Xaden
First-years pour into the forest to the south of us as snow starts to fall, but I wait at the edge of the trees with the other marked ones as the crowd rushes by with an exuberance I’ll never understand.
Then again, those Navarrians probably don’t have to worry about a dragon seeing their deepest, darkest secrets, their thoughts, their memories that wake them up in a cold sweat.
They’re all here because they volunteered.
None of them has been thrown into the Riders Quadrant because their parents were the leaders of the apostasy—the Tyrrish term for our revolt.
That honor belongs to the ten of us here with rebellion relics winding around our left arms—a mark the majority of the kingdom believes was gifted to us by General Melgren’s dragon upon the execution of our parents three years ago.
We’re the ones with something to hide, the ones whose parents led a just rebellion for the greater good, only to lose, the ones every other cadet in this hellscape of a college wants dead.
And as Fen Riorson’s son, I have the job of seeing that we all get out of here alive.
Marked ones. Separatists. Traitors. Those words have been hurled at us for years, but we’ve gotten used to the insults. Victors dehumanizing the defeated is a cliché we’ve learned to live with.
We’ve secretly helped one another where we can, in academics, Gauntlet preparation, and on the mat, but there’s not much I can do about the fire-breathing dragons waiting in that forest for us, and it’s killing me. If any of us die, it will be my fault for putting us here in the first place.
“When are you thinking we should go?” Garrick asks quietly from my right. His lip has yet to heal from the last time Alic Baran ambushed him while sleeping.
I hate that fucking bully almost as much as I hate his fool of a father.
Soleil glances my way from the left, looking for the same answer.
“Not yet.” I keep my tone low. “We’re not giving them our backs if we can help it.”
They both nod, then pass the message to the others on their respective sides.
“Ready to die, you fucking separatists?” Amber Mavis hisses in our direction, narrowing her blue eyes on us before jogging to catch up with a handful of her squadmates. She’s the last of the Navarrians to head into the valley.
Fuck her and her superiority complex.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, but I take a deep breath and swallow my temper.
It’s not anything we haven’t heard before, and letting my anger reign will get me nowhere.
Once we’re in those trees, all bets are off—the cadets are just as likely to kill us as the dragons—but Kaori is still watching, and I’m smart enough not to break Codex in front of a professor.
He clears his throat as if to remind us that he’s still standing between us and the forest, like there was any possible chance we’d forget.
“Since speaking to more than three of you at a time is an opportunity I’m never given, thanks to Addendum Five to the Code of Conduct, I’m going to take advantage,” Kaori says, and snowflakes settle on his black hair before melting.
It never snows this early at Basgiath, but today a cold front rolled in, early enough for us to get on our heavier winter uniforms and cloaks.
I can’t help but wonder if General Sorrengail is up there fucking with the weather just to make it harder on us.
I wouldn’t put it past her. She may have struck the deal with me that put us in the quadrant instead of on the executioner’s block, but she’s also the officer who hunted down our parents.
As much as I’d love to sneak into the main campus and take the life of her youngest, just so she can touch the pain the hundred and seven of us live with every day, it would get the rest of the marked ones killed.
For now, I’ll have to be content with the knowledge that she still mourns her oldest.
“I know the quadrant hasn’t been easy on the ten of you.
” Worry lines the space between Kaori’s dark brows as he glances down the line of our group.
He and Devera are the only professors who don’t treat us like pariahs.
Pretty sure the rest of them are hoping the dragons finish us off today just in case we turn out like our parents.
“But I’ve seen what happens after Threshing, the way the power dynamic shifts when powerful dragons bond.
I promise the others will stop attacking you once you have a dragon at your back. ”
None of us respond.
“Right.” Kaori ruffles the snow from his hair. “Watch out for Cruinn, Raighmur, and Tealach. They all had riders killed during the rebellion, and they’ll be…”
“Happy to eat us?” Carrigan Wyckley offers from my left, where she stands with her identical twin.
They’re both in Amber Mavis’s squad in Third Wing, and I have no doubt Amber will use today’s lack of supervision to try to take them both out.
Good thing the majority of us are excellent fighters, the twins included.
