Garrick
Pretty damn sure I just left my best friend to die in that field back there with that nightmare of a Blue Daggertail, and there’s not a single thing I can do about it. Bonding isn’t really a spectator sport, and there are no points for teamwork.
Not that Xaden would let me help him even if I could.
Stubborn fucking asshole.
“You all right?” Masen asks as we trek south into a dense grouping of tall pine trees.
“Yeah.” No. Not really. The pressure in my chest is going to crack my ribs open. But I’m not about to say that to another marked one. Xaden’s job is to lead. Mine is to help him, to protect his back, to keep him safe—even from himself. Being all right has jack and shit to do with any of it.
You are my pride, Garrick, my heart. But he is Tyrrendor’s.
He must live. Tyrrendor only survives if he does.
That was the last thing my father said before riding off at Fen Riorson’s side, ever the dutiful aide.
He’d looked me in the eye, pointed to Xaden as he’d given his command, kissed the top of my head like I was still a toddler in his eyes, then departed for the Battle of Aretia.
He’d be livid if he knew I just left Tyrrendor’s hope to face down a dragon on his own, but staying might have lessened his chances of living through it.
Zihnal, let him survive.
“Your mission is accomplished, Garrick Tavis.” A gravelly, older voice accented with a light burr consumes my head for the third time today, catching me off guard. “Now bring yourself here.”
I trip over a tree root and have to throw my arms out to catch my balance. Fuck this growth spurt and what it’s done to my usually unparalleled coordination. As soon as I make it through this day, I’m going to live in the gym until I can kick Xaden’s ass on the mat again.
I need to see Masen is safe first. I think it with clear intent and hope the dragon that’s been calling me since we arrived at the forest hears, that he understands.
The impatient sigh rattling my brain implies I may have achieved the first goal but perhaps not the second.
I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted an older dragon, one who’s lived through the history we’re fighting, until I heard his voice, but even having memorized the cards, I can’t immediately think of which of those willing to bond are leaning into their middling years.
“I can’t believe any of that just happened,” Masen mutters as we make it through the copse, into a section of the forest where the pine trees grow wider than a dragon and so tall they split the sky.
Snow filters through the branches, gathering in the wide spaces between trees.
“Me either.” I rake my hand over my hair and, with a series of deep breaths, try to dispel the crushing sensation in my chest. I just watched Xaden kill Prince Alic.
Not that the prick didn’t deserve it—he did.
We’d somehow managed to keep the royal pain in my ass from slitting my throat, and on a day like today, when rules are suggestions and ethics are hypothetical, it feels like I was just given a third chance at life.
I used the second long ago to get my mother out of Aretia before the Navarrians came for us. Before they dragged us to the executions. Before she ended up like Sloane and Liam’s dad, secretly slaughtered in the courtyard of their home.
Gods, I hope Sloane is all right. She hasn’t been fostered by secret sympathizers like some of us have.
“Riorson will live, right?” Masen asks, glancing over his shoulder. “We’re all fucked if anything happens to him. Not that I doubt Bodhi’s ability to lead, but we both know he doesn’t want—”
“Riorson will live,” I answer with far more certainty than I feel.
“And he’ll bond the most formidable dragon on the Continent.
” Let’s see who dares to fuck with him once that happens.
With a dragon like Sgaeyl, he could manifest a signet that will turn the tides of this war.
But a dragon like that…well, she would have burned us all alive if she hadn’t wanted him, right?
“He’ll live,” Masen repeats, holding himself a little taller.
I’d better be right.
“What happened to Soleil?” I blow on my hands to warm them up and brace for his answer.
The snow’s started again, in what has to be the earliest recorded snowfall in Basgiath history, but I leave the hood of my cloak down.
Being caught unaware by Alic was an atypical mistake that could have gotten me—or worse, Xaden—killed, and I won’t muffle even one of my senses now.
“Flew off on a Brown Clubtail,” he answers, cleaning his glasses for the third time since Sgaeyl steamed us.
“Good.” A smile creeps across my face. With one dragon calling to me, another bonding Soleil, and Sgaeyl considering Xaden, that means we were right.
There are dragons here who are on our side and this isn’t a death sentence of a day.
There’s hope, and not just for the ten of us but for the ninety-seven yet to come.
There’s hope for her next year, and that’s what matters.
I’ve loved her from the first time she punched me in the face at nine years old for suggesting she saddle a reliable horse over the barely broken one she’d selected, and I could never live with myself if I thought she was coming here only to die.
I find myself glancing south, toward home—the opposite direction of the dragon tugging at me.
The yearning hits so deep, so hard, that I splay a hand over my chest to try to muffle the ever-present ache.
It took weeks to travel here on horseback, and I would give anything to cross those hundreds of miles and mountains if just to see her face for a heartbeat.
She needs to know we have a fighting shot here, that all our training isn’t for naught.
She’s lost more than most of us, and she deserves to taste hope.
Wingbeats fill the air, and my head snaps upward as the Blue Daggertail flies overhead, banked at an angle that reveals Xaden secure in her seat.
Relief nearly takes me out at my knees, so profound that I can’t bring myself to speak or even smile.
All I can do is nod as my oldest friend flies off.
Xaden’s bonded Sgaeyl. If he can hold her to the flight field, Tyrrendor still has her hope, and Aretia—while wounded—still has her heir.
At least until some Navarrian noble decides to claim the ruined land out of spite.
