MORE FROM REBECCA YARROS

THE EMPYREAN SERIES

Fourth Wing Iron Flame

PIATKUS

First published in the United States in 2023 by Red Tower Books,

an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Piatkus

Copyright © 2023 by Rebecca Yarros

Interior art by Elizabeth Turner Stokes
Interior World map art by Melanie Korte
Interior design by Toni Kerr
Interior endpapers by Amy Ross
Instagram: @Literalamy

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-349-43704-0

TPB 978-0-349-43703-3

Piatkus

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.littlebrown.co.uk

To my fellow zebras. Not all strength is physical.

Iron Flame is a nonstop-thrilling adventure fantasy set in the brutal and competitive world of a military college for dragon riders, which includes elements regarding war, psychological and physical torture, imprisonment, intense violence, brutal injuries, perilous situations, blood, dismemberment, burning, murder, death, animal death, graphic language, loss of family, grief, and sexual activities that are shown on the page. Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note, and prepare to join the revolution…

Description

North of the parapet is the riders quadrant. Surrounded by fields on the east. The gauntlet and flight fields are north east of the quadrant. The main quadrant has the dragon rotunda in the centre, east is the academic wing, south east is the gathering hall, south is dorms and South West is the first year dorms. South of the parapet is the main Basgiath building, shaped in a rectangle with a courtyard in the middle. The healer's quadrant is in the north wing next to a bell tower. The administration building sits on the east wing. South Wing is the infantry quadrant and General Sorrengail's office. The Scribe Quadrant is underground on the west side of the building.

Description

The Continent is an island made up of two kingdoms and the Barrens. The Emerald Sea is to the north and the Arctile Ocean to the south. The Kingdom of Navarre is the largest kingdom taking up more than half of the continent, and its border is a semicircle across the centre of the map. Navarre has 6 provinces: Morraine (North East) is the second largest and where Basgiath is located, Elsum (East) borders Poromiel and is surrounded by the Tage and Esben mountains, Tyrrendor (South) is the largest province and is where Aretia is located. A small section borders Poromiel at the cliffs of Dralor on the east side, Calldyr (West), Luceras (North West) and Deconshire (central). The Kingdom of Poromiel has three provinces: Cygnisen (North), Braverick (Central/East) and Krovla (South). Poromiel borders Navarre on the West via the Tage and Esben mountains and the Barrens on the East. The Barrens is a large section of barren land to the east of the continent.

The following text has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language by Jesinia Neilwart, Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at Basgiath War College. All events are true, and names have been preserved to honor the courage of those fallen.
May their souls be commended to Malek.

PART ONE

In this, the 628th year of our Unification, it is hereby recorded that Aretia has been burned by dragon in accordance with the Treaty ending the separatist movement. Those who fled, survived, and those who did not remain entombed in her ruins.

—PUBLIC NOTICE 628.85
TRANSCRIBED BY CERELLA NIELWART

CHAPTER ONE

Revolution tastes oddly…sweet.

I stare at my older brother across a scarred wooden table in the enormous, busy kitchen of the fortress of Aretia and chew the honeyed biscuit he put on my plate. Damn, that’s good. Really good.

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t eaten in three days, since a not-so-mythological being stabbed me in the side with a poisoned blade that should have killed me. It would have killed me if it hadn’t been for Brennan, who won’t stop smiling as I chew.

This might go down as the most surreal experience of my life. Brennan is alive. Venin, dark wielders I’d thought only existed in fables, are real. Brennan is alive. Aretia still stands, even though it was scorched after the Tyrrish rebellion six years ago. Brennan is alive. I have a new, three-inch scar on my abdomen, but I didn’t die. Brennan. Is. Alive.

“The biscuits are good, right?” he asks, snagging one from the platter between us. “Kind of remind me of the ones that cook used to make when we were stationed in Calldyr, remember?”

I stare and chew.

He’s just so…him. And yet he looks different from what I remember. His brownish-red curls are cropped close to his skull instead of waving over his forehead, and there’s no lingering softness in the angles of his face, which now has tiny lines at the edges of his eyes. But that smile? Those eyes? It’s really him.

And his one condition being me eating something before he takes me to my dragons? It’s the most Brennan move ever.

Not that Tairn ever waits for permission, which means—

“I, too, think you need to eat something.” Tairn’s low, arrogant voice fills my head.

“Yeah, yeah,” I reply in kind, mentally reaching out for Andarna again as one of the kitchen workers hurries by, offering a quick smile to Brennan.

There’s no response from Andarna, but I can feel the shimmering bond between us, though it’s no longer golden like her scales. I can’t quite get a mental picture, but my brain is still a little groggy. She’s sleeping again, which isn’t odd after she uses up all her energy to stop time, and after what happened in Resson, she probably needs to sleep for the next week or so.

“You’ve barely said a word, you know.” Brennan tilts his head just like he used to when he was trying to solve a problem. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“Watching me eat is creepy,” I counter after I swallow, my voice still a little hoarse.

“And?” He shrugs shamelessly, a dimple flashing in his cheek when he grins. It’s the only boyish thing left about him. “A few days ago, I was pretty sure I’d never get to watch you do, well, anything again.” He takes a huge bite. Guess his appetite is still the same, which is oddly comforting. “You’re welcome, by the way, for the mending. Consider it a twenty-first-birthday present.”

“Thank you.” That’s right. I slept right through my birthday. And I’m sure my lying in bed on the brink of death was more than enough drama for everyone in this castle, house, whatever it’s called.

Xaden’s cousin, Bodhi, strides into the kitchen, dressed in uniform, his arm in a sling and his cloud of black curls freshly trimmed.

“Lieutenant Colonel Aisereigh,” Bodhi says, handing a folded missive to Brennan. “This just came in from Basgiath. The rider will be here until tonight if you want to reply.” He offers me a smile, and I’m struck again at how closely he resembles a softer version of Xaden. With a nod to my brother, he turns and leaves.

Basgiath? Another rider here? How many are there? Exactly how big is this revolution?

Questions fire off in my head faster than I can find my tongue. “Wait. You’re a lieutenant colonel? And who is Aisereigh?” I ask. Yeah, because that is the most important inquiry to make.

“I had to change my last name for obvious reasons.” He glances at me and unfolds the missive, breaking a blue wax seal. “And you’d be amazed at how fast you get promoted when everyone above you continues to die,” he says, then reads the letter and curses, shoving it into his pocket. “I have to go meet with the Assembly now, but finish your biscuits and I’ll meet you in the hall in half an hour and take you to your dragons.” All traces of the dimple, of the laughing older brother are gone, and in their place is a man I barely recognize, an officer I don’t know. Brennan may as well be a stranger.

Without waiting for me to respond, he scrapes his chair back and strides out of the kitchen.

Sipping my milk, I stare at the empty space my brother left across from me, chair still pulled out from the table as though he might return at any moment. I swallow the remaining biscuit stuck in the back of my throat and lift my chin, determined not to ever sit and wait on my brother to return again.

I push up from the table and head after him, out of the kitchen and down the long hall. He must have been in a hurry, because I can’t see him anywhere.

The intricate carpet muffles my footsteps along the wide, high-arched hallway as I come to— Whoa. The sweeping, polished double staircases with their detailed banisters rise three—no, four—more floors above me.

I’d been too focused on my brother to pay attention earlier, but now I blatantly gawk at the architecture of the enormous space. Each landing is slightly offset from the one below, as though the staircase climbs toward the very mountain this fortress is carved into. The morning light streams in from dozens of small windows that provide the only decoration on the five-story wall above the massive double doors of the fortress’s entrance. They seem to form a pattern, but I’m too close to see the whole of it.

There’s no perspective, which pretty much feels like a metaphor for my entire life right now.

Two guards watch every step I take but make no move to stop me when I pass by. At least that means I’m not a prisoner.

I continue to stride through the main hall of the house, eventually picking up the sound of voices from a room across the way, where one of two large, ornate doors is pitched open. As I approach, I immediately recognize Brennan’s voice, and my chest tightens at the familiar timbre.

“That’s not going to work.” Brennan’s deep voice echoes. “Next suggestion.”

I make it through the massive foyer, ignoring what look to be two other wings off to the left and right. This place is astounding. Half palace, half home, but entirely a fortress. The thick stone walls are what saved it from its supposed demise six years ago. From what I’ve read, Riorson House has never been breached by any army, even during the three sieges that I know of.

