Chapter Eighteen
The Briefing Tent is even busier than last month, jam-packed enough that, despite the colder weather, the sides are still rolled up to let the recruits stuck outside listen in.
Throwing Talen’s flight jacket around the back of the chair, I drop into it.
Neeve and I only just made it in time to grab one of the last seats at the back, the crowd pressing in around us.
But it’s just us. Ezzy didn’t come. She stayed back in the kitchen.
She stayed back in the kitchen. She’s there all day now, leaving our tent before sunrise and coming back well after it’s set.
With a heavy sigh, I loosen my grip on the brown paper bag and open it. Inside is a small pile of purple Honeyberries. But winter is ages away, they won’t be in season for at least four months. Where did Talen even get these?
The question fades the second I taste one, sweetness bursting across my tongue and my eyes slip shut. Damn, they taste so good. I still can’t believe something this small and delicious can be deadly enough to kill him.
Opening my eyes, I grab the next one, then the next, and it isn’t until the bag is empty that the thought finally lands.
It’s my birthday? I hadn’t even realised.
Has it really been a year since my twenty-first, when I sat on the hill at Ashvale, overlooking the Innerlands, wondering what my mum would have said?
If she’d laugh and say I turned out just like her, or if she’d just see everything I’m not. Everything I cost her, them...
Rubbing my thumb over the scar on the back of my hand, I stare at it as a dull ache starts to spread through my chest, but then Ahria shoots past, perching herself at the front of the tent with the other dragons, her violet gaze pinned on me.
Scrunching up the empty paper bag, I shove it back into my pocket along with everything else I don’t want to feel, don’t want her to see, and sit up straighter.
Canvas flaps beside me as an early autumn breeze drifts in, sending a small chill skimming down my arm—but before the shiver can take hold, the air around me shifts. Talen’s flight jacket tugs up, then slides around my shoulders, settling there like it was placed by unseen hands.
My brows knit. How the—
Turning, scanning for the source of the movement, I catch Merrin with Magda, Darren, and Lucien making their way toward the front. And just behind them—
Talen.
His fingers twitch once at his sides, subtle enough I might’ve missed it if his gaze hadn’t flicked briefly to the jacket now hanging off my shoulders before returning to mine.
For a second I’m completely lost in them, but then he throws me a quick wink, sending blood rushing to my cheeks all over again.
Dropping my head down fast, I pull his jacket up higher, as if that will somehow be enough to contain the embarrassment threatening to burn straight through me.
Okay, it’s just an hour or so. I only have to survive the briefing. Then I can go crawl into a hole and let the earth bury me. Just sit still, keep my attention forward, and not think about last night. Not think about the fact that he knows I liked it, that they all know.
Humiliation quickly shifts back to rage and my jaw locks. God, when I see Reya next—
“You okay?” Neeve asks as I shift in my seat, my body betraying the tension I’m trying to hide.
“Uh-huh—yeah. All good.” Dragging my thumb along the edges of my nails, I keep my focus fixed ahead, looking past the rows of heads to where Merrin now stands at the front, the other senior recruits and riders—including Talen—gathered off to one side.
“I want to start by sharing my deepest regrets for the loss of not one, but two of our best riders this month, along with the lives of those they were helping to evacuate.” Merrin’s voice bellows around us and the Briefing Tent falls silent for a moment, heads dipping in respect.
In the quiet, I can’t help noticing that something doesn’t sit right, as though Merrin has suddenly aged. But the silence doesn’t last long.
“How did Serrane know?” An older male recruit in the middle asks, his voice wavering. “From what I heard it was as if his ‘dark army’ were waiting for them, like they knew they would be there.”
A ripple passes through the crowd at that, bodies shifting as uneasy murmurs spread through the tent and a faint pressure starts to build beneath my ribs.
It’s so frustrating, over the past month I’ve constantly tried to pry more detailed information out of Reya and Lucien.
Especially what happened to Matterson. But every time I get close to something useful, they dodge the question or find an excuse to leave, like they don’t trust me enough to risk saying too much.
Merrin doesn’t react to the rising panic, his posture remaining steady and unreadable. “The camp is getting too large to hide, which, unfortunately, makes ambushes more likely.”
It’s a clean answer, logical, but the way he delivers it makes it feel… incomplete. Like even he doesn’t quite believe that’s the whole truth.
