47. CHAPTER 47
The morning arrived far too fucking fast. They started knocking on doors at zero five hundred to wake cadets. Dining Hall Two opened for early meals before departure. Everyone watched the grandfather clock, ensuring plenty of food and time for last-minute packing.
The campus remained cloaked in shadow as we started gathering on the flight field.
Breath steamed in the cold dawn. Professors were stationed around the field, checking groups and departure times.
Boots scraped frost, leather straps creaked, and low, restless rumbles from eager fliers filled the air.
Esme’s silver-blue eye swiveled to me the instant my steps reached the clearing, wings stretching wide with a ground-shivering snap. “Are you ready, my little Rider?”
Movement around us continued with quiet efficiency.
Sadie muttered at Korra, who snapped her beak at Cassia Mooring’s braid.
Zane’s golden hair already looked windswept, posture calm as if nothing unusual unfolded.
Corson worked with his red dragon, securing gear.
Landon stood beside him, giving neck scratches to his phoenix.
Remus and Zane looked like they could be relatives, though Remus stood taller by several inches and had longer, wavy blond hair.
Other Riders moved around us, groups preparing, things tucked into saddlebags. Drusearons checked that knapsacks were secured. Micah yawned while tightening Sera’s cinches. Lili gave alternate scratches to Verya.
A hard swallow, reality hit—flying wasn’t exercise. We were headed home .
Or, whatever counted as home.
Hildegard’s voice carried over the field, less bark and more steel. “Zero five forty-five departures, you have five minutes before you take to the sky. Remember your route. Stop at Blackmere. Wait for the second group to join you. Do not deviate. If something feels wrong, trust your fliers.”
Esme crouched low, anticipation rumbling while I swung into the saddle.
Leather pinched, unfamiliar yet properly fitted.
Churning nerves tangled with leftover stew.
Fingers curled round the pommel, thighs clamped tight.
The other three Riders mounted. All of us made final adjustments.
Zane stood below, and Remus waited on the far side of Corson’s red dragon.
“Fly safe,” Jameson called as he tightened another strap.
“Try not to puke on anyone again,” Sadie shouted at Lorenzo, who had only groaned and made a half-hearted hand gesture in response.
“I love you, Auriella!” Lili yelled a few fliers over to me.
“I love you, too!” I yelled back.
“Aw, so heartwarming, going to make Zane jealous.” Eli snapped. He was in the group behind us.
It had been the perfect send-off—chaos, laughter, and nerves tangled together.
“You’re off!” Hildegard stated, pointing to our group.
Esme surged forward, wings slicing the air as we leapt into the gray dawn sky. The ground fell away, the campus shrinking beneath us.
We left, and I couldn’t pin down how to feel. Nerves twisted tight in my gut, but excitement pulsed right beside them.
Cold air bit hard above the tree line, wind slicing through my jacket, stinging my cheeks raw. Beneath me, Esme’s wings beat in steady rhythm, each downstroke driving us higher until the campus shrank into a shadow behind us.
Our group drew together fast. Zane drifted close, his silhouette black against the pale sky, every glide smooth as if the wind itself bent for him.
Landon came in with his phoenix, flames licking her wingtips, trails of heat shimmering across the currents.
Corson’s red dragon held lower, crimson scales flashing with what little sunlight broke through.
Remus, like Zane, flew alone, his Drusearon wings stretched wide and steady.
Sadie’s griffin cut sharp, Korra’s shriek splitting the air and sending a flock scattering from the trees below.
Micah hadn’t been with us this time, but his absence meant quiet.
“Remind me,” Sadie called over the wind, her braid whipping behind her, “why exactly are we flying in the frozen-ass dawn? Couldn’t we have waited for the sun to come out?”
“Less likely to be targets, but more importantly, so we arrive during the day, and before dinner.” Nikolai barked back, his dragon snorting steam. “Arriving at Forts at night as a drift, makes everyone edgy.”
“Less likely targets?” Landon wheezed. His phoenix banked hard, fire trailing in her wake. “Yeah, sure. I’m a flying torch. Real subtle. No one’s ever gonna notice me up here.”
“Agreed,” Sadie laughed. “We could probably see you from across the continent.”
Esme rumbled in my head, “he’s not wrong. He burns like a beacon. Though, that’s the choice she makes. At least I am elegant in my shadow.”
“Elegant?” I shot back. “You nearly dumped me on the ground thirty minutes ago.”
“Gracefully,” she corrected, and I could feel her smirk.
“Wing Commander Corson—” I started.
“While we are away from campus, I am simply Nikolai to you,” he shot a look at Sadie and then Landon, “you two as well.”