Stone doesn’t burn. That’s what Xaden told me. The city—now reduced to a town—has been silently, covertly rebuilding for years right under General Melgren’s nose. The relics, magical marks the children of the executed rebellion officers carry, somehow mask them from Melgren’s signet when they’re in groups of three or more. He can’t see the outcome of any battle they’re present for, so he’s never been able to “see” them organizing to fight here.

There are certain aspects of Riorson House, from its defensible position carved into the mountainside to its cobblestone floors and steel-enforced double doors in the entryway, that remind me of Basgiath, the war college I’ve called home since my mother was stationed there as its commanding general. But that’s where the similarities end. There’s actual art on the walls here, not just busts of war heroes displayed on stands, and I’m pretty sure that’s an authentic Poromish tapestry hanging across the hall from where Bodhi and Imogen stand in the open doorway.

Imogen puts her finger to her lips, then motions at me to join in the empty place between her and Bodhi. I take it, noticing Imogen’s half-shaved hair has been recently dyed a brighter pink while I’ve been resting. Clearly she’s comfortable here. Bodhi, too. The only signs that either has been in a battle are the sling cradling Bodhi’s fractured arm and a split in Imogen’s lip.

“Someone has to state the obvious,” an older man with an eyepatch and a hawkish nose says from the far end of a table that consumes the length of the two-story room. Tufts of thinning gray hair frame the deep lines in his lightly tanned, weathered skin, his jowls hanging down like a wildebeest. He leans back in his chair, placing a thick hand on his rounded belly.

The table could easily accommodate thirty people, but only five sit along one side, all dressed in rider black, perched slightly ahead of the door, at an angle where they’d have to turn fully to see us—which they don’t. Brennan paces in front of the table but not at an angle he can easily spot us, either.

My heart lurches into my throat, and I realize it’s going to take some time to get used to seeing Brennan alive. He’s somehow exactly the same as I remember—and yet different. But here he is—living, breathing, currently glaring at a map of the Continent on the long wall, the map’s size only rivaled by the one in the Battle Brief lecture hall at Basgiath.

And standing in front of that map, one arm leaning against a massive chair as he stares down the table at its occupants, is Xaden.

He looks good, even with bruises marring the tawny-brown skin under his eyes from lack of sleep. The high slopes of his cheeks, the dark eyes that usually soften whenever they meet mine, the scar that bisects his brow and ends beneath his eye, the swirling, shimmering relic that ends at his jaw, and the carved lines of the mouth I know as well as my own all add up to make him physically fucking perfect to me, and that’s just his face. His body? Somehow even better, and the way he uses it when he has me in his arms—

Nope. I shake my head and cut off my thoughts right there. Xaden may be gorgeous, and powerful, and terrifyingly lethal—which shouldn’t be the turn-on it is—but I can’t trust him to tell me the truth about…well, anything. Which really hurts, considering how pathetically in love with him I am.

“And what is the obvious thing you need to state, Major Ferris?” Xaden asks, his tone completely, utterly bored.

“It’s an Assembly meeting,” Bodhi whispers to me. “Only a quorum of five is required to call a vote, since all seven are almost never here at one time, and four votes carry a motion.”

I file that information away. “Are we allowed to listen?”

“Meetings are open to whoever wants to attend,” Imogen replies just as quietly.

“And we’re attending…in the hallway?” I ask.

“Yes,” Imogen answers with no other explanation.

“Returning is the only option,” Hawk Nose continues. “Not doing so risks everything we’re building here. Search patrols will come, and we don’t have enough riders—”

“It’s a little hard to recruit while trying to stay undetectable,” a petite woman with glossy black hair like a raven counters, the umber skin at the corners of her eyes crinkling as she glares down the table at the older man.

“Let’s not get off topic, Trissa,” Brennan says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Our father’s nose. Their resemblance is uncanny.

“No point increasing our numbers without a working forge to arm them with weapons.” Hawk Nose’s voice rises above the others. “We’re still short a luminary, if you haven’t noticed.”

“And where are we in negotiations with Viscount Tecarus for his?” a large man asks in a calm, rumbling voice, his ebony hand tugging at his thick silver beard.

Viscount Tecarus? That isn’t a noble family in any Navarrian records. We don’t even have viscounts in our aristocracy.

“Still working on a diplomatic solution,” Brennan answers.

“There’s no solution. Tecarus isn’t over the insult you delivered last summer.” An older woman built like a battle-ax locks her gaze on Xaden, her blond hair brushing just past her square alabaster chin.

“I told you, the viscount was never going to give it to us in the first place,” Xaden replies. “The man only collects things. He does not trade them.”

“Well, he’s definitely not going to trade with us now,” she retorts, her gaze narrowing. “Especially if you won’t even contemplate his latest offer.”

“He can fuck right off with his offer.” Xaden’s voice is calm, but his eyes have a hard edge that dares anyone at the table to disagree. As if showing these people they aren’t worth his time, he steps around the arm of the massive chair facing them and settles into it, stretching his long legs and resting his arms on the velvet armrests—like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

The quiet that falls on the room is telling. Xaden commands as much respect from the Assembly of this revolution as he does at Basgiath. I don’t recognize any of the other riders besides Brennan, but I’d bet Xaden is the most powerful in the room, given their silence.

“For now,” Tairn reminds me with the arrogance only a hundred years of being one of the most formidable battle dragons on the Continent can provide. “Instruct the humans to bring you up to the valley once the politics are finished.”

“There had better be a solution. If we can’t supply the drifts with enough weaponry to really fight in the next year, the tide will shift too far to ever hope of holding the venin advance at bay,” Silver Beard notes. “This all will have been for nothing.”

My stomach pitches. A year? We’re that close to losing a war I knew nothing about a few days ago?

“As I said, I’m working on a diplomatic solution for the luminary”— Brennan’s tone sharpens—“and we’re so wildly off topic I’m not sure this is the same meeting.”

“I vote we take Basgiath’s luminary,” Battle-Ax suggests. “If we’re that close to losing this war, there’s no other option.”

Xaden shoots Brennan a look that I can’t decipher, and I breathe deeply as it hits me—he probably knows my own brother better than I do.

And he kept him from me. Of all the secrets he hid, that’s the one I can’t quite swallow.

“And what would you have done with the knowledge had he shared it?” Tairn asks.

“Stop bringing logic into an emotional argument.” I fold my arms across my chest. It’s my heart that won’t fully let my head forgive Xaden.

“We’ve been over that,” Brennan says with finality. “If we take Basgiath’s forging device, Navarre can’t replenish their stores at the outposts. Countless civilians will die if those wards fall. Do any of you want to be responsible for that?”

Silence reigns.

“Then we agree,” Hawk Nose says. “Until we can supply the drifts, the cadets have to return.”

Oh.

“They’re talking about us,” I whisper. That’s why we’re standing out of their direct sight.

Bodhi nods.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet, Suri,” Brennan notes, glancing at the wide-shouldered brunette with olive skin and a single streak of silver in her hair, her nose twitching like a fox, sitting next to him.

“I say we send all but the two.” Her nonchalance skates a chill down my spine as she drums her bony fingers on the table, a giant emerald ring catching the light. “Six cadets can lie as well as eight.”

Eight.

Xaden, Garrick, Bodhi, Imogen, three marked ones I’d never gotten a chance to know before we were thrown into battle, and…me.

Nausea rises like a tide. The War Games. We’re supposed to be finishing the last competition of the year between the wings of the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath, and instead, we entered deadly battle with an enemy I’d thought were only folklore last week, and now we’re…well, we’re here, in a city that isn’t supposed to exist.

But not all of us.

My throat tightens, and I blink back the burn in my eyes. Soleil and Liam didn’t survive.

Liam. Blond hair and sky-blue eyes fill my memory, and pain erupts behind my ribs. His boisterous laugh. His quick smile. His loyalty and kindness. It’s all gone. He’s gone.

All because he promised Xaden he’d guard me.

“None of the eight are expendable, Suri.” Silver Beard leans on the back two legs of his chair and examines the map behind Xaden.

“What do you propose, Felix?” Suri counters. “Running our own war college with all our spare time? Most of them haven’t finished their education. They’re of no use to us yet.”

“As if any of you has a say in if we return,” Xaden interrupts, earning everyone’s attention. “We will take the advice of the Assembly, but it will be taken as only that—advice.”

“We cannot afford to risk your life—” Suri argues.

“My life is equal to any of theirs.” Xaden gestures toward us.

Brennan’s gaze meets mine, then widens.

Each head in the room turns toward us, and I fight the instinct to retreat as almost every set of eyes narrows on me.

Who do they see? Lilith’s daughter? Or Brennan’s sister?

