“I didn’t know,” Dain interrupts. “So if one of them felt that energy pulse… If one of them knows what it means…”
“Whoever created them knows,” I finish for him, turning my gaze to Brennan. “And you can bet they’ll come for us now.”
It was only in the last fifty years that we realized they were no longer solely coming from the Barrens. They’d begun to take recruits, teaching those who never bonded a gryphon to channel what was not theirs to take, to upset the balance of magic by stealing it from the very source.
The problem with mankind is we too often find our souls to be a fair price for power.
—CAPTAIN LERA DORRELL’S GUIDE TO VANQUISHING THE VENIN PROPERTY OF CLIFFSBANE ACADEMY
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Coralee Ryle. Nicholai Panya,” a newly pinned Major Devera calls out over the frost-covered courtyard, reading from what’s become the new death roll. For the first time since entering the quadrant, the names called every morning for the last week haven’t been cadets, but active riders—and fliers—on the front lines, fighting to fortify the villages along the Stonewater River. Trying to divert the venin’s attention from our valley, where four new dragons have hatched.
Don’t say Mira. Don’t say Mira. Don’t say Mira. It’s become my personal prayer to whatever god will listen while standing in formation.
I feel so fucking useless. Unlike the last two weeks, there’s no luminary to fetch, no wards to fail at. There’s a real war down there, and we’re up here learning history and physics.
“We lost two yesterday?” Aaric tenses in the row ahead.
Rhiannon glances back over her shoulder at me, sorrow haunting her eyes for a heartbeat before she composes herself with a grace I can never seem to manage and straightens her shoulders at Sawyer’s side. Two riders in one day is unfathomable in active service. The entirety of the Aretian Quadrant will be dead in less than two months at this rate.
“I think that’s Isar’s brother,” Ridoc says from beside me. “Second Wing.”
We both glance left, past Third Wing. Isar Panya bows her head from the middle of her squad in Tail Section.
I blink back the burning in my eyes, and my fingers squeeze tight around the conduit in my left hand.
“He was a lieutenant,” Imogen says quietly.
“Two years ahead of us,” Quinn adds. “Great sense of humor.”
“This is cruel,” I whisper. “Telling us that our siblings, our friends are dead this way is fucking cruel.” It’s harsher than anything we’ve been put through at Basgiath.
“It’s no different than morning formation,” Visia says over her shoulder.
“Yes, it is,” Sloane argues. “Hearing someone from a different wing died, or hell, even our squad, isn’t the same as being told your brother’s gone.” Her voice cracks.
A lump swells painfully in my throat. Brennan is inside, no doubt arguing with the Assembly about where to find game for the tsunami of predators we’ve brought here over the last month or coordinating shipments from the now-functioning forge. He’s safe.
Every commissioned rider that isn’t here teaching has been sent in shifts to man the outposts along the Cliffs of Dralor, like Xaden, Garrick, Heaton, and Emery…or to hold the front, like Mira.
Devera clears her throat and exchanges the roll for the one Jesinia holds.
My shoulders dip, a breath of relief clouding the freezing air. Mira’s alive. Or at least she was last night when the rotational rider brought the news in. Morning formation doesn’t scare me when it comes to Xaden—I’d know instantly if he…
Gods, I can’t even think it.
“Chrissa Verlin,” Devera begins reading from the commissioned fliers’ roll. “Mika Renfrew—”
“Mika!” A low, guttural scream erupts from our right, and every head turns to a drift near the center of the fliers’ formation as a guy falls to his knees. The rest of his drift turns, covering him with comforting arms.
“I’m never going to get used to hearing them do that,” Aaric mutters, shifting his weight.
“Hearing them what?” Sloane counters. “Have emotions?”
“Sorrengail knows what I mean. You’ve been out there—” Aaric says to me.
“And I cried like an infant while Liam died. Turn around.” Shit, isn’t that at odds with everything I told Rhiannon when we fought beside the Gauntlet? The deaths are supposed to harden us, so why do I agree with Sloane on this one? There’s something infinitely more…human about the way the fliers react.
Even the way they conduct their own Threshing at Cliffsbane is considerably less cruel than what we endure at Basgiath. Now I can’t decide if it makes us stronger…or simply harder.
“— and Alvar Gilana,” Devara concludes. “We commend their souls to Malek.”
I glance right—just like I do every morning—and see Cat’s posture soften, her eyes close briefly from her drift on the closest edge of their formation. Syrena is still alive, too.
She looks over at me and I nod, which she returns, even if it’s curt. It’s our one daily moment of truce, the only time we seem to recognize each other as little sisters instead of enemies, and it’s over in less than a heartbeat.
Her gaze shifts into a glare as formation breaks.
Swear to Amari, Cat’s hell-bent on making my life as miserable as fucking possible every other minute of the day and tries twice as hard on the days Xaden is here. Her loathing makes Sloane look downright warm and fuzzy—and worse, her entire drift seems focused on our squad, with five of the remaining six—Maren being the exception—blaming me for Luella’s death and loudly proclaiming that I chose the rider over the flier.
The tall guy with shoulder-length brown hair—pretty sure his name is Trager—swung for Ridoc on the valley’s flight field two days ago and ended up with Rhiannon’s fist in his face when he ran his mouth about her particular border village turning away refugees. His lip is still scabbed. Guess our little hike up the cliffs didn’t bond us like they’d hoped.
“What did she do this morning?” Rhiannon asks, looking Cat’s direction with a raised brow.
“Knocked on my door before dawn, then got all annoyed when I actually answered the damned thing.” Just the thought of it has my hand warming along the conduit. Felix has replaced the alloy in my conduit twice this week, but at least my inability to control my own power is helping imbue alloy for daggers, so in a way, I’m helping the war effort, since my attempt at activating the wardstone failed. I roll my right shoulder, hoping to ease the ache now that I’ve ditched the sling, but it still protests.
“Is she running out of bullshit to pull on you?” Ridoc asks as we start to move toward the door. It takes twice as long to get out of formation here than at Basgiath, considering Riorson House was built for keeping people out, not letting them in. “That doesn’t sound as bad as Saturday, when she posted that list of all the fliers Mira has taken out over the years.”
That day had been a treat and definitely soothed relations between riders and fliers. We’d had at least a dozen more fights than usual break out in the hallways.