“What is it?” she signs, biting her lip.
She’s first in her year. That means she’s probably trying for the adept path, the hardest of all degrees for scribes, and the one every Curator of the Scribe Quadrant has to have. It means not only does she spend more time with Markham than other scribes, but she’ll almost never leave the Archives.
Nausea grips my stomach at the very real possibility that I can’t trust her. Maybe there are no scribes within the movement for a reason.
“I was wondering if you had any older books about the founding of Basgiath? Maybe something about why they chose this location for the wards?” I sign.
“The wards?” she signs slowly.
“I’m prepping a defense for a debate in history about why Basgiath is here, instead of being built in Calldyr.” And there it is, my first real lie. There’s nothing selectively true in that statement. Nor any way to take it back. For better or worse, I am committed now to my own cause—saving as many people as I can from this war.
“Sure.” She smiles. “Wait here.”
“Thank you.”
Ten minutes later, she hands over two tomes written more than a hundred years ago, and I thank her again before leaving. The answer to protecting Aretia is in the Archives. It has to be. I just have to find it before not even the wards can save us.
It is one thing to cross the parapet your first year.
But watching countless candidates lose their life to it feels a little like dying, too.
Don’t watch if you can help it.
—PAGE EIGHTY-FOUR, THE BOOK OF BRENNAN
CHAPTER EIGHT
Conscription Day looks a little different on this side of it. I lean over the crenelations of the tower in the main war college and take note of the length of the line as the bells ring the ninth hour, but I avoid noticing the features of the individual candidates as they file in, starting up the long, winding staircase that will bring them to the parapet.
I don’t need any more faces in my nightmares.
“They’re starting up the stairs,” I tell Rhiannon, who stands poised with a quill and the roll.
“They look nervous,” Nadine says, leaning recklessly far over the edge of the tower to see the candidates lined up stories below.
They aren’t the only ones. I’m four steps away from Dain and his memory-stealing hands that could pluck every secret from my head.
I lock my shields in place just like Xaden taught me and fantasize about shoving Dain off the tower.
He’s made one attempt to talk to me, which I quickly shut down. And the look on his face? What the hell kind of right does he have to look…heartbroken?
“Weren’t you nervous?” Rhiannon asks Nadine. “Personally, I wouldn’t have made it across without Vi here.”
I shrug and hop onto the wall, taking a seat to the left of Rhi. “I only gave you a little more traction. You had the courage and balance to make it across.”
“It’s not raining like it was during our Parapet.” Nadine looks up at the cloudless July sky and wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “Hopefully more of them make it across.” She glances my way. “You’d have thought your mother would have held off the storm last year, considering you were crossing.”
“Clearly you don’t know my mother.” She wouldn’t call the storm to kill me like a coward, but she sure as hell wouldn’t stop it to save me, either.
“Only ninety-one dragons have agreed to bond this year,” Dain says, leaning back against the wall beside the entrance to the parapet. He’s in the exact position Xaden was in last year and has the same exact insignia on his shoulder— wingleader. The asshole gets Liam and Soleil killed and is promoted as a reward. Go figure. “More candidates making it across isn’t going to equal more riders.” He glances my way but quickly averts his gaze.
Nadine opens the wooden door at the top of the turret and glances down the stairwell. “They’re about halfway up.”
“Good.” Dain pushes off the wall. “Remember the rules. Matthias and Sorrengail, your jobs are only to take the final roll before Parapet. Don’t engage—”
“We know the rules.” I brace my hands on the wall beside my thighs and wonder for the tenth time since I woke up this morning when Xaden will arrive today.
Maybe then I can address the three books on the craft of weaving fabric into traditional Tyrrish knots he left for me—strips of fabric included—on the desk of my new room on the second-year floor. It’s not like I need a hobby.
But the note Xaden left on the stack of books? The one that read I meant what I said on the parapet. Even when I’m not with you, there’s only you. That needed no explanation.
He’s fighting.
“Fine,” Dain says, drawing out the word as he stares at me. “And Nadine—”
“I don’t have a job.” Nadine shrugs and picks at the strings of her uniform where she cut the sleeves off. “I was just bored.”
Dain frowns at Rhiannon. “Running a tight ship there, squad leader.”
What an ass.
“There are no regulations about four riders on the turret during Parapet,” she counters. “Don’t even get me started this morning, Aetos.” She looks up from her perfectly numbered scroll and raises a finger. “And if you even think about telling me to call you wingleader, I’ll remind you that Riorson did a hell of a job without needing everyone to supplicate themselves to him.”
“Because he scared the shit out of everyone,” Nadine mutters. “Well, everyone except Violet.”
I fight my smile and lose as Dain tenses, clearly at a loss for words.
“Since it’s only us,” Rhiannon says, “what do you know about the new vice commandant?”
“Varrish? Nothing besides the fact that he’s a complete hard-ass who thinks the quadrant has gone soft in the years since he graduated,” Dain answers. “He’s friends with my father.”
Figures.
“Yeah, it’s a real daydream around here,” Rhiannon responds sarcastically.
After Resson, I’m starting to realize that there’s a purpose to pushing us to the point of breaking. Better to shatter in here than get your friends killed once we leave.
“Here they come,” Nadine says, moving out of the way as the first candidates reach the top, their chests heaving from the climb.
“They look so young,” I tell Tairn, shifting my weight on the wall and wishing I’d been a little more careful wrapping my left knee this morning. Sweat has already loosened the brace, and the slipping fabric annoys the shit out of me.
“So did you,” he replies with a low growl. He’s been pissy for the past two days, and I can’t blame him. He’s torn between doing exactly what he wants— flying to Sgaeyl—and seeing me punished for his actions.
The first candidate’s gaze swings from Nadine’s purple hair to the crown of mine, showing all its silver in my usual coronet braid. “Name?” I ask.
“Jory Buell,” she says, struggling to catch her breath. She’s tall, with good boots and what looks to be a balanced pack, but her exertion is going to work against her on the parapet.