I lift my chin because I’m both…and I feel like neither.

“Not every life,” Suri says as she looks straight at me. Ouch. “How could you have stood there and let her overhear the conversation of the Assembly?”

“If you didn’t want her to hear, you should have closed the door,” Bodhi responds, stepping into the room.

“She cannot be trusted!” Anger might color her cheeks, but that’s fear in Suri’s eyes.

“Xaden has already taken responsibility for her.” Imogen sidesteps, moving slightly closer to me. “As brutal of a custom as it may be.”

My gaze whips to meet Xaden’s. What the hell is she talking about?

“I still don’t understand that particular decision,” Hawk Nose adds.

“Decision was simple. She’s worth a dozen of me,” Xaden says, and my breath catches at the intensity in his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he means it. “And I’m not talking about her signet. I would have told her everything discussed here anyway, so an open door is a moot point.”

A spark of hope flares to life in my chest. Maybe he really is done keeping secrets.

“She’s General Sorrengail’s daughter,” Battle-Ax points out, frustration clear in her voice.

“And I’m the general’s son,” Brennan argues.

“And you’ve more than proven your loyalty over the last six years!” Battle-Ax shouts. “She hasn’t!”

Anger heats my neck, flushing up to my face. They’re talking about me like I’m not even here.

“She fought at our side at Resson.” Bodhi tenses as his voice rises as well.

“She should be confined.” Suri’s face turns downright ruddy as she pushes away from the table and stands, her gaze jumping to the silver half of my hair that forms my coronet braid. “She can ruin us all with what she knows.”

“Agreed.” Hawk Nose joins her with palpable loathing aimed in my direction. “She’s too dangerous not to keep prisoner.”

The muscles of my stomach tense, but I mask my expression like I’ve seen Xaden do countless times and leave my hands at my sides, close to my sheathed daggers. My body might be frail, my joints undependable, but my aim with a knife is lethally accurate. There’s no fucking way I’m going to let them cage me here.

I scan each of the Assembly members, assessing which is the biggest threat.

Brennan rises to his full height. “Knowing that she’s bonded to Tairn, whose bonds get deeper with each rider and whose previous bond was already so strong that Naolin’s death nearly killed him? Knowing we fear he’ll die if she does now? That because of that, Riorson’s life is tied to hers?” He nods toward Xaden.

Disappointment tastes bitter on my tongue. Is that all I am to him? Xaden’s weakness?

“I alone am responsible for Violet.” Xaden’s voice lowers in pure malice. “And if I’m not enough, there are not one but two dragons who have already vouched for her integrity.”

Enough is enough.

“She is standing right here,” I snap, and an unflattering amount of satisfaction courses through me at the number of jaws that drop in front of me. “So stop talking about me and try talking to me.”

A corner of Xaden’s mouth rises, and the pride that flashes through his expression is unmistakable.

“What do you want from me?” I ask them, striding into the room. “Want me to walk Parapet and prove my bravery? Done. Want me to betray my kingdom by defending Poromish citizens? Done. Want me to keep his secrets?” I gesture toward Xaden with my left hand. “Done. I kept every secret.”

“Except the one that mattered.” Suri lifts an eyebrow. “We all know how you ended up in Athebyne.”

Guilt clogs my throat.

“That was not—” Xaden starts, rising from his chair.

“Through no fault of her own.” The man nearest us with the gray beard— Felix—stands, blocking Suri from my sight as he turns toward her. “No first-year could withstand a memory reader, especially one considered a friend.” He pivots to face me. “But you have to know that you have enemies at Basgiath, now. Should you return, you must know that Aetos will not be among your friends. He will do everything he can to kill you for what you’ve seen.”

“I know.” The words are thick on my tongue.

Felix nods.

“We are done here,” Xaden says, his gaze catching and holding Suri’s and then Hawk Nose’s, their shoulders drooping in defeat.

“I’ll expect an update on Zolya in the morning,” Brennan says. “Consider this Assembly meeting adjourned.”

The council members push in their chairs and file past the three of us once we step out of the way. Imogen and Bodhi stay at my sides.

Eventually, Xaden starts to walk out but pauses in front of me. “We’ll head up to the valley. Meet us when you’re done.”

“I’ll go with you now.” This is the last place on the Continent I want to be left behind.

“Stay and talk to your brother,” he says quietly. “Who knows when you’ll get another chance.”

I glance past Bodhi to see Brennan standing in the middle of the room, waiting for me. Brennan, who always took the time to help wrap my knees when I was a child. Brennan, who wrote the book that helped me through my first year. Brennan…who I’ve missed for six years.

“Go,” Xaden urges. “We won’t leave without you, and we’re not going to let the Assembly dictate what we do. The eight of us will decide what to do together.” He gives me a long look that makes my traitorous heart clench, and then he walks away. Bodhi and Imogen follow.

Which leaves me to turn toward my brother, armed with six years of questions.

It is the valley above Riorson House, heated by natural thermal energy, that is its greatest asset. For there lie the original hatching grounds of the Dubhmadinn Line, from which two of the greatest dragons of our time—Codagh and Tairn—descend.

—COLONEL KAORI’S FIELD GUIDE TO DRAGONKIND

CHAPTER TWO

I shut the tall door behind me before moving toward Brennan. This meeting is definitely not open to the public.

“Did you eat enough?” He rests on the edge of the table like he used to when we were kids. The move is so…him, and as for the question, I ignore it entirely.

“So this is where you’ve been the last six years?” My voice threatens to break. I’m so glad he’s alive. That’s all that should matter. But I can’t forget the years he’s let me grieve for him, either.

“Yes.” His shoulders drop. “I’m sorry I let you believe I was dead. It was the only way.”

Cue awkward silence. What am I supposed to say to that? It’s all right, but not really? There’s so much I want to say to him, so much I need to ask, but suddenly the years we’ve been apart feel…defining. Neither of us is the same person.

“You look different.” He smiles, but it’s sad. “Not in a bad way. Just… different.”

“I was fourteen the last time you saw me.” I grimace. “I think I’m still the same height. I used to hope I’d get a last-minute growth spurt, but alas, here I am.”

“Here you are.” He nods slowly. “I always pictured you in scribe colors, but you look good in black. Gods…” He sighs. “The relief I felt when I heard you’d survived Threshing is indescribable.”

“You knew?” My eyes flare. He has sources at Basgiath.

“I knew. And then Riorson showed up with you stabbed and dying.” He looks away and clears his throat, then takes a deep breath before continuing. “I’m so damned glad you’re healed, that you’ve made it through your first year.” The relief in his eyes takes some of the sting out of my anger.

“Mira helped.” That’s putting it mildly.

“The armor?” he guesses correctly. There’s something to be said for the delicate weight of my dragon-scale armor under my flight leathers.

I nod. “She had it made. She gave me your book, too. The one you wrote for her.”

“I hope it was useful.”

I think back to the naive, sheltered girl who crossed the parapet, and everything she survived in the crucible of her first year to forge me into the woman I am now. “It was.”

His smile falters, and he glances out the window. “How is Mira?”

“Speaking from experience, I’m sure she’d be a lot better if she knew you’re alive.” There’s no point mincing words if we only have a short time.

He flinches. “Guess I deserve that.”

And I guess that answers that question. Mira doesn’t know. But she should.

“How exactly are you alive, Brennan?” I shift my weight to one leg, crossing my arms. “Where is Marbh? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you come home?”

“One at a time.” He holds up his hands like he’s under attack, and I glimpse a rune-shaped scar on his palm before he grips the edge of the table. “Naolin… He was—” His jaw flexes.

“Tairn’s previous rider,” I suggest slowly, wondering if he was more than that to Brennan. “He was the siphon who died trying to save you, according to Professor Kaori.” My heart sinks. “I’m sorry your rider died saving my brother.”

“We will no longer speak of the one who came before.” Tairn’s voice is rough.

A corner of Brennan’s mouth lifts. “I miss Kaori. He’s a good man.” He sighs, lifting his head to hold my gaze. “Naolin didn’t fail, but it cost him everything. I woke up on a cliffside not far from here. Marbh had been wounded, but he was alive, too, and the other dragons…” His amber-colored eyes meet mine. “There are other dragons here, and they saved us, hid us in the network of caves within the valley, then later with the civilians who survived the city being scorched.”

My brow furrows as I try to make sense of his words. “Where is Marbh now?”

“He’s been in the valley with the others for days, keeping watch on your Andarna with Tairn, Sgaeyl, and—since you woke up—Riorson.”