“I think someone must have told them,” Neeve mutters beside me. “It was way too perfect…”
“You think someone’s leaking information?” I pull Talen’s flight jacket tighter around me as the delayed shiver finally hits, this one not just from the cold. “But who would even do that?”
She shrugs, already turning her attention back to Merrin.
“Even if the ambush was just by chance—” This time it’s One-eyed Lee who stands, his eyepatch catching the light as he pushes to his feet. “They had riders. Not just dragons—bonded riders. How is that even possible?”
Goddamn Lee. Now you want to bloody listen? I bite back a huff. I’d like to see how long you’d last out there against Serrane with your current Threads.
“Serrane is forcing the bond somehow,” Merrin states, and the tent erupts. Gasps break out, panic colliding as heads whip toward one another, the idea catching and spreading faster than anyone can contain it.
“Why would he do that?” A girl at the front calls.
“That’s not—”
“Yet another reason,” Merrin continues over the noise, his voice effortlessly carrying through the rising chaos of the room, “why we believe he’s harvesting the pure Threads from both people and dragons, because once he has them he can control them. Manipulate them.”
Tension spreads through my legs as my fingers dig into them. Beside me, Neeve does the same, her knee knocking lightly into mine as she moves.
If Serrane’s able to do that… if the people he’s harvesting Threads from can bond, then they can wield the power of their dragons.
Oh fuck.
“What about moving the camp?” The older recruit from the middle pipes back up again, but there’s an edge to him now—less curiosity, more urgency. “We heard there’s somewhere safer—somewhere our families can join us. My wife and son are still stuck in the Water Realm, they can’t get out.”
At the front, I catch Lucien raising a brow toward Talen, who stiffens in response.
“This is something we are working on.” Merrin keeps his gaze forward as he sinks his hands into his pockets. “But there are a few issues we need to sort out first.”
“Then we need to stop the Census,” I call out, lifting my arms and gesturing toward the world beyond the tent, earning nods and murmurs of agreement from many. “Or at least delay it. Who knows how many people he could take?”
“If we could stop it, we would have already.” Merrin doesn’t soften the answer.
“And as for delaying it—Talen and Lucien, along with our most experienced recruits, will be scouring the Innerlands and the Citadel in the coming weeks. Working our contacts, following every lead, for as long as it takes to find a way to do so. The moment we have more information, you will know. But for now,” Merrin goes on, stepping back.
“Please pay attention as Magda is going to conduct a roll call. This camp has grown too large, and it’s time we make sure every person here is accounted for. ”
With an awkward nod, Merrin gestures Magda over. She nods back just as awkwardly and steps forward, her lean frame towering over him as she unravels a long strip of parchment that spills toward the ground.
“Michelle Albridges,” she calls out, her silver tooth flashing in the midday light.
“Here,” a fellow red-headed female nearby responds.
“Lee Axton.”
“Here.”
Prick.
As each recruit answers, Magda marks them off with quick, precise strokes.
My name comes up quickly, and then I wait for Ezzy’s next—but when Magda calls it, she only glances toward the Food Tent and ticks it off herself.
After that, I’m left sitting there, waiting for the remaining two hundred or so names to be called with nothing else to hold onto, so my focus drifts—and it doesn’t take long before it finds Talen.
His head is angled toward Lucien, listening as he talks. Whatever he’s saying, Talen doesn’t seem pleased to hear it—his brows are drawn low and his arms are folded across his chest while his fingers keep his talisman rolling in a slow, restless spin.
God, why does he look hotter when he’s pissed?
The rhythm beneath my ribs starts to pick up, climbing for my throat as I take him in, and before I can stop it, my mind slips back to the dream.
Not Reya.
Him.
The hunger and restraint in his eyes as he watched my body arch with pleasure. The way the fabric of his trousers pulled taut as he got harder and harder, and how desperate I was to have him push off the wall, to storm over and take me then and there.
The image sends a sharp pulse of need racing right through me, licking up my legs and forcing me to adjust in my seat. Digging my nails into the edge of the wooden chair, I try to steady myself.
I know why I’m keeping my distance, some twisted self-inflicted punishment, but still...
At the front, Lucien keeps chewing Talen’s ear off, and I catch Talen rolling his eyes in response, his lips pulling thin—bored or frustrated, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter.
All I can think about is how much I want that mouth at my neck, those hands sliding under me, lifting up, pulling me in—