Chapter 9
Tess
"There she is. The woman of the hour."
Raze was already sprawled across a section of the second tier, boots propped on the seat in front of him, amber eyes bright with the easy warmth that made him impossible not to smile at. He spread his arms wide like he was welcoming us to his personal kingdom.
"You save us seats or just claim territory?" I asked, stepping through the arched entrance with Mason at my side. The mate bond hummed low and warm between us. His hand brushed the small of my back as we crossed the threshold. Not possessive. Just there. The way Mason always was.
"Both. I'm a wolf. It's what we do." Raze dropped his boots and shifted over, making room. "Mason. Looking appropriately intimidating for day one. Love that for you."
Mason's mouth twitched. He settled beside me, his thigh pressed against mine, and the bond pulsed once. I'm here.
I leaned into it and let my gaze travel up.
Tiered stone seating rose on three sides, carved from the same luminescent rock as the rest of the Guild.
High ceilings vaulted overhead, buttressed by thick beams that looked like they'd been there since before the war.
Walls and weight and centuries of institutional architecture.
And now here I was. First official day. Bonded Dragon Rider.
The scared girl who still lived somewhere behind my sternum whispered that I didn't deserve this. I let her whisper. Then I breathed through it and kept going. I'd earned every bruise and every sleepless night that had brought me to this seat.
"Anyone else notice we're indoors?" Raze said, scanning the hall with a frown that cut through his usual ease. "Bonding ceremonies, training launches—these are always held in the arena. Outside. Where the dragons can actually, you know, be there."
The observation landed.
I reached for Thalon through our bond and found it muffled. Not gone—never gone—but dampened by the layers of stone between us. I pressed toward him and felt warmth, but couldn't close the distance.
"I'm here, little one." His voice was faint. "Though I'd prefer to be closer."
"Me too."
The hall felt wrong without them. The dragons had chosen us—had defied tradition, defied Silvius, defied centuries of protocol to bond with the Riders they wanted. And now, on the first official day of training, they'd been shut out. Kept behind walls they couldn't fit through.
Draven moved through the crowd with that controlled grace, all six-foot-five of him, dark curls pulled back, tattoos disappearing beneath his collar.
The room rearranged itself around him—quieter, tighter, everyone else taking half a step back.
When his eyes found mine, they were that shifting hazel that never quite settled on one color.
"Morning, love." His voice was low, pitched just for me. Not a whisper—Draven didn't whisper. But close.
"Define ready."
His mouth curved. "Aware that it's happening and choosing to show up anyway."
"Then yeah. I'm ready."
He turned to Mason, and they exchanged a nod. Not performative. Draven didn't perform. He simply acknowledged the man beside me with the same directness he brought to everything else, and Mason returned it.
But I caught it through the bond. A subtle tightening. Mason registering my pulse picking up half a beat when Draven got close, the warmth gathering low in my chest. Mason felt it because I felt it, and he held it without flinching.
The guilt was small and formless, curling at the edges of my consciousness. I didn't examine it. I couldn't. Not today. Not with everything else demanding space in my head.
Draven settled into the row behind us. Close enough that when he leaned forward to rest his forearms on the back of our bench, I could feel the warmth radiating off him.
Raze glanced between us with an expression I chose to ignore.
"Someone made that choice on purpose," Draven said quietly. His gaze swept the windowless hall, and I knew he'd already clocked the same thing Raze had—the deliberate absence, the message it sent.
Mason's hand found my knee under the stone bench and pressed once. I know.
Headmaster Northall opened the ceremony—brisk, professional, the kind of welcome that belonged to someone who'd done this a hundred times.
She was barely two sentences in when Silvius rose from his seat at the side of the stage and crossed to her with a smooth, apologetic smile, murmuring something the microphones didn't catch.
Northall's mouth tightened. She stepped back. Silvius took her place at the podium, and the hall went quiet.
He looked exactly like what he was—a centuries-old Fae lord wrapped in the performance of benevolence.
Silver hair immaculate, posture radiating authority, those piercing blue eyes sweeping the assembled Riders with an expression that wanted to be fatherly and landed somewhere closer to proprietary.
"Welcome," he said, and his voice carried effortlessly through the amphitheater. "To the next chapter of your journey."