“That’s where Xaden has been? Guarding Andarna?” That makes me a little less pissed that he’s blatantly avoided me. “And why are you here, Brennan?”

He shrugs as though his answer is obvious. “I’m here for the same reason you fought at Resson. Because I can’t stand by, safe behind the barriers of Navarre’s wards, and watch innocent people die at the hands of dark wielders because our leadership is too selfish to help. That’s also the reason I didn’t come home. I couldn’t fly for Navarre knowing what we’ve done—what we’re doing—and I sure as hell couldn’t look our mother in the eye and listen to her justify our cowardice. I refused to live the lie.”

“You just left Mira and me to live it.” It comes out a little angrier than I intend, or maybe I’m angrier than I realize.

“A choice I’ve questioned every single day since.” The regret in his eyes is enough to make me breathe deeply and center myself. “I figured you had Dad—”

“Until we didn’t.” My throat threatens to tighten, so I turn to look at the map, then walk closer to take in more of the details. Unlike the one at Basgiath, which is updated daily with gryphon attacks on the border, this one reflects the truths Navarre is hiding. The region of the Barrens—the dry, desert-covered peninsula in the southeast that all dragonkind abandoned after General Daramor ruined the land during the Great War—is completely painted in crimson. The stain stretches into Braevick, over the Dunness River.

What have to be newer battle sites are marked with an alarming number of bright red and orange flags. The red ones mar not only the oceanic eastern border of the Krovlan province along the Bay of Malek but are heavily concentrated north into the plains as well, spreading like a disease, even infecting dots of Cygnisen. But the orange ones, those are heavily concentrated along the Stonewater River, which leads straight to Navarre’s border.

“So the fables are all true. Venin coming out of the Barrens, sucking the land dry of magic, moving city to city.”

“You’ve seen it with your own eyes.” He moves to my side.

“And the wyvern?”

“We’ve known about them for a few months, but none of the cadets did. Until now, we’ve limited what Riorson and the others have known for their own safety, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. We know they have at least two breeds, one that produces blue fire and a faster one that breathes green fire.”

“How many?” I ask him. “Where are they making them?”

“Do you mean hatching them?”

“Making,” I repeat. “Don’t you remember the fables Dad used to read to us? They said wyvern are created by venin. They channel power into wyvern. I think that’s why riderless ones died when I killed their dark wielders. Their source of power was gone.”

“You remember all of that from Dad reading?” He glances at me, bewildered.

“I still have the book.” It’s a good thing Xaden warded my room at Basgiath so no one will discover it while we’re here. “Are you telling me you not only didn’t know they’re created but have no clue where they’re coming from?”

“That’s…accurate.”

“How comforting,” I mutter as electricity prickles my skin. I shake my hands, pacing in front of the large map. The orange flags are awfully close to Zolya, the second most populous city in Braevick, and where Cliffsbane, their flier academy, is located. “The one with the silver beard said we have a year to turn it around?”

“Felix. He’s the most rational of the Assembly, but personally I think he’s wrong.” Brennan waves his hand in the air in a general outline of Braevick’s border with the Barrens along the Dunness River. “The red flags are all from the last few years, and the orange are the last few months. At the rate they’ve been expanding, not only in their numbers of wyvern, but in territory? I think they’re headed straight up the Stonewater River and we have six months or less until they’re strong enough to come for Navarre—not that the Assembly will listen.”

Six months. I swallow the bile fighting to rise in my throat. Brennan was always a brilliant strategist, according to our mother. My bet is on his assessment. “The general pattern is moving northwest—toward Navarre. Resson is the exception, along with whatever that flag is—” I point to the one that looks to be an hour’s flight east of Resson.

The desiccated landscape around what had been a thriving trading post flashes in my memory. Those flags are more than outliers; they’re twin splotches of orange in an otherwise untouched area.

“We think the iron box Garrick Tavis found at Resson is some kind of lure, but we had to destroy it before we could fully investigate. A box like it was found in Jahna, already smashed.” He glances my way. “But the craftsmanship is Navarrian.”

I absorb that information with a long breath, wondering what reason Navarre would have to build lures besides using one to kill us in Resson. “You really think they’ll come for Navarre before taking the rest of Poromiel?” Why not take the easier targets first?

“I do. Their survival depends on it as much as ours depends on stopping them. The energy in the hatching grounds at Basgiath could keep them fed for decades. And yet Melgren thinks the wards are so infallible that he won’t alert the population. Or he’s afraid that telling the public will make them realize we aren’t entirely the good guys. Not anymore. Fen’s rebellion taught leadership it’s a lot easier to control happy civilians than disgruntled—or worse, terrified— ones.”

“And yet they manage to keep the truth hidden,” I whisper. Sometime in our past, one generation of Navarrians wiped the history books, erasing the existence of venin from common education and knowledge, all because we aren’t willing to risk our own safety by providing the one material that can kill dark wielders—the same alloy that powers the farthest reaches of our wards.

“Yeah, well, Dad always tried to tell us.” Brennan’s voice softens. “In a world of dragon riders, gryphon fliers, and dark wielders…”

“It’s the scribes who hold all the power.” They put out the public announcements. They keep the records. They write our history. “Do you think Dad knew?” The idea of him structuring my entire existence around facts and knowledge, only to withhold the most important of it, is unfathomable.

“I choose to believe he didn’t.” Brennan offers me a sad smile.

“Word will get out the closer those forces come to the border. They can’t keep the truth hidden. Someone will see. Someone has to see.”

“Yes, and our revolution has to be ready when they do. The second the secret is out, there’s no reason to keep the marked ones under supervision of leadership, and we’ll lose access to Basgiath’s forge.”

There’s that word again: revolution.

“You think you can win.”

“What makes you say that?” He turns toward me.

“You call it a revolution, not a rebellion.” I lift my brow. “Tyrrish isn’t the only thing Dad taught us both. You think you can win—unlike Fen Riorson.”

“We have to win, or we’re dead. All of us. Navarre thinks they’re safe behind the wards, but what happens if the wards fail? If they’re not as powerful as leadership thinks they are? They’re already extended to their max. Not to mention the people living outside the wards. One way or another, we’re outmatched, Vi. We’ve never seen them organize behind a leader like they did at Resson, and Garrick told us that one got away.”

“The Sage.” I shudder, wrapping my arms around my middle. “That’s what the one who stabbed me called him. I think he was her teacher.”

“They’re teaching each other? Like they’ve set up some sort of school for venin? Fucking great.” He shakes his head.

“And you’re not behind the wards,” I note. “Not here.” The protective magical shield provided by the dragons’ hatching grounds in the Vale falls short of the official, mountainous borders of Navarre, and the entire southwestern coastline of Tyrrendor—including Aretia—is exposed. A fact that never quite mattered when we thought gryphons were the only danger out there, since they’re incapable of flying high enough to summit the cliffs.

“Not here,” he agrees. “Though funnily enough, Aretia has a dormant wardstone. At least, I think that’s what it is. I was never let close enough to Basgiath’s to compare the two in any detail.”

My eyebrows rise. A second wardstone? “I thought only one was created during the Unification.”

“Yeah, and I thought venin were a myth and dragons were the only key to powering wards.” He shrugs. “But the art of creating new wards is a lost magic, anyway, so it’s basically a glorified statue. Pretty to look at, though.”

“You have a wardstone,” I murmur, my thoughts spinning. They wouldn’t need as many weapons if they had wards. If they could generate their own protection, maybe they could weave extensions into Poromiel, like we’ve expanded our wards to their max. Maybe we could keep at least some of our neighbors safe…

“A useless one. What we need is that godsdamned luminary that intensifies dragonfire hot enough to smelt alloy into the only weapons capable of defeating venin. That’s our only shot.”

“But what if the wardstone isn’t useless?” My heart races. We’d only ever been told there was one wardstone in existence, its boundaries stretched as far as possible. But if there’s another… “Just because no one knows how to create new wards today doesn’t mean the knowledge can’t exist somewhere. Like in the Archives. That’s information we wouldn’t have wiped. We would have protected it at all costs, just in case.”

“Violet, whatever you’re thinking? Don’t.” He rubs his thumb along his chin, which has always been his nervous tell. Amazing the things I’m remembering about him. “Consider the Archives enemy territory. Weapons are the only thing that can win this war.”

“But you don’t have a working forge or enough riders to defend yourself if Navarre realizes what you’re up to.” Panic crawls up my spine like a spider. “And you think you’re going to win this war with a bunch of daggers?”

“You make it sound like we’re doomed. We’re not.” A muscle ticks in his jaw.

