I look over and see a healer, Dyre, a few feet to my right, staring straight at Baide, his mouth agape.
A growl rumbles up the orange’s throat, and I lunge, gripping the strap of Dyre’s medical pack and yanking him behind us, passing him to Ridoc, who quickly shoves him to safety and moves to my side.
“No, she’s not,” Sawyer says, moving forward with Ridoc so the infantry is behind us. “That’s why we’re taking the front.”
Baide swivels her head, then opens her mouth and curls her tongue, and I chance a quick glance, catching her hazy golden eyes narrowing to slits as she arches her neck, changing her angle instead of lowering her head to strike in the typical—
I inhale sharply. “Rhi, she’s going to blast right past us just like Solas.”
Rhi takes less than a second to assess and decide. “Second Wing,” she calls back. “Halt and cover the infantry where you are!”
Movement behind us ceases as Baide flexes her claws in the ground and swivels again, choosing a target.
“It’s… It’s…” Calvin babbles.
“Drop your eyes and shut up,” Rhi orders.
“Gods, they all smell scared,” Ridoc whispers from my right.
“Exactly how pissed at you do you think she is?” Sawyer asks me from Rhi’s left.
“She dropped a mountain on her rider.” Ridoc sighs like we’re all fucked, and I couldn’t agree more.
My heart leaps into my throat as Baide prowls backward, lowering her head to our level. It’s the perfect angle to torch us, but I resist the urge to look and keep my eyes trained on the grass in front of me.
Hot air gusts in our direction as she scents each of us, starting with Rhiannon and moving to Sawyer. There are a few muffled cries from the infantry cadets as she exhales a dank huff of steam, then breathes in again when directly in front of me.
I fight my racing heart. Last year, I might have accepted death. But this year…this year, I’m bonded to one of the deadliest dragons on the Continent.
That’s right. You might hate me, but I belong to Tairn.
And while there’s a good chance Tairn might die if I do, I’m not sure any dragon is willing to risk his wrath if he doesn’t. Baide draws back, then darts forward with an open jaw, snapping her teeth shut directly in front of my nose and pelting my face with saliva.
Holy. Shit.
Someone behind us screams, then fucking runs.
“No! Gwen!” Calvin shouts as Cadet Quiet breaks to the left, sprinting through the grass.
Baide’s head swings, tracking the movement, and my heart sinks as she drops her jaw, the side of her tongue visible ahead of me as it curls—
“Down!” Rhi shouts as the other squad leader, Tomas, runs after Gwen, catching her within a few strides and yanking her back by her uniform in the same way I’d snatched Dyre from the front, all but throwing her at Calvin as we drop as ordered. She stumbles to the ground at Calvin’s feet just as Baide’s nostrils flare.
Heat consumes the air around us at the same second my chest hits the ground, and I close my eyes like that can block out the sounds of screaming behind us.
“The Northern Esbens are believed to have been the hatching grounds of the orange dragon before unification, though, true to their unpredictable nature, they often chose new valleys in the same range,” I whisper as fire rages past, fighting to keep my heart from seizing.
I haven’t known this type of terror since Tairn began channeling, and definitely not since I manifested my signet.
The blast ceases, and Baide snaps her jaws shut, then swings her massive head in front of us one more time before crouching deeply and launching directly over us. I drop my gaze as her poison-barbed tail comes within a foot of me.
And then she’s gone.
We all scramble to our feet, and riders run…toward nothing. Brisa is the first to reach the charred ground where Tomas had stood. Her hand shakes as she reaches toward the still-smoking earth. My mouth waters as nausea rolls through me, but I keep my breakfast down.
Mirabel isn’t as lucky, retching in the grass a few feet away.
“Tomas…” Cohen kneels beside Brisa.
Rhi pivots to face the terrified infantry, her fists clenched at her side. “And that,” she shouts, “is why you don’t fucking run!”
There’s a course second year that I can’t tell you about, other than to say that it’s hell.
My only advice? Don’t piss off anyone else’s dragon.
—PAGE NINETY-SIX, THE BOOK OF BRENNAN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When the sun sets the next day and we have yet to reach an extraction point, it’s clear we’ve failed our land navigation exercise.
All because we didn’t stop to make sure the two fucking maps matched and now have no clue where we are. Blisters have long since formed and popped on my feet, my bones ache from sleeping on the ground last night, and the idea of spending another night out here, just to wander aimlessly again in the morning, makes me want to scream in frustration.
How could something as simple as land navigation fuck us up this badly?
We’ve backtracked, crossed two creeks that look like they could belong on either of the maps, and narrowly avoided an encounter with an ornery Red Daggertail who—lucky for us—decided a nearby cow looked tastier than weary, hungry cadets.
As I sit against the trunk of a tree down the slight incline from our makeshift camp, relieving Ridoc of watch, it hits me that I know a slew of new names. Not that infantry dies at Basgiath at the same rate riders do, even though they’re the biggest quadrant, with over a thousand cadets at any given time, but once they get to their units? The upcoming war will devour them at a far faster pace.
“Did you get dinner?” Ridoc asks, brushing grass off his pants as he stands.
“I’ll grab some when I’m done.” I slip my pack from my shoulders and set it next to me. Not only have I been hiking for two days, I’ve carried textbooks with me. We all have. “Infantry caught a good amount of rabbit that should be done cooking any minute.”
“They’re way better at that than we are,” he admits begrudgingly, ruffling his hair. “You don’t think they’ll let us meander out here forever, do you?”
“I think whatever they gave us has to inevitably wear off.” I turn my head and see Cadet Dyre walking toward us with Rhiannon, carrying a plate. “And our dragons aren’t going to let us perish over our inability to work together enough to compare two maps. Then again, maybe they will. We might deserve it, since our stubbornness cost Tomas his life.”
“It’s…” He sighs, waving to the pair as they reach us. “Hey, Rhi. I was just saying that this whole exercise is a little cruel, don’t you think? Practicing torture, I get. Navigating land, I understand. Evading capture, sure. I’ll even make an argument for having to learn what bugs are edible. But it’s not like other dragons are waiting behind enemy lines to kill us.”
“You’d be surprised,” I mutter, exhaustion getting the better of my tongue.
“What?” Rhi questions.
“I mean, we really don’t know what’s out there, do we?”
“Hopefully not fire-breathing gryphons,” Ridoc says.