He spoke about investment. About the Guild's commitment to its newest Riders.
About the Training Partner Initiative as an opportunity—a chance for unbonded applicants to continue serving, to grow alongside their bonded peers.
He framed the team structure as collaborative.
The training semester as transformative.
Every word was polished, deliberate, generosity that cost nothing and controlled everything.
I sat very still and let the anger burn clean and quiet beneath my skin.
Northall had taken a seat at the back of the stage, hands folded in her lap, expression composed in the way that only comes from years of practice. But her eyes never left Silvius, and they weren't warm.
This was supposed to be her ceremony. Team assignments, mentor placements, the whole pedagogical framework—that was the Headmaster's domain.
Silvius ran the Guild. Northall ran the academy. Everyone in this room knew the line. He'd just stepped over it without breaking stride.
This was the man who hadn't lifted a finger when my bond with Thalon was challenged. Who'd stood in silence while his own son denounced me in front of the entire Guild—and hadn't flinched once. Whether he'd ordered it or simply allowed it, the result was the same.
And now he stood at that podium acting like he'd built this program for us—like we should be grateful.
I wasn't grateful. I was paying attention.
Draven's breath grazed the shell of my ear, and heat bloomed along the side of my neck before I could stop it.
"Third row, far left," he murmured. "Lucien Voss. He's been watching you since you walked in."
I didn't turn. Didn't react. But I filed the name and the warning, and my chest expanded—not just at the intel but at the closeness of it. Draven already reading the room for me, sharing what he saw. Like we were already a unit.
Mason was solid and quiet on my other side. I drew from both of them—Mason's steadiness anchoring me, Draven's sharpness keeping me alert—while Silvius's gilded words filled the hall.
"Team compositions," Silvius announced, and the room tightened.
He read the first name. Mine.
"Team One. Tempest Whittaker."
My stomach dropped and held. Here we go.
"Draven Loto."
Relief flooded through me before I could stop it. Draven on my team. Whatever political calculus had produced these rosters, whoever had drawn these lines, they apparently didn't know how close we'd gotten. Our connection was still ours. A small victory I tucked against my ribs.
"Raze Ulrich."
Raze bumped his shoulder against mine. "Told you. Territory."
I almost laughed. Almost.
"Lunessa Hawthorn."
I knew that name. I scanned the hall and found her a few rows down—lean, lavender braid draped over one shoulder, living vine tattoos curling along her forearms like they were still growing.
I remembered her from the Final Trial. She'd been the one who flanked the werebear shifter with me when the arena went sideways.
She sat with her arms crossed, amber eyes tracking Silvius. Not hostile. Assessing.
Good. I'd rather have someone calculating than reckless.
"Team Two."
The bond pulsed before Silvius said the name. I felt Mason brace.
"Mason Sharpe."
The hit landed in my body first. The bond between us pulled taut. We were about to be separated. Not just in seating. In everything. Different teams. Different mentors. Different schedules. The physical proximity I'd been leaning on since the bonding was gone.
Then, "Kane Ellesar."
Mason went rigid beside me. Not visibly—not in any way the room would notice.
But through the bond, I felt it. The immediate calculation, the quiet fury, the resignation underneath.
And beneath all of it, grief so sudden and unguarded it stole my breath.
Not for what Kane had done. For what they'd been.
For the friendship that had died the moment Kane chose his father over me.
Mason and Kane. Forced into close quarters.
Their friendship fractured over me, over what Kane had done, over the betrayal that still sat between them.
And I wouldn't be there. I couldn't buffer it.
Couldn't protect Mason from the daily weight of working alongside the man who'd publicly denounced the woman he loved.
And Kane—
Heat crawled up my throat, tangled with confusion and anger and something I refused to name. My pulse kicked, too fast, too hard, and I felt Mason register it through the bond—felt him feel my reaction to Kane's name the way he'd felt my reaction to Draven earlier.
No. I wasn't going there. Not today.
I shoved it down. Locked it behind my ribs where it couldn't breathe.
"Maren. Ronan Valdane."
I registered them distantly. Faces I'd place later.
"Training Partner assignments." Silvius's voice was smooth. "Team One, Anya Ravenspell."