“The first separatist rebellion was crushed in under a year, and up until a few days ago, I thought it took you, too.” He doesn’t get it. He can’t. He didn’t bury his family. “I’ve already watched your things burn once.”

“Vi…” He hesitates for a second, then wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a hug, rocking slightly like I’m a kid again. “We learned from Fen’s mistakes. We’re not attacking Navarre like he did or declaring independence. We’re fighting right under their noses, and we have a plan. Something killed off the venin six hundred years ago during the Great War, and we’re actively searching for that weapon. Forging the daggers will keep us in the fight long enough to find it, as long as we can get that luminary. We might not be ready now, but we will be once Navarre catches on.” His tone isn’t exactly convincing.

I take a step back. “With what army? How many of you are there in this revolution?” How many will die this time?

“It’s best if you don’t know specifics—” He tenses, then reaches for me again. “I’ve already put you in danger by telling you too much. At least until you can shield Aetos out.”

My chest constricts, and I sidestep from his embrace. “You sound like Xaden.” I can’t help the bitterness that leaches into my tone. Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back. And if they keep secrets that jeopardize everyone and everything you hold dear? Love doesn’t even have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery. That’s what this ache in my chest is: misery.

Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.

A slight hum tingles under my skin, and warmth flushes my cheeks as Tairn’s power rises within me in answer to my heightened emotions. At least I know I still have access to it. The venin’s poison didn’t take it from me permanently. I’m still me.

“Ah.” Brennan shoots me a look I can’t quite interpret. “I wondered why he ran out of here like his ass was on fire. Trouble in paradise?”

I flat-out glare at Brennan. “It’s best if you don’t know that.”

He chuckles. “Hey, I’m asking my sister, not Cadet Sorrengail.”

“And you’ve been back in my life all of five minutes after faking your death for the last six years, so excuse me if I’m not going to suddenly open up about my love life. What about you? Are you married? Kids? Anyone you’ve basically lied to for the entirety of your relationship?”

He flinches. “No partner. No kids. Point made.” Shoving his hands into the pockets of his riding leathers, he sighs. “Look, I don’t mean to be an ass. But details aren’t anything you should know until you master keeping your shields up at all times against memory readers—”

I cringe at the thought of Dain touching me, seeing this, seeing Brennan. “You’re right. Don’t tell me.”

Brennan’s eyes narrow. “You agreed entirely too easily.”

I shake my head and start for the door, calling over my shoulder, “I need to leave before I get someone else killed.” The more I see, the bigger of a liability I am to him, to all of this. And the longer we’re here… Gods. The others.

“We have to go back,” I tell Tairn.

“I know.”

Brennan’s jaw flexes as he catches up to me. “I’m not sure going back to Basgiath is the best plan for you.” He pulls the door open anyway.

“No, but it’s the best plan for you.”

…

I’m nervous as hell by the time Brennan and his Orange Daggertail, Marbh, as well as Tairn and I, reach Sgaeyl—Xaden’s enormous, navy-blue daggertail, who stands under the shade of several even taller trees as though guarding something. Andarna. Sgaeyl snarls at Brennan, baring her fangs and taking one threatening step in his direction, her claw fully extended in a series of sharp talons.

“Hey! That’s my brother,” I warn her, putting myself between them.

“She’s aware,” Brennan mutters. “Just doesn’t like me. Never has.”

“Don’t take it personally,” I say right to her face. “She doesn’t like anyone but Xaden, and she only tolerates me, though I’m growing on her.”

“Like a tumor,” she replies through the mental bond that connects the four of us. Then her head swings, and I feel it.

The shadowy, shimmering bond at the edge of my mind strengthens and pulls gently. “In fact, Xaden’s walking this way,” I tell Brennan.

“That’s really fucking weird.” He folds his arms across his chest and looks behind us. “Can you two always sense each other?”

“Kind of. It has to do with the bond between Sgaeyl and Tairn. I’d say you get used to it, but you don’t.” I walk into the copse, and Sgaeyl does me a solid favor and doesn’t make me ask her to move, taking two steps to the right so I’m in between her and Tairn, directly in front of…

What. The. Fuck?

That can’t be… No. Impossible.

“Stay calm. She’ll respond to your agitation and wake in a temper,” Tairn warns.

I stare at the sleeping dragon—who is almost twice the size she had been a few days ago—and try to get my thoughts to line up with what I’m seeing, what my heart already knows thanks to the bond between us. “That’s…” I shake my head, and my pulse begins to race.

“Wasn’t expecting that,” Brennan says quietly. “Riorson left out some details when he reported in this morning. I’ve never seen such accelerated growth in a dragon before.”

“Her scales are black.” Yeah, saying it doesn’t help make it feel any more real.

“Dragons are only gold-feathered as hatchlings.” Tairn’s voice is uncharacteristically patient.

“‘Accelerated growth,’” I whisper, repeating Brennan’s words, then gasp. “From the energy usage. We forced her to grow. In Resson. She stopped time for too long. We—I—forced her to grow.” I can’t seem to stop saying it.

“It would have happened eventually, Silver One, if at a slower pace.”

“Is she full-grown?” I can’t take my eyes off her.

“No. She’s what you would call an adolescent. We need to get her back to the Vale so she can enter the Dreamless Sleep and finish the growth process. I should warn you before she wakes that this is a notoriously…perilous age.”

“For her? Is she in danger?” My gaze swings to Tairn for the length of a terrorizing heartbeat.

“No, just everyone around her. There’s a reason adolescents don’t bond, either. They don’t have the patience for humans. Or elders. Or logic,” he grumbles.

“So, the same as humans.” A teenager. Fabulous.

“Except with teeth and, eventually, fire.”

Her scales are so deeply black they glimmer almost purple—iridescent, really—in the flickering sunlight that filters through the leaves above. The color of a dragon’s scales is hereditary—

“Wait a second. Is she yours?” I ask Tairn. “I swear to the gods, if she’s another secret you kept from me, I’ll—”

“I told you last year, she is not our progeny,” Tairn answers, drawing up his head as if offended. “Black dragons are rare but not unheard of.”

“And I happened to bond to two of them?” I counter, outright glaring at him.

“Technically, she was gold when you bonded her. Not even she knew what color her scales would mature to. Only the eldest of our dens can sense a hatchling’s pigment. In fact, two more black dragons have hatched in the last year, according to Codagh.”

“Not helping.” I let Andarna’s steady breathing assure me that she really is fine. Giant but…fine. I can still see her features—her slightly more rounded snout, the spiral twist carved into her curled horns, even the way she tucks her wings in while sleeping is all…her, only bigger. “If there’s a morningstartail on her—”

“Tails are a matter of choice and need.” He huffs indignantly. “Don’t they teach you anything?”

“You’re not exactly a notoriously open species.” I’m sure Professor Kaori would salivate over knowing something like that.

That shadowy bond wrapped around my mind strengthens.

“Is she awake yet?” The deep timbre of Xaden’s voice makes my pulse skip like always.

I turn around to see him standing beside Brennan, with Imogen, Garrick, Bodhi, and the others flanking him in the tall grass. My gaze catches on the cadets I don’t know. Two men and one woman. It’s more than awkward that I went to war with them and yet I’ve only seen them in passing in the halls. I couldn’t even chance a guess at their names without feeling foolish. It’s not like Basgiath is made to foster friendships outside our squads, though.

Or relationships, for that matter.

I’ll spend every single day of my life earning back your trust. The memory of Xaden’s words fills the space between us as we stare at each other.

“We have to go back.” I fold my arms across my chest, preparing for a fight. “No matter what that Assembly says, if we don’t go back, they’ll kill every cadet with a rebellion relic.”

Xaden nods, as though he’d already come to the same conclusion.

“They’ll see right through whatever lie you’re going to tell, and they’ll execute you, Violet,” Brennan retorts. “According to our intelligence, General Sorrengail already knows you’re missing.”

She wasn’t there on the dais when War Games orders were handed out. Her aide, Colonel Aetos, was in charge of the games this year.

She didn’t know.

“Our mother won’t let them kill me.”

“Say that again,” Brennan says softly. He tilts his head at me and looks so much like our father that I blink twice. “And this time try to convince yourself that you mean it. The general’s loyalties are so crystal-fucking-clear that she might as well tattoo Yes there are venin, now go back to class on her forehead.”

“That doesn’t mean she’ll kill me. I can make her believe our story. She’ll want to if I’m the one telling it.”

“You don’t think she’ll kill you? She threw you into the Riders Quadrant!”

