I nod again, incapable of speech. Bodhi. Xaden. Mira. Rhi. Brennan. Ridoc. Sawyer. Imogen… The list of people I’ve failed goes on and on. We’re only here because I made my friends steal the journal in the first place, and then… nothing? Anger sparks in my chest, and power rushes in, heating my skin.

I don’t fail. I’ve never failed anything in my life. Well, that first RSC land navigation, but that doesn’t count. That was everyone. This is me.

“Offer the viscount twice the number of weapons he asked for,” Ulices says, his voice fading with his footsteps.

“I’ll send a missive tomorrow,” Brennan promises as the others walk out of the chamber.

We have no wards. No weapons. Almost no experienced riders. All because I acted recklessly.

Power builds, vibrating my fingertips.

Felix moves to my side, his somber gaze studying me before he holds out his hand.

I blink, glancing at his palm, then up to his face.

“Your hand.” He lifts his brow.

I hold my uninjured one out, and instead of touching me, he tilts his head and watches the slight trembling of my fingers.

“I suppose we’d better start tomorrow.” He sighs. “Skip the run. We’ll be training your signet.” His bootsteps echo in the chamber, and I turn, watching him walk out, my gaze catching on the tight lines of Xaden’s mouth as Kylynn lectures him with quiet words, the mage lights reflecting on the steel of her battle-ax strapped to her back.

Xaden was right. War requires weapons.

“Take me to Tecarus,” I demand.

His gaze flies to mine and his jaw flexes. “I would rather die.”

“We all will if you don’t.”

“Not going to happen. Subject closed.” He folds his arms across his chest and goes back to his discussion with Kylynn.

Fuck this.

I walk straight past him, taking the path out of the chamber. There’s no way I’m going to leave my friends defenseless when I’m the reason they got dragged into this.

“Violet!” Brennan shouts, running to catch up with me.

“Go away,” I snap at my brother.

“With that look on your face? I don’t think so.”

“What look?” I shoot a glare in his direction, even though I know this isn’t his fault.

“The same one you had at eight years old, when you stared Mom down over a plate of squash for twelve straight hours.”

“I’m sorry?” Rocks crunch underfoot as we make our way down the path to Riorson House.

“Twelve. Hours.” He nods. “Dad said to let you go to bed, that you weren’t going to eat them, and Mom said you weren’t going to sleep until you did.”

“What’s your point?”

“When I got up the next morning, Mom and Dad were both asleep at the table, and you were snacking on bread and cheese. I know that face, Violet. When you dig in about something, you’re more tenacious than all of us put together, so no, I won’t be going away.”

“Fine.” I shrug. “You can be the tagalong sibling for once.” Within minutes, we’re in through the guarded back door of Riorson House, walking through the network of hallways to the main corridor. “Tairn.”

“Oh, this should be fun,” Andarna answers.

I feel Tairn’s sigh long before I hear it.

“You know it’s the only way.” Another turn later, we walk into the overwhelming noise of the great hall. Long trestle tables line the space, and my gaze skips over each one, bypassing the one where my squad sits and locking onto the table of new riders who arrived today.

“I will consider it,” Tairn begrudgingly agrees.

“Thank you.” I move through the sea of black with Brennan on my heels, locking eyes with Mira as I approach where she sits at the end of her table with her friends.

“Violet?” Her gaze narrows on my bandaged hand before she sets her pewter mug down.

“I need your help.”

His first true action of rebellion was to seek allies, the first of which was Viscount Tecarus of the Poromish province of Krovla.

—THE TYRRISH REBELLION, A FORBIDDEN HISTORY

BY COLONEL FELIX GERAULT

CHAPTER FORTY

Xaden vetoed my second pitch to head to Cordyn like an overprotective asshole, and then I happily took him to bed, content with my own plans. He was gone again to look for more Navarrian deserters before I woke up this morning.

If I didn’t feel him in my swollen lips and every sore muscle in my body, I’d almost think I dreamed him coming back yesterday.

Guess this is our new normal.

“Well?” Felix folds his arms over his barrel chest and lifts a silver brow at me.

Crisp, snow-scented wind whips at my cheeks as we stand between our dragons, a thousand feet over the tree line on a bowl-shaped mountainside about a ten-minute flight from the valley above Aretia.

“Those boulders?” I point across the ridge to a stack of three boulders as Tairn shifts his weight, the snow crunching under his claws.

“Would it help if I painted them?”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. “No, it’s just that Carr never cared where I struck, as long as I increased the number of strikes in an hour.” I roll my shoulders and open the gates on Tairn’s power, feeling it rush through my veins and heat my skin.

Felix looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “Well, I guess we’ll see what that technique has gotten us.”

“I can wield twenty-six an hour on a good day, and I’ve been pushed over forty, but that last strike broke that mountain and… ” The memory steals my words.