“And you were nearly burned alive?” he asks. “Why in Malek’s name would you ever push yourself to that limit?”

“It was a punishment.” I lift my arms as power rises to a sizzling hum.

“For what?” He watches me with an expression I’m too jaded to call compassion.

“I ignored a direct order so I could protect my dragon.” The sizzle heats to a burn, and I flex my hands, letting the strike rip free.

The cloudy sky cracks open and lightning strikes on the opposite side of the bowl, hitting far above the tree line, easily a quarter mile from the boulders.

Felix blinks. “Try again.”

Reaching for Tairn’s power, I repeat the process, letting it fill me, then overflow and erupt, wielding another strike that lands halfway between the first and the stack of boulders. Pride makes my lips curve. Not bad timing. That was a pretty quick strike after the first.

But when I look at Felix, he isn’t smiling. He slowly brings his stunned gaze to mine. “What was that shit?”

“I did that in less than a minute after the first strike!” I counter.

“And if those boulders were dark wielders, you and I would be dead by now.” Two lines knit between his eyebrows. “Try again. And this time, let’s try the revolutionary tactic of aiming, shall we?”

His sarcasm fuels my frustration, and another strike rips free, hitting between us and the boulders.

“It’s a wonder you haven’t hit yourself,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I can’t aim, all right?” I snap at him, reevaluating my previous thoughts that he and Trissa—the petite, quiet one—were the nice members of the Assembly.

“According to the reports filed about Resson, you can,” he retorts, his deep voice rising with that last word. “You can aim well enough to hit a dark wielder atop a flying wyvern.”

“That’s because Andarna stopped time, but she can’t do that anymore, so I’m left with what got us through the other portion of the battle—the good old strike-and-pray method.”

“And I have no doubt that in a field of that many wyvern, you did some damage with sheer luck.” He sighs. “Explain how you hit that last strike in Resson.”

“I… It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I pulled it. I guess.” I wrap my arms around my waist to ward off the worst of the chill. Usually, I’d be warming up right about now, not feeling my toes start to lose feeling. “I released the strike, but I wrestled it into place while Andarna held time.”

“What about smaller strikes?” He turns fully to face me, his boots crunching the rock beneath us. “Like those that flow from your hands?”

What the fuck? My face must read the same because his eyes flare.

“Are you telling me that you’ve only wielded full strikes”—he points upward—“from the sky? That you just started throwing around bolts and never refined the skill?”

“I brought down a cliff on a classmate—that didn’t kill him—and from then Carr’s concern was how big and how often.” I lift my hands between us. “And lightning comes from the sky, not my hands.”

“Wonderful.” He laughs, the sound deep and… infuriating. “You just might wield the most devastating signet on the Continent, but you know nothing about it. Nothing about the energy fields that draw it. Instead of shooting your power like an arrow—precise and measured—you’re just heaving it around like boiling oil, hoping you hit something. And lightning comes from the sky or the ground depending on the storm, so why not your hands?”

Anger reddens my skin, raises my temperature, prickles my fingers, and pushes the power within me to a roar.

“You are slated to be the most powerful rider of your year—perhaps your entire generation—and yet you are just a glorified light show—”

Power erupts, and lightning flashes close enough that I feel the heat.

Felix glances to the right, where a scorch mark still smokes about twenty feet away.

Fuck. Shame races in to overpower the last vestiges of anger.

“And not only can you not aim, but you have no control,” he says without skipping a beat, like I didn’t almost torch us both.

“I can cont—”

“No.” He drops down to the pack at his feet and begins sorting through it.

“That wasn’t a question, Sorrengail. That was a fact. How often does that happen?”

Whenever I’m angry. Or in Xaden’s arms. “Too often.”

“At least we found something to agree on.” He stands and holds something out to me. “Take it.”

“What is it?” I glance at the offering, then pluck it gingerly from his outstretched hand. The glass orb fits comfortably in my palm, and the decoratively carved silvery metal strips that quarter it meet at what appear to be the top and the bottom, where a silver medallion of alloy the size of my thumb rests upright inside the glass.

“It’s a conduit,” Felix explains. “Lightning may appear from various sources, but Tairn channels his power through you. You are the vessel. You are the pathway. You are the cloud, for lack of a better term. How else do you think you can wield from a blue sky? Did you never realize it’s easier for you to wield during a storm, but you’re capable of both?”

“I never thought about it.” My fingers tingle where they meet the metal striping.

“No, you were never taught it.” He gestures around the mountainside. “Your lack of aim, of control, is not your fault. It’s Carr’s.”

“Xaden only moves shadows that are already there,” I argue, fighting down the rising emotions I’m worried will lead to another embarrassing strike.

“Xaden can control and increase what already exists. It’s why he’s more powerful at night. No two signets are alike, and you create something that was not there before. You wield pure power that takes the form of lightning because that’s what you’re most comfortable shaping it as. Apparently Carr never taught you that, either.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” I look from the orb up to Felix as the first flakes of snow flutter down. “If I was the best weapon?”

A corner of his mouth lifts into a wry smile. “Knowing Carr, I’d say he’s scared shitless of you. After all, you just took half of their cadets without even a plan. You brought down Basgiath on a fucking whim, no less.” His laugh is more incredulous than mocking this time, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

“I didn’t do that.” My fingers curl around the orb. “Xaden did.”

“He hunted riderless wyvern, deposited them on Melgren’s front door, and exposed Navarre’s greatest secret to the border outposts before noon,” Felix agrees. “But you were the one who demanded he give the cadets a choice. In that moment, you wielded him, our unyielding, uncompromising, headstrong heir apparent.”

“I did no such thing.” Energy buzzes, and I roll my shoulders as it vibrates through my limbs, building to a breaking point. “I presented a humane option, and he took it. He did it for the sake of the other cadets.”

“He did it for you,” Felix says softly. “The wyvern, the exposure, breaching Basgiath, stealing half its riders. All for you. Why do you think the Assembly wanted to lock you away in July? They saw what you were. In that way, I suppose you’re just as much a danger to Aretia as you are to Basgiath, aren’t you? Power isn’t only found in our signets.”

“I’m not powerful just because he loves me.” The bitter taste of fear fills my mouth a heartbeat before power breaks free, cracking through me like a whip, but lightning doesn’t flash. At least not in the sky.

I blink at the glowing orb, then marvel at the string of lightning that runs from where my forefinger rests against the metal strip to the alloy pendant inside. The bolt vanishes a breath later.

“No. You’re powerful and he loves you, which is even worse. Your power is too closely tied to your emotions,” Felix notes. “This will help. It’s not a permanent solution, but it will keep everyone in Aretia safe from your temper for now.”