“She was wearing a Deverelli silk robe when I answered the door.” I grab my pack from the ground and swing it over my shoulders, grimacing at the weight. “How do I know it was Deverelli silk, you ask? Because it was pretty much see-through.”
“Oh, damn!” Sawyer cringes. “Why would she… Are you…”
Rhiannon, Quinn, and even Imogen stare at him as the first-years head inside.
“Think about where she sleeps!” Ridoc smacks the back of Sawyer’s head.
“Ow! Right. You’re still in Riorson’s room,” Sawyer says slowly, blatantly turning his back on Cat as she walks by with her drift. “I forgot. Roll has you listed in Rhiannon’s room.”
Bringing an extra hundred cadets here meant doubling up, and technically, I shouldn’t be sleeping in a lieutenant’s room—not that either of us care or leadership is going to say anything to the man who owns the house.
“Which I appreciate.” Rhiannon rests her hand over her heart. “As it gives me a little privacy for whenever Tara and I actually get time to see each other.”
“Happy to help.” I crack a smile.
“Have to give it to the girl.” Imogen shakes her head, sighing as she looks past me toward Cat and her drift. “She’s tenacious.”
Every head swivels in her direction.
“Hey.” Imogen puts her hands up. “I’m Team Violet. Just saying that I bet if Xaden ever called it quits, you’d fight to get him back, too.”
Ugh. When she puts it that way…
“Do not humanize that walking piece of terror,” Rhiannon counters. “I climbed the entire cliff with her, and I’m starting to think we’d be better off having Jack Barlowe up here instead.”
He’s one person I’m glad stayed behind, no matter how nice he’d been to me. I still don’t trust that guy. Never will.
“Is Cat being…Cat again?” Bodhi asks, walking over as the courtyard empties.
“It’s fine. She’s fine. I’m fine.” I shake my head, lying through my teeth so he doesn’t tell Xaden that I can’t handle myself. “Rhiannon and I have somewhere to be.”
“We do?” Rhi’s eyebrows rise. “We do.”
“Right.” He turns to Rhiannon. “Well, Professor Trissa just chose your second-years for a new class. Tomorrow at two in the valley.”
Trissa? She’s the petite, quiet member of the Assembly.
“We’ll be there,” Rhi promises.
…
Snow falls in Aretia earlier than it does at Basgiath, and by the first week in November, a thin blanket of white covers the rapidly growing town but not the valley above, thanks to a combination of the natural thermal heat of the mountain range and the magic channeled by gryphon and dragon alike, which only seems to be increasing.
I glance toward the worn path at the end of the valley that leads down to Riorson House, anxiety churning in my stomach.
“This is awkward.” Sawyer folds his arms and levels a bored look across the fifteen feet of valley grass that separate the second-year riders in our squad from the second-year fliers in Cat’s drift.
Looks like we’ve both been summoned.
But if the line of dragons standing behind us and the gryphons behind the fliers can manage not to attack each other, surely we can be civil.
“Agreed.”
“Civil is overrated,” Andarna notes, flexing her claws in the grass. “I’ve never tasted gryphon—”
“We do not eat our allies,” Tairn lectures. “Find another snack.”
Looking right, I catch Sawyer glancing between Andarna and Tairn over and over, like he’s comparing the differences. “Don’t worry, I feel like I see double all the time.”
“It’s not that. Did she grow again?” he asks, pulling at his collar. “I feel like she grew.”
“I think a few inches this week.” I nod. “We had to add a link to her harness on each side.”
“Soon I’ll be able to fly without it,” Andarna notes with a huff.
Ridoc pivots to make his own observations, smiling up at Andarna. “The little Mini-Tairn is becoming ferocious, isn’t she—”
“I am no one’s miniature.” Andarna’s head darts toward him, and she snaps her teeth less than a foot in front of his face.
My heart bolts. “Andarna!” I shout, turning quickly to put myself between her and Ridoc as she withdraws.
“Damn!” Ridoc throws his hands up, his hair blowing back from the force of what can only be described as the frustrated huff of Tairn’s…sigh. “Big,” Ridoc blurts. “Meant to say big.”
“No more spending time with Sgaeyl.” I point at her, stopping short of tapping her chin before looking up at Tairn, who’s lowered his head over her like he might actually put her between his teeth and yank her off the field like a puppy. “I mean it. She’s rubbing off on you.”
“I could only be so lucky.” Andarna lifts her head, preening, and Tairn grumbles something in his own language.
“Holy shit,” Maren mutters from behind me.
“Sorry about that. Adolescents.” I shrug at Ridoc.
“Still can’t believe feathertails are kids,” Sawyer says, taking a step away from Andarna. “Or that you bonded two black dragons.”
“That one caught me off guard, too.”
I glance toward the path again, but there’s no sign of Rhiannon. If Professor Trissa gets here before Rhi, she’ll be in major trouble. Trissa might be the softest-spoken member of the Assembly, but she’s also the sharpest-tongued when pissed, according to what Xaden told me before he flew out for the border again this morning with Heaton and Emery. At least we’d had a night together.
The third-years went, too, patrolling the Cliffs of Dralor for wyvern and Navarrian riders.
Wyvern we wouldn’t have to worry about if I hadn’t failed to raise the wards.
“Which part’s worse?” Ridoc muses, tapping the dimple in his chin. “Them silently glaring at us like we have any fucking clue why they’re up here, too? Or their menacing escorts?” His gaze locks on the gryphons standing guard over their fliers.
Dajalair wobbles slightly, still clearly not adjusted to the altitude. I have yet to see a single gryphon fly in the week that they’ve been here.
“Both.” Sawyer unbuttons his flight jacket. “Is it me or is it getting hotter up here?”
“Hotter,” I agree, breathing a sigh of relief when Rhiannon appears, flashing me an excited smile as she hikes toward us from the other side of the field. I add to Ridoc, “And be nice. I like Maren.”
“I like Maren, too—but her best friend needs to get tossed off this cliff,” Sawyer notes under his breath.
“The gryphons are up and about faster than I thought,” Ridoc observes. “Most of them were still sleeping off the altitude a few days ago.”
The gryphon standing behind Trager, the guy with the shoulder-length brown hair and crooked smile—notices Ridoc’s appraisal, and snaps his sharp, two-foot beak in warning.
Trager smirks.
Aotrom blows a hot gust of steam over our heads, blasting all three fliers in the face with not just steam but a healthy layer of…is that snot?