Fine, he has me there. “Yeah, she did, and guess what? I became a rider. She may be a lot of things, but she won’t let Colonel Aetos or even Markham kill me without evidence. You didn’t see her when you didn’t come home, Brennan. She was…devastated.”

His hands curl into fists. “I know the atrocious things she did in my name.”

“She wasn’t there,” one of the guys I don’t know says, putting up his hands when the rest turn to glare at him. He’s shorter than the others, with a Third Squad, Flame Section patch on his shoulder, light-brown hair, and a pinkish, round face that reminds me of the cherubs usually carved at the feet of statues of Amari.

“Seriously, Ciaran?” The brunette second-year lifts a hand to her forehead, shielding her fair skin from the sun and revealing a First Squad, Flame Section patch on her shoulder, then lifts a pierced eyebrow at him. “You’re defending General Sorrengail?”

“No, Eya, I’m not. But she wasn’t there when orders were handed out—” He cuts off the sentence as two eyebrows slash down in warning. “And Aetos was in charge of War Games this year,” he adds.

Ciaran and Eya. I look to the lean guy, who pushes his glasses up his pointed nose with a dark-brown hand, standing next to Garrick’s hulking build. “I’m so sorry, but what is your name?” It feels wrong to not know them all.

“Masen,” he replies with a quick smile. “And if it makes you feel better”— he glances at Brennan—“I don’t think your mom had anything to do with the War Games this year, either. Aetos was pretty loud about his dad planning the whole thing.”

Fucking Dain.

“Thank you.” I turn toward Brennan. “I would bet my life that she didn’t know what was waiting for us.”

“You willing to bet all of ours, too?” Eya asks, clearly not convinced, looking at Imogen for support and not getting any.

“I vote we go,” Garrick says. “We have to risk it. They’ll kill the others if we don’t return, and we can’t cut off the flow of weapons from Basgiath. Who agrees?”

One by one, every hand rises but Xaden’s and Brennan’s.

Xaden’s jaw flexes, and two little lines appear between his brows. I know that expression. He’s thinking, scheming.

“The second Aetos puts hands on her, we lose Aretia and you lose your lives,” Brennan says to him.

“I’ll train her to shut him out,” Xaden responds. “She already has the strongest shields of her year from learning to shut out Tairn. She only has to learn to keep them up at all times.”

I don’t argue. He has a direct link to my mind through the bond, which makes him the most logical choice to practice on.

“And until she can shield out a memory reader? How are you going to keep his hands off her if you’re not even there?” Brennan challenges.

“By hitting him in his biggest weakness—his pride.” Xaden’s mouth curves into a ruthless smile. “If everyone is sure about going, we’ll fly as soon as Andarna’s awake.”

“We’re sure,” Garrick answers for us, and I try to swallow the knot forming in my throat.

It’s the right decision. It could also get us killed.

A rustling behind me catches my attention, and I turn to see Andarna rise, her golden eyes blinking slowly at me as she clumsily gains her newly taloned claws. The relief and joy curving my mouth are short-lived as she struggles to stand.

Oh…gods. She reminds me of a newborn horse. Her wings and legs seem disproportionate to her body, and everything wobbles as she fights to keep upright. There’s no way she’s making the flight. I’m not even sure she can walk across the field.

“Hey,” I say, offering her a smile.

“I can no longer stop time.” She watches me carefully, her golden eyes judging me in a way that reminds me of Presentation.

“I know.” I nod and study the coppery streaks in her eyes. Were those always there?

“You are not disappointed?”

“You’re alive. You kept us all alive. How could I be disappointed?” My chest tightens as I stare into her unblinking eyes, choosing my next words carefully. “We always knew that gift would only last as long as you were little, and you, my dearest, are no longer little.” A growl rumbles in her chest, and my eyebrows shoot up. “Are you…feeling okay?” What the hell did I say to deserve that?

“Adolescents,” Tairn grumbles.

“I am fine,” she snaps, narrowing her eyes at Tairn. “We will leave now.” She flares her wings out, but only one fully extends, and she stumbles under the uneven weight, careening forward.

Xaden’s shadows whip out from the trees and wrap around her chest, keeping her from face-planting.

Well. Shit.

“I…uh…think we’re going to have to make some modifications on that harness,” Bodhi remarks as Andarna struggles to maintain her balance. “That’s going to take a few hours.”

“Can you fly her back to the Vale?” I ask Tairn. “She’s…huge.”

“I’ve killed lesser riders for that kind of insult.”

“So dramatic.”

“I can fly myself,” Andarna argues, gaining her balance with the aid of Xaden’s shadows.

“It’s just in case,” I promise her, but she eyes me with deserved skepticism.

“Get the harness done quickly,” Xaden says. “I have a plan, but we have to be back in forty-eight hours for this to work, and a day of that is needed for flight time.”

“What’s in forty-eight hours?” I ask.

“Graduation.”

There is no moment as rewarding, as stirring, as…anticlimactic as a Riders Quadrant Graduation. It’s the only time I’ve ever envied the Infantry Quadrant. Now those cadets know how to hold a ceremony.

—MAJOR AFENDRA’S GUIDE TO THE RIDERS QUADRANT (UNAUTHORIZED EDITION)

CHAPTER THREE

The flight field at Basgiath is still dark and appears deserted when we approach in the hour before sunrise, hugging the landscape of the mountains, the riot doing what they can to stay out of sight.

“That doesn’t mean someone won’t spot us landing,” Tairn reminds me, his wings beating steadily despite having flown the last eighteen hours nearly straight through from Aretia. The window of time we have to get Andarna to the Vale without her being spotted is slim, and if we miss it, we’ll put every hatchling in danger.

“I still don’t understand why the Empyrean would ever agree to let dragons bond human riders, knowing they’d have to guard their own young not only against gryphon fliers but the very humans they’re supposed to trust.”

“It’s a delicate balance,” Tairn replies, banking left to follow the geography. “The First Six riders were desperate to save their people when they approached the dens over six hundred years ago. Those dragons formed the first Empyrean and bonded humans only to protect their hatching grounds from venin, who were the bigger threat. We don’t exactly have opposable thumbs for weaving wards or runes. Neither species has ever been entirely truthful, both using the other for their own reasons and nothing more.”

“It never occurred to me to hide anything from you.”

Tairn does that weird thing that makes his neck appear boneless, swinging his head around to level slightly narrowed eyes at me for a heartbeat before turning his attention back to the terrain. “I can do nothing to remedy the last nine months besides answer your worthwhile questions now.”

“I know,” I say quietly, wishing his words were enough to cut through the acrid taste of betrayal I can’t seem to wash out of my mouth. I’m going to have to let it go. I know that. Tairn was bound by his mating bond to Sgaeyl, so at least he had a reason to keep everything he did from me, and it’s not like I can blame Andarna for being a kid who followed his lead. Xaden is another matter entirely, though.

“We’re approaching. Get ready.”

“Guess we should have worked on rolling dismounts earlier in the year,” I joke, gripping the pommel of my saddle tight as Tairn banks, my weight shifting right with him. My body is going to punish me for the hours in the saddle, but I wouldn’t trade the feel of the summer wind against my face for anything.

“A rolling dismount would tear you limb from limb on impact,” he retorts.

“You don’t know that,” Andarna counters with what seems to be her new default form of conversation—telling Tairn he’s wrong.

A growl rumbles through Tairn’s chest, vibrating the saddle beneath me and the harness that holds Andarna to his chest.

“I’d watch it,” I tell her, biting back a smile. “He might get tired and drop you.”

“His pride would never allow it.”

“Says the dragon who spent twenty minutes refusing to put on her harness,” Tairn fires back.

“All right, kids, let’s not argue.” My muscles tighten, and the strap across my thighs digs in as Tairn dives, skimming the edge of Mount Basgiath, bringing the flight field into view again.

“Still deserted,” Tairn notes.

“You know, rolling dismounts are a second-year maneuver.” Not necessarily one I want to master, but that doesn’t change the requirements.

“One you won’t be participating in,” Tairn grumbles.

“Maybe I’ll take her if you won’t,” Andarna chimes in, the last word ending in a dragon-size yawn.

“Maybe you should work on your own landings before taking our bonded on a flight to meet Malek?”

This is going to be a long year.

My stomach plummets as he drops into the box canyon known as the flight field.

“I will drop Andarna in the Vale and then return and circle nearby.”

“You need rest.”

“There will be no rest if they decide to execute the eight of you on the dais.” The worry in his voice clogs my throat. “Call out if you even suspect it will not go your way.”