“Alright—Nikolai—where are you from?”
“Where. Are. We. Going?” He said with such confusion, as if I was expected to know his origins.
“So, from Ashwynd?”
“Yes, on the outskirts, but yes. Ror—Zane and I actually grew up together.”
I shot a look at Zane. “You never told me that.”
“I mean if I told you everything, it would take months and months… there’s entirely too much. ”
“He almost called you Roarke.”
“That he did, and yes, he knows.”
“Clearly, you didn’t know. Over the last few years, we haven’t been as close, been busy in different branches both leading, but I will always be a Drusearon at heart.”
I think my eyes bugged out of my head. Holy shit, he was one of the few Drusearons that had been born with mixed Fae parents, leaving him without wings.
“Wow… yeah, I didn’t know, and I didn’t know that either.”
He shot me a smile and looked forward. Nikolai’s composure was always maintained with discipline.
A more relaxed version hadn’t been witnessed before.
Countless questions were held back about his missing wings, curiosity stifled to avoid prying.
Landon had also been a Drusearon, born without wings, whose mother was a Sorcerer.
The wind tore at my braid as we leveled out into steady flight. The horizon stretched wide and pale, the world below nothing but a smear of frost-tipped trees and the winding river we were following northwest.
“Formation’s sloppy,” Remus growled, his voice carrying easily across the space between us. His broad black wings flexed once, shifting into position like it was the easiest thing in the world. “If this were a real patrol, we’d already be attacked.”
“Thank you for the encouragement,” Sadie shot back, patting Korra’s neck as the griffin shrieked loud enough to make her point. “Always inspiring.”
“Better harsh truth than a funeral,” Remus said.
“Gods, you two sound like my parents,” Landon groaned, his phoenix flaring a plume of gold fire that arced across the sky. “And before you say it—yes, I’m still single, no, I don’t need the lecture.”
Nikolai’s laugh rolled out across the air, low and sharp. “Still single because no sane female wants to spend her evenings smelling like burnt feathers. ”
“Better burnt than brooding,” Landon shot back, tilting his phoenix into a cocky half-roll. “Tell me, Nikolai, do you practice looking like a storm cloud, or does it come naturally?”
“Natural talent,” Nikolai said, without missing a beat. His dragon’s wings beat once, hard, sending a gust that rocked Landon sideways.
Sadie cackled. “Oh, that’s rich. The Wing Commander is taking cheap shots.”
“Not cheap,” Nikolai said, his grin flashing. “Instructional.”
I bit my lip to hide my laugh, tightening my grip as Esme banked lazily into their draft. She rumbled along our bond, “this is what Riders do—fight, boast, compare scars. Always trying to prove who has the sharpest tongue.”
“And you’re enjoying it,” I thought.
“Immensely.”
Zane hadn’t said much, but I felt his presence steady in the bond, calm and watchful. He moved a little ahead of us, wings stretched wide, the early light sparking across their dark span.
“Silent as ever,” Nikolai called toward him, his tone edged with familiarity. “Not going to join in? Or do you think we’re beneath you, as usual?”
Zane hadn’t turned. “I think you all waste too much breath.”
That earned a chorus of groans and laughter, and Sadie nearly choked on it. “Gods, he’s impossible,” she said, shaking her head.
But her grin told me the same thing Esme had already whispered in my head—this had been the rhythm of a drift. Rough edges, sharp tongues, and trust woven through it all.
The wind cut sharply across my face, Esme gliding smoothly and effortlessly beneath me. We’d been flying steady for a while when Remus’s voice rang out over the air, loud enough to cut through the roar of wings. “Formation. Arrowhead. Now.”
My stomach dropped.
That word was last heard months ago in a chalk-dust classroom, diagrams arranged neatly on Bhatta’s board. Arrows and dotted lines were drawn, nothing resembling this moment—no sky, no wind, and no real lives placed in the balance.
Nikolai’s dragon angled cleanly into place beside Remus, the red scales gleaming in the pale light.
“Zane and Remus on point,” Nikolai shouted back, his voice cutting across the slipstream.
“Sadie, you’re behind Zane, center right.
Blackcreek, rear right. Landon, center left. My dragon will hold the rear left.”
Sadie laughed nervously, gripping her pommel. “To be clear—I’m not actually steering anything. If Korra decides she wants to perch on a chimney, that’s on her.”
“Pray she doesn’t,” Nikolai barked.
“Not comforting!” Landon shouted from behind, his phoenix scattering sparks as it beat its wings harder. “You know I’ve only ever seen this drawn in ink, right? Never done it in real life?”