Xaden’s gaze meets mine for a heartbeat before he walks to the front of Fourth Wing.
I should have known going for Dain’s pride would include a spectacle.
The squad shuffles, making room for Imogen and me in our usual places, and my face heats at the blatant stares from my friends.
“That was…interesting,” Rhiannon whispers at my side, her eyes puffy and red.
“That was hot,” Nadine comments from in front of us, standing beside Sawyer.
“Love triangles can get so fucking awkward, don’t you think?” Imogen says.
I shoot a glare over my shoulder at her for going along with Xaden’s implication—or assumption, but she shrugs unapologetically.
“Gods, I missed you.” The blue streak in Quinn’s short blond curls bobs as she shoulder-bumps Imogen. “War Games sucked. You didn’t miss much.”
Captain Fitzgibbons steps forward on the dais, sweat dripping down his face as he continues from where we interrupted, reading names from the death roll.
“Seventeen so far,” Rhiannon whispers. The final test for War Games is always deadly, ensuring only the strongest riders move on to graduation—but Liam was the strongest of our year, and that didn’t save him.
“Soleil Telery. Liam Mairi,” Captain Fitzgibbons calls out.
I struggle to force air through my lungs and fight the sting in my eyes as the rest of the names blur together until the scribe finishes the roll, commending their souls to Malek.
None of us cry.
Commandant Panchek clears his throat, and though there’s no need to magically amplify his voice over the small numbers we’ve been whittled down to over the last year, he can’t seem to help himself. “Beyond military commendations, there are no words of praise for riders. Our reward for a job well done is living to see the next duty station, the next rank. In keeping with our traditions and standards, those of you who have completed your third year will now be commissioned as lieutenants in the army of Navarre. Step forward when your name is called to receive your orders. You have until morning to depart for your new duty stations.”
Starting with First Wing, the third-years are named section by section, and each collects their orders before leaving the courtyard.
“It’s kind of underwhelming,” Ridoc whispers from my other side, earning a glare from Dain as he looks over his shoulder from two rows ahead.
Fuck him.
“Just saying, surviving three years of this place should come with a lifetime supply of ale and a party so good you can’t remember it.” He shrugs.
“That’s for tonight,” Quinn says. “Are they…handwriting those orders?”
“For the third-years they thought were dead,” Heaton says from the back row.
“Who do you think is going to be our new wingleader?” Nadine whispers from behind me.
“Aura Beinhaven,” Rhiannon answers. “She was instrumental in Second Wing’s win for War Games, but Aetos didn’t do too badly filling in for Riorson, either.”
Heaton and Emery are called up from our squad.
I glance at the others, remembering the first-years who started with us but won’t finish. The first-years who either lie buried at the foot of Basgiath in endless rows of stones or were taken home to be put to rest. The second-years who will never see a third star on their shoulders. The third-years like Soleil who were certain they’d graduate only to fall.
Maybe this place is exactly what the gryphon flier had called it—a death factory.
“Xaden Riorson,” the commandant calls out, and my pulse leaps as Xaden strides forward to take his orders, the last third-year in formation.
Nausea grips my stomach, and I sway. He’ll be gone by morning. Gone. Telling myself that I’ll see him every few days because of Tairn and Sgaeyl’s mating bond doesn’t quell the panic quickening my breaths. He won’t be here. Not on the mat, testing and pushing me to be better. Not in Battle Brief or on the flight line.
I should be happy for the space, but I’m not.
Panchek resumes his place at the podium, running his hands down the trim lines of his uniform as though smoothing away any wrinkles.
“I’ll find you before I go.” Xaden’s voice cuts through my shield and spiraling thoughts, then fades as he walks out of the courtyard and into the dormitory.
At least we’ll get to say goodbye. Or fight our goodbyes. Whatever.
“Congratulations to the new lieutenants,” Panchek says. “The rest of you will report to central issue to turn in your uniforms—yes, you may keep your earned patches—and pick up your new ones. From this moment, seconds are now third-years and firsts are now second-years, with all the privileges that entails. New command designations will be posted in commons this evening. You are dismissed.”
A resounding cheer goes up in the courtyard, and I’m grabbed into a hug by Ridoc, then Sawyer, then Rhiannon, and even Nadine.
We made it. We’re officially second-years.
Out of the eleven first-years who came through our squad during the year, both before and after Threshing, the five of us are the only ones left standing.
For now.
After three consecutive deaths of prisoners during his interrogations, it is this command’s opinion that Major
Burton Varrish should be reassigned from an active wing until further notice.
—MISSIVE FROM LIEUTENANT COLONEL DEGRENSI, SAMARA OUTPOST, TO GENERAL MELGREN
CHAPTER FIVE
Riders party as hard as we fight.
And we fight pretty damned hard.
The gathering hall is more raucous than I’ve ever seen it by the time the sun begins to set that evening. Cadets gather around—or in Second Wing’s case, on top of—tables overflowing with food and pitchers of sweet wine, frothy ale, and a lavender lemonade that clearly has its fair share of distilled liquor.
Only the dais table is empty. For this one moment, there are no wingleaders, no section leaders, not even a squad leader in sight. Other than the stars on the fronts of our shoulders that denote our years at Basgiath, we’re all equal tonight. Even the newly anointed lieutenants who wander in to say their goodbyes aren’t in our chain of command.
There’s a pleasant buzz in my head, courtesy of the lemonade and the two silver stars on my shoulder.
“Chantara?” Rhiannon asks, leaning forward to look past me and lifting her brows at Ridoc, who is seated on my other side. “Out of every privilege that comes with being a second-year, that’s what you’re looking forward to? It’s only a rumor.”
The village that supplies Basgiath has always been open to second-years from the Healer Quadrant, Scribe Quadrant, and Infantry Quadrant, but not ours. We’ve been banned for nearly a decade after a fight led to a local bar burning down.
“I’m just saying I heard they might lift the ban finally, and we’ve been stuck with this dating pool for the last year,” Ridoc states, using his cup to motion around the hall, which is mostly behind us. “So even the possibility of getting leave to spend a few hours in Chantara every week is definitely what I’m looking forward to the most.”
Nadine grins, her eyes sparkling as she gathers the hair she dyed purple this evening in one hand so it doesn’t fall into the pitcher, and leans over the table to clink her glass against Ridoc’s cup. “Hear, hear. It is getting a little…” She wrinkles her button nose, glancing past Sawyer at the other squads in our wing. “Familiar around here. I bet by third year it will feel downright incestuous.”