“It will,” I assure him. “Do me a favor and tell Sgaeyl that I need to talk to Xaden on the walk in.”

“Hold on tight.”

The ground rushes to meet us, and I reach for the strap across my thighs, my fingers working the buckle as Tairn flares his wings to rapidly slow our descent. My momentum throws me forward as he touches down, and I force my ass back in the seat before yanking the belt off.

“Get her out of here,” I tell him as I scramble for his shoulder, ignoring every muscle that dares to ache.

“Do not take unnecessary risk,” he says as I slide down his foreleg at the steep incline Andarna’s position forces him to keep.

My feet slam into the ground and I stumble forward, catching my balance. “Love you, too,” I whisper, turning long enough to pat his leg and Andarna’s before running forward to get the hell out of their way.

Tairn whips his head to the right, where Sgaeyl lands with brutal efficiency, her rider dismounting in the same manner. “The wingleader approaches.”

He’ll only be my wingleader for another few hours if we live through this.

Xaden gives Tairn a wide berth to launch as he walks toward me.

Sgaeyl takes off next, followed by the rest of the riot. Guess we’re on our own now.

I lift my goggles to the top of my head and unzip my jacket. July at Basgiath is muggy as hell, even this early.

“You actually told Tairn to tell Sgaeyl that you wanted to talk to me?” Xaden asks as the sun’s first rays color the tips of the mountains purple.

“I did.” I run my hands across my sheaths, checking to make sure my daggers weren’t displaced during flight as we walk out of the flight field slightly ahead of the others, heading toward the steps that will bypass the Gauntlet and lead us back to the quadrant.

“You remember that you can…” He taps the side of his head and walks backward in front of me. I clench my fists to keep from brushing a lock of dark, windblown hair off his forehead. A few days ago, I would have touched him without reservation. Hell, I would have threaded my fingers through his hair and pulled him in for a kiss.

But that was then, and this is now.

“Talking that way feels a little too…” Gods, why is this so hard? It feels like every inch I sacrificed for in the last year when it comes to Xaden has been erased, putting us back at the starting line of an obstacle course I’m not sure either one of us ever chose to run. I shrug. “Intimate.”

“And we’re not intimate?” He lifts his brows. “Because I can think of more than one occasion that you’ve been wrapped around—”

I jolt forward and cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t.” Ignoring the explosive chemistry between us is hard enough without him reminding me what we feel like together. Physically, our relationship—or whatever we are—is perfect. Better than perfect. It’s hot as hell and more than addictive. My entire body warms as he kisses the sensitive skin of my palm. I drop my hand. “We’re walking into what’s certainly going to be a trial, if not an execution, and you’ve got jokes.”

“Trust me—not joking.” He turns as we reach the steps and heads down first, glancing back over his shoulder at me. “Surprised that you’re not icing me out, but definitely no jokes.”

“I’m angry with you for keeping information from me. Ignoring you doesn’t solve that.”

“Good point. What did you want to talk about?”

“I have a question I’ve been thinking about since Aretia.”

“And you’re only now telling me?” He reaches the bottom of the steps and shoots an incredulous look at me. “Communication is not your strength, is it? Don’t worry. We’ll work on it along with your shielding.”

“That’s…ironic coming from you.” We start up the path to the quadrant as the sun steadily rises on our right, the light catching on the two swords Xaden has strapped to his back. “Does the movement have any scribes it can count as friends?”

“No.” The citadel looms ahead of us, its towers peeking over the edge of the ridgeline the tunnel runs through. “I know you grew up trusting a lot of them—”

“Don’t say anything else.” I shake my head. “Not until I can protect myself from Dain.”

“Honestly, I’ve considered scrapping the plan and just throwing him off the parapet.” He means it, and I can’t blame him. He’s never trusted Dain, and after what happened during War Games, I’m about ninety-nine percent sure I can’t trust him, either. It’s that one percent, constantly screaming at me that he used to be my best friend, that’s the kicker.

The one percent that makes me question if Dain knows what was waiting for us at Athebyne. “Helpful, but I’m not sure it will have the trust us effect we’re going for.”

“And do you trust me?”

“You want the uncomplicated answer?”

“Given our limited alone time, that’s preferable.” He stops at the tall doors that lead into the tunnel.

“With my life. After all, it’s your life, too.” The rest depends on how open he is with me, but now probably isn’t the time for a state-of-our-relationship talk.

I swear there’s a flash of disappointment in his eyes before he nods, then looks back for the other six, who are quickly catching up. “I’ll make sure Aetos keeps his hands to himself, but you might have to play along.”

“Give me a shot at handling it first. Then you can do whatever it is you think will work.” The bells of Basgiath interrupt, announcing the hour. We have fifteen minutes until formation will be called for graduation.

Xaden’s shoulders straighten as the others reach us, his expression shifting into an unreadable mask. “Everyone clear on what’s about to happen?”

This isn’t the man who begged my forgiveness for keeping secrets, and it sure as hell isn’t the one who vowed to earn back my trust in Aretia. No, this Xaden is the wingleader who slaughtered every attacker in my bedroom without breaking a sweat or losing a minute of sleep over it afterward.

“We’re ready,” Garrick says, rolling his neck like he needs to warm up before combat.

“Ready.” Masen nods, adjusting the glasses on his nose.

One by one, they agree.

“Let’s do it.” I lift my chin.

Xaden stares long and hard at me, then nods.

My stomach twists when we enter the tunnel, mage lights flickering on as we pass. The other door is already open when we make our way through, and I don’t argue when Xaden plasters himself to my side. There’s every chance we’ll be arrested as soon as our feet touch the quadrant, or worse, killed, depending on what everyone knows.

Power rises within me, thrumming beneath my skin, not quite burning but ready if I need it, but no one appears as we cross into the rock-filled courtyard. We have minutes until this space fills with riders and cadre.

The first riders we encounter walk out of the dormitory and into the courtyard with cocky swaggers and Second Wing patches on their uniforms.

“Look who’s finally here? Bet you thought you had the games locked down, didn’t you, Fourth Wing?” a rider with hair dyed forest green says with a smirk. “But you didn’t! Second Wing took it all when you didn’t show!”

Xaden doesn’t bother looking their direction as we pass.

Garrick lifts his middle finger from my other side.

“Guess this means no one knows what really happened,” Imogen whispers.

“Then we have a shot of this working,” Eya replies, and the sunlight glints in the piercing in her eyebrow.

“Of course no one fucking knows,” Xaden mutters. He looks up to the top of the academic building, and I follow his line of sight, my heart clenching at the image of the fire blazing in the pit on top of the farthest turret. No doubt waiting for offerings to Malek—belongings of the cadets who didn’t make it through War Games. “They’re not going to out themselves over us.”

At the entrance to the dorms, we all exchange a look, then break apart wordlessly according to the plan. Xaden follows me down the corridor and into the little hallway I’ve called home for the last nine months, but it’s not my room I’m interested in.

I glance left and right to be sure no one sees us as Xaden opens Liam’s door. He motions at me, and I slip under his arm and into the room, triggering the mage light overhead.

My chest threatens to cave with the weight of grief as Xaden shuts the door behind us. Liam slept in that bed a matter of nights ago. He studied at that desk. He worked on the half-finished figurines on the bedside table.

“You have to be quick,” Xaden reminds me.

“I will,” I promise, going straight for his desk. There’s nothing there besides his books and a selection of pens. I check his wardrobe, the dresser, and the chest at the foot of his bed, coming up empty-handed.

“Violet,” Xaden warns me quietly, standing guard at the door.

“I know,” I say over my shoulder. The second Tairn and Sgaeyl arrived in the Vale, every dragon would know they’d returned, which means every member of the quadrant’s leadership knows we’re here, too.

I lift the corner of the heavy mattress and sigh with relief, snatching the twine-bound stack of letters before letting the bedding fall back into place.

“Got them.” I will not cry. Not when I still have to hide them in my room.

But what will happen if they come to burn my things next?

“Let’s go.” Xaden opens the door, and I walk into the hallway at the same moment Rhiannon—my closest friend in the quadrant—walks out of her room with Ridoc, another of our squadmates.

Oh. Shit.

“Vi!” Rhi’s mouth drops open and she lunges, grabbing onto me and pulling me into a hug. “You’re here!” She squeezes tight, and I let myself relax into the embrace for the length of a heartbeat. It feels like forever since I’ve seen her, not six days.

“I’m here,” I assure her, gripping the letters in the crook of one arm and wrapping the other around her.

