts, drawing back for power before he leaps from the wall, his wingbeats kicking up the gravel around us as he takes off.
Varrish glares at me, his hatred a palpable taste in my mouth, and I know that even if he hadn’t been an enemy before, he sure as Dunne is now.
I swallow back the bile rising in my throat. One of the venin got away in Resson, red veins spidering away from his malevolent eyes. Who knows how many more there are, making their way toward our border while we rest.
“Because I generally suck at it,” I answer. “I’m good in short bursts, but anything longer than that—and I won’t make it.” Not to mention it’s hell on my joints.
“She was on the ground when she killed her. The way she channeled…it drained everything from the land. Everything touching the land. Including Soleil and Fuil. I watched it happen. I watch it happen every night when I close my eyes. It spread so quickly, and I know…I can’t outrun it. Not if I’m too far from Tairn. I’m not fast enough for any considerable distance.”
“Yet,” Imogen says, yanking the door to the tunnel open. “We’re not fast enough yet. But we will be. Let’s go.”
It reminds me of the one in Brennan’s briefing room in Aretia. He thinks we only have six months until venin challenge the wards, and yet there’s not a single indication on this map.
My muscles lock, and I fight the urge to flick one of my daggers into his traitorous back. He knows everything. He has to. He wrote the fucking textbook on Navarrian history that all riders are taught from. And until last year, I was his star pupil, the one he’d handpicked to succeed in the Scribe Quadrant.
“He is the foremost authority at Basgiath when it comes to all matters not only of our history but current events as well. Some of you may not know this, but information from the front is actually received at Basgiath before it’s sent to the king in Calldyr, so you’ll be hearing it first here.”
“There were not one but two attacks on our border by drifts of gryphons in the past week.”
Braevick province of Poromiel, “was near the village of Sipene, high in the Esben Mountains.” An hour’s flight from Montserrat.
because Sipene is one of the villages that lies beyond the wards, the violence went undetected by the Eastern Wing for some matter of hours.”
“The drift was routed by three dragons on patrol from the local outpost, but by the time they arrived, most of the damage had been done. Supplies were stolen, homes were burned. The last gryphon flier was found in some of the local caves above the village, though neither he nor his gryphon could tell us the motivation for attack, as they were both burned on sight.”
“The outpost of Athebyne was attacked three days ago.” I gasp and the pen falls from my hand, hitting the desk loudly in the quiet room. “Are you all right?”
“I was startled, that’s all. As far as I know from what you taught me in preparation for the Scribe Quadrant, outposts are rarely ever attacked directly.”
“And Montserrat was also directly attacked in the last year, so I can’t help but wonder if this tactic is becoming more commonly used by our enemy?”
“Interesting thought. It’s something we’re considering among scribes.” The smile on his face is anything but friendly as he pushes off the desk, clasping his hands behind his robes as he nods at me.
“Finishing the details we can give you about the Athebyne attack, it occurred a little before midnight, while nine of the twelve dragons stationed there were still out on their patrols. The enemy totals were around two dozen from what we can tell, and they were defeated by the three present dragons, with help from the infantry. Two gryphon riders made it into the lower level of the outpost before being caught and killed.”
“Shields,” Tairn growls, and I build them back up. “I didn’t even notice they’d slipped.” “They should be like clothes at this point,”
“I’m sorry?” “Surely you’d feel a breeze were you to forget putting them on.”
“Isn’t that where you guys were sent?” Rhiannon asks. “Athebyne?” I nod, hoping none of those fliers were the ones who fought with us at Resson.
What was the gryphon’s chosen formation for the attack on Athebyne? A typical V. Are the two attacks connected?
“Do you think it’s possible that the enemy knew the outpost had been emptied for War Games and was trying to take advantage of the situation?” she asks.
“The outpost was only empty for what? A few days?” “Five days, to be precise,” Markham answers. “And this attack occurred eight days after it was reoccupied.”
“The Poromiel trading post nearby, Resson, was leveled by Poromish unrest a couple of weeks ago, and we think that may be helping disrupt their communication lines about our outpost.”
“Where in the outpost were the gryphon riders found?” “Near the armory.”
“He’s right,” Devera agrees. “We defend our borders with lethal force, but we don’t take war to civilians.” We just don’t bother saving them, either. But does she know that? Shit, can I trust anyone around here?