“Dragons eating people is really a misconception.” Kaori tries to smile at us. “Yes, they’ll absolutely ingest a person if necessary for caloric intake, but—”
“We understand what you’re saying, Professor,” Garrick interrupts before Kaori launches into a full-out lesson.
“Good.” Kaori nods and claps his hands together.
“Then I’ll see you on the flight field. Remember to split up once you’re in there.
We have some second- and third-years observing who will hold you to the Code of Conduct.
” He walks off toward the hill, leaving the ten of us on the outskirts of the forest.
Nine sets of eyes land on me.
“Think he suspects?” Bryn asks, lifting her left hand, where the shimmering swirls of her tattoo-like relic peek out from her uniform above her wrist.
“Doubt it.” My jaw works in frustration.
Knowing everything that goes on around us is an impossibility, but not knowing who is privy to our secrets could get us killed.
The relics on our arms do more than mark us as the children of traitors, but the longer we keep that information to ourselves, the better.
“Any last words of wisdom before we head in?” Soleil buttons her cloak under her neck.
“Keep a weapon drawn at all times.” I reach over my shoulder and draw one of the two swords I keep sheathed at my back just like Garrick.
Every person palms their weapon of choice.
“Forget what Kaori said about going in alone and stick to pairs, like we talked about. Remember, we have just as many threats on two legs as we do four. Don’t hesitate to defend yourselves, and give no mercy, for you will get none. We’ll meet at the tree tonight.”
Everyone nods, but there are more than a few downcast eyes, and Howell’s shoulders are slumped. Out of all of us here, he’s the only one who isn’t Tyrrish, but his father and his dragon fought on our side, which earned him a death sentence.
A cacophony of noise draws our attention to the sky, and a riot of dragons bursts through the clouds high above us.
The sight is enough to make even my breath catch.
Every breed but black is willing to bond this year, and they descend on the forest with the force of an earthquake as one hundred and sixty-three of them land in the trees.
Guess it’s time.
“The dragons know what our parents did.” Masen nervously pushes his glasses up his nose.
“Yeah, and you’ll remember that some of the Empyrean sided with us,” Garrick says, adjusting his grip on his sword.
The guy has grown another couple of inches in the last year, making his usually dense frame a little gangly.
“There are dragons here who know what’s out there and will choose the same.
We just have to find them before the others find us. This isn’t hopeless.”
“Feels like it.” Cerella Wyckley leans a dark-brown cheek on her sister’s shoulder.
“You will all live,” I order, raising my voice, and their spines straighten.
Excellent. They’re as good as dead if they walk in there already defeated.
“You will live for our parents, for our siblings, for one another. We are the first ten to enter this quadrant, but there are ninety-seven still to follow, and we will show them that we can not only survive this place but thrive in it.” Bodhi will be here next year, and Liam the year after that.
The thought of my cousin and foster brother enduring this turns my stomach.
“We have a mission, and we will accomplish it. We will not be on tomorrow’s death roll.
I fucking forbid it. Do you understand?” I meet their gazes one by one, and slowly, they all nod, even Howell.
The pairs head off in their assigned directions.
The twins to the east.
Howell and Weylan cut a path between the twins and the center.
Keanan and Bryn hold hands as they go west.
Soleil and Masen disappear between the trees to the right.
Garrick and I head straight into the middle of the forest, and the snow fades as we step under the canopy of the enormous trees. My gaze sweeps left to right and then back again, scanning for threats.
An impish grin crosses Garrick’s face the second the others are out of sight. “Ah, young love. Keanan and Bryn are still going strong, even after being fostered separately. Gives me hope.”
“Loving anyone in this place is fucking stupid.” I shake my head and watch the trees for movement. “It makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability is weakness. Dragons kill weak things.”
“Ever the romantic.” His grin deepens, reopening the cut on his lip as he scans the perimeter on the left.
“I’m a realist.” I take watch on the right, looking over my shoulder to keep our backs clear, too.
“Someday, someone is going to come along who knocks you on your ass, Xaden.” He laughs. “And I just hope I’m alive to see…” His face falls. “Shit. I almost forgot.”
“That I have about eight months until I’m betrothed to someone I can’t stand?” A rabbit catches my attention, but I quickly move on.