She squeezes my shoulders, then pushes me back, her brown eyes scanning my face in a way that makes me feel like complete shit for the lie I’m going to have to tell. “With what everyone was saying, I thought you were dead.” Her gaze rises over my head. “Thought you both were.”

“There was also the rumor that you got lost,” Ridoc adds. “But considering who you were with, we were all betting on the dead theory. I’m glad we were wrong.”

“I promise I’ll explain later, but I need a favor now,” I whisper as my throat closes.

“Violet.” Xaden’s tone drops.

“We can trust her,” I promise, looking back at him. “Ridoc too.”

Xaden looks anything but pleased. Guess we really are home.

“What do you need?” Rhi asks, concern furrowing her brow.

I step back, then push the letters into her hands. Her family doesn’t always obey the custom of burning everything, either. She’ll understand. “I need you to keep these for me. Hide them. Don’t let anyone…burn them.” My voice breaks.

She glances down at the letters, and her eyes widen before her shoulders curve inward and her face crumples.

“What are tho—” Ridoc starts, looking over her shoulder and falling silent. “Shit.”

“No,” Rhiannon whispers, but I know she’s not denying me the favor. “Not Liam. No.” Her gaze slowly rises to meet mine.

My eyes burn but I manage to nod, clearing my throat. “Promise you won’t let them have these when they come for his things if I’m not—” I can’t finish.

Rhiannon nods. “You’re not hurt, are you?” She scans me again, blinking at the line of stitchwork on my flight jacket, where the hole from the venin’s blade was repaired in Aretia.

I shake my head. I’m not lying. Not really. My body is perfectly healthy now.

“We have to go,” Xaden says.

“I’ll see you guys at graduation.” I give them a watery smile but take a step toward Xaden. The more space my friends have from me, the safer they’ll be for the foreseeable future.

“How do you do it?” I whisper at Xaden as we turn the corner into the crowded main corridor of the first-year dorms.

“Do what?” His arms hang loose at his sides as he continuously scans the people around us, and he puts his hand on my lower back like he’s worried we might get separated. We’re in the thick of the rush, and for every person too busy to notice us, there’s another who does a double take when we cross paths. Every marked one we see gives Xaden a subtle nod, signaling that they’ve been warned by the others.

“Lie to the people you care about?”

Our gazes collide.

We pass one of the busts of the First Six and follow the flow of the crowd past the wide spiral staircase that connects the higher-years’ dorms.

Xaden’s jaw clenches. “Vi—”

I lift my hand and cut him off. “It’s not an insult. I need to know how to do it.”

We break away from the crush of cadets headed out the door to the courtyard, and Xaden strides purposefully for the rotunda, yanking open the door and ushering me through. I step away from the hand he places on my lower back.

Zihnal must be smiling on us, because the room is blessedly empty for the second it takes Xaden to tug me behind the first pillar we come to. The red dragon hides us from anyone who might pass through the space that connects all wings of the quadrant.

Sure enough, voices and footsteps fill the vaulted chamber a moment later, but no one sees us behind the massive pillar, which is exactly why this is our chosen meeting place. I glance around Xaden, noting the emptiness behind the pillars that flank us. Either everyone else is on the other side of the rotunda, or we’re the first to arrive.

“For the record, I don’t lie to the people I care about.” Xaden lowers his voice as he faces me, the intensity in his eyes pinning my back to the marble pillar. He leans in, consuming my field of vision until he’s all I see. “And I sure as hell have never lied to you. But the art of telling selective truths is something you’re going to have to master or we’ll all be dead. I know you trust Rhiannon and Ridoc, but you can’t tell them the truth, as much for their sakes as for ours. Knowing puts them in danger. You have to be able to keep the truth compartmentalized. If you can’t lie to your friends, you keep your distance. Understand?”

I tense. Of course I know that, but hearing it said so blatantly drives the situation home like a knife to my stomach. “I understand.”

“I never wanted you put in this position. Not with your friends and especially not with Colonel Aetos. That was one of the many reasons why I never told you.”

“How long did you know about Brennan?” It might not be the right time, but suddenly it’s the only time.

He exhales slowly. “I’ve known about Brennan since his death.”

My lips part and something heavy shifts, easing a weight in my chest that’s been there since Resson.

“What?”

“You didn’t dodge the question.” Have to admit, I’m a little surprised. “I promised you some answers.” He leans forward. “But I can’t promise you’ll like what you hear.”

“I’ll always prefer the truth.” Some answers?

“You say that now.” A wry smile twists his lips.

“I always will.” The sounds of boots shuffling behind us as students report for formation reminds me that we’re not entirely alone, but I need Xaden to hear this. “If the last few weeks have shown you anything, it should be that I don’t run from truth, no matter how hard it is or what it costs.”

“Yeah, well, it cost me you.” My whole body tenses and his eyes slam shut. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.” He opens them again, shaking his head, and the abject misery there makes my heart clench. “I know it was the not telling you. I get it. But when the lives of everyone around you depend on how well you can lie, it’s not easy to realize it’s the truth that will save you.” A sigh moves his shoulders. “If I could do it all again, I’d do it differently, I promise, but I can’t, so here we are.”

“Here we are.” And I’m not even sure where here is. I shift my weight. “But as long as you meant what you said about telling me everything—”

He flinches, and my heart sinks.

“You are going to tell me everything once I can properly shield, right?” It’s all I can do not to grab onto him and start shaking. Hard. “That’s what you promised in your bedroom.” He is not doing this to me. “‘Anything you want to know and everything you don’t.’ Those were your words.”

“Everything about me.”

Oh, fuck me, he is doing this to me. Again.

I shake my head. “That is not what you promised.”

Xaden starts to take a step toward me, but I lift my chin, daring him to touch me right now. Smart man that he is, he keeps his feet planted.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Look, I will answer any question you want to ask about me. Gods, I want you to ask, to know me well enough to trust me even when I can’t tell you everything.” He nods like those words had been included in the original promise when we both know damn well they weren’t. “Because you didn’t fall for an ordinary rider. You fell for the leader of a revolution,” he whispers, the sound so soft it barely carries to my ears. “To some degree, I’m always going to have secrets.”

“You have to be kidding me.” I let anger rush to the surface in hopes it will burn away the heartrending pain of his words. Brennan’s been lying to me for six years, letting me mourn his death when he’s been well-the-fuck alive the whole time. My oldest friend stole my memories and possibly sent me to die. My mother built my entire life on a lie. I’m not even sure what parts of my education are real and which are fabricated, and he thinks I’m not going to demand total, complete honesty from him?

“I’m not kidding.” There’s zero apology in his tone. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t let you in like I promised. I’m an open book when it comes to—”

“Whatever you want.” I shake my head. “And that’s not going to work for me. Not this time. I can’t trust you again without full disclosure. Period.”

He blinks as though I’ve actually managed to stun him.

“Full. Disclosure,” I demand like any rational woman staring down the man who kept her brother’s life a secret from her, let alone an entire war. “I can forgive you for keeping me in the dark before today. You did it to save lives, possibly even mine. But it’s complete and total honesty from now on, or…” Gods, am I going to have to say it?

Am I really about to issue an ultimatum to Xaden-fucking-Riorson?

“Or what?” He leans in, his eyes sharpening.

“Or I’ll get busy unfalling for you,” I spit out.

Surprise flares in his eyes a second before a corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “Good luck with that. I tried it for a good five months. Let me know how it works out for you.”

I scoff, at a complete loss for words as the bells chime, announcing the beginning of formation.

“It’s time,” he says. “Keep your shields up. Block everyone out like we practiced on the way here.”

“I can’t even keep you out.”

“You’ll find I’m harder to block than most.” His smirk is so infuriating, I ball my hands just to give my fists something else to do.

“Hey, I hate to interrupt what’s obviously a moment,” Bodhi whispers loudly from my left. “But that was the last bell, so that’s our cue to get this nightmare started.”

Xaden shoots a glare at his cousin, but we both nod. He doesn’t do his friends the dishonor of asking if they accomplished their missions as all eight of us walk into the center of the rotunda.

My stomach jumps into my throat as the death roll sounds from the courtyard. “I will not die today,” I whisper to myself.

“I really fucking hope you’re right about this,” Garrick says to Xaden as we face the open door. “It would be unfortunate to make it all three years and then die on graduation day.”

“I’m right.” Xaden walks out and we all follow, stepping into the sunlight.

“Garrick Tavis. Xaden Riorson.” Captain Fitzgibbons’s voice carries over the formation as he reads from the death roll.

“Well, this is awkward,” Xaden calls out.

And every head in the courtyard turns our direction.