We’re one step closer to not only surviving the test that was meant to kill us but coming out of the crucible more powerful than even General Sorrengail could have imagined when she struck that deal with Xaden.
“Yes!” Masen shouts, throwing his fist into the air.
Thank you, Dunne. The goddess of war surely favors Xaden in a way she never blessed his father.
The sound of pounding footsteps draws our attention eastward.
A first-year from Second Wing races in our direction from about fifty yards away, her blond braid swinging as she screams, “Help!”
“Run.” My stomach lunges for the ground, and I brace for movement, but Masen reaches for my forearm and grips. Hard.
“No,” he whispers as an Orange Clubtail comes skidding around a tree, its claws leaving deep trenches in the forest floor as it turns to face us. “We stay.”
Shit. He’s right. We should help. Not sure how, but…we’ll make it happen.
“Not me!” the cadet shouts over her shoulder, her arms pumping as she sprints in our direction. I vaguely recognize her as one of the squadmates who like to taunt Bryn. “Kill them! They’re the separatist dogs!”
Any instinct to help evaporates instantly.
“That’s not the insult you think it is,” Masen calls out. “Dogs are quite loyal.”
What in Amari’s name? My entire body is poised to run as I glance Masen’s way, my eyebrows shooting upward.
“We have to run.” I prepare to shove him if I have to.
Hell, I’ll pick him up and throw him over my shoulder.
Oranges are unpredictable as fuck, and I’m not about to let us become its next target.
“No,” he insists, planting his feet.
What is it with stubborn Tyrrish friends today?
The Orange Clubtail takes three bounding steps, then opens its massive jaws and curls its tongue. I suck in a sharp breath and hold it as fire spews from its mouth, incinerating the cadet. The heat from the blast washes over us, singeing my skin and blowing our capes back.
I take in the sulfur-scented air only once the orange closes its mouth.
“Want to run now?” I ask Masen.
He shakes his head, lets go of my arm, and starts to walk toward the orange as the steam fades from his glasses. “She’s mine.”
Oh. Now, that’s something I understand.
“I’ll see you on the flight field!” he calls back over his shoulder with a wide grin.
“You’re testing my patience.” The tugging sensation returns twice as strong as before, pulling me westward again.
I lower my eyes when the Orange Clubtail glares in my direction, then obey the instinct pulling me to the right. For the second time today, I leave a friend to stare down possible death.
But possible is immeasurably better than certain.
I’m coming. At least, I think I am. I was sure I’d locate the source of the voice in the clearing, but all I found were two angry blues, and one glance told me neither of them was him.
I send up another prayer to Dunne, this time on Masen’s behalf, and continue west toward a grouping of enormous boulders.
“Will you always put others before your own interests?” he asks as the snow picks up.
I don’t always put others first. I want plenty of things for myself. I glance to the north, then the south, looking for the best possible route around the rock formation, because I’m sure as Malek not climbing over it.
“Wanting something—someone—for yourself is not the same. It is action that matters, and you have a history of acting in the interest of others.”
Or maybe the interests of others align with mine.
I grimace as snow pelts me in the face. Can’t anything here be soft?
I change my route slightly, choosing to take the southward path around the boulders.
It’s the snowier track, but north feels wrong.
And at least I’ll be able to see the footsteps of other cadets in the snow.
“I know all about your interests, Garrick Tavis.” The burr in his tone catches on the Rs in my name. “I know the power you’ll need to pursue them.”
Then you know I’ll do whatever it takes. I shield my eyes with my hand and trudge forward as visibility turns shitty.
“It is why I seek your bloodline.”
That comment raises my brows, but I keep moving forward, curving around the largest of the boulders.
“Why I seek you.”
Earth moves to my right, and I leap out of the way, my heart jumping through my ribs as the boulder unfurls, shaking the snow from its deep-brown scales to reveal a large dragon with a scorpiontail.
I stare up at him, dumbfounded. I’ve always prided myself on my skills of observation, and now I’ve been completely floored for the second time today.
He flares his wings, shaking the snow from their tips and revealing numerous scars in the translucent membrane before he tucks them in again. “I, too, find myself bewildered at your lack of awareness.”
“I’ll do better,” I promise him, studying the pattern of his horns and placing him from the cards Kaori insisted we memorize.
“I know. Yet another reason I have finally chosen to involve myself with your kind again.” He stares at me with unblinking golden eyes.
“You’re Chradh,” I say slowly, just in case I’m wrong, because the again and his voice have definitely thrown me off.
“Now that introductions have been made…” He stands to his full height. “Shall we depart? While the snow doesn’t bother me, I have no wish to lose you to frostbite after finally having chosen you.”
There’s that finally again. “According to Kaori, you’ve never bonded before. You’re only twenty-seven years old.” It doesn’t make sense.
“What even is a year?” He tilts his head. “Now, is the weather too difficult for you?” he asks in snarky challenge.
“It might surprise you to find that nothing is too difficult for me.” I flex my fingers to wake them up, then sprint for his foreleg.
The snow causes my right boot to slip on his scales midway through the approach, but my left catches.
I muscle my way up, thankful for all the rock-climbing lessons Lewellen forced on me, and make it over his shoulder.
“Quite the contrary. I’m depending on it.”
I brush the snow from his pommel scales, hunker down in the seat, and we launch into the sky.
My heart soars as we land in the flight field a half hour later.
I may be the last to arrive, but all ten of us have bonded. All ten are riders.
Fuck you, Navarre.