His gaze narrows for a second, and then he sighs. “Point made.”

I gather the layers of my skirts in my hands and start down the steps. Nerves tighten my ribs, but I shake them off. If I wield enough strikes, certainly one of them will hit.

Wasn’t that what got us through Resson before Andarna arrived?

“I’m coming,” Mira announces from behind me. “It’s not like I have anything to do with her signet,” she yells back at Tecarus as she catches up to me.

The viscount doesn’t argue.

“And mine isn’t effective this far from the wards,” she finishes in a whisper. “I tried earlier and nothing happened.”

“Don’t worry. We don’t need you to shield. Just dodge the chest if it explodes,” I respond, giving her a tight smile. “What greater treasure was your father negotiating for?” I ask Xaden once we’re about halfway down the sand-colored stone. I can’t even imagine how long it would have taken to quarry enough stone to build this, let alone bring it back from the edge of Braevick.

“An alliance my father made that I officially denied last year. The chest is priceless. If he wants you to destroy it with lightning, then this is more a statement about me and less about you.”

“Why am I not surprised?” My hands crush the delicate silk of my gown as I put the pieces of a sickening puzzle together. “Would that alliance have anything to do with Cat?”

The hesitation I feel along our bond answers before he does.

“Yes.”

“That information would have been valuable before arriving.” To say the fucking least. No wonder she despises me. I’m not self-centered enough to think I’m the reason he called off whatever alliance they had, but I’m definitely a barrier to resuming it now. Her uncle wants me to blow up the very symbol of whatever it is they’d agreed upon.

“Still fighting. Got it.”

Mira and I reach the grass as the first raindrops fall.

“We should have worn leathers,” she mutters, keeping pace with me.

“I can’t aim,” I tell her quietly, pausing what feels like twenty feet from the chest, just close enough to see runes carved into the thick doors. “Carr focused on quantity over quality, and Felix and I just started lessons, so this might take a while.”

Two of the guards move to the front of the chest that’s taller and thicker than both of them. Thank Amari it’s huge. A bigger target will be easier to hit. A guard pulls a small item from his pocket that I can’t quite make out from here.

“I don’t think they’re interested in how long it will take.” Mira nods to the top of the arena. Dozens of bow-wielding gryphon fliers have surrounded the top row of seats, all with arrows nocked our direction. “They’re probably worried you’ll strike Tecarus instead of the target.”

“Right. No pressure.” Lifting my hands, I reach for Tairn’s power. Funny how the normally brutal heat of it is a comfort after so many days under Varrish’s torture without it. “You guys might want to move,” I call out to the guards as the stocky one in front holds his fist to the front of the chest like he thinks he has a shot at stopping it if the giant iron box shifts and topples onto him…or like he has a key.

A shiver of apprehension skates along my spine.

“The Arctile Ocean to the south is known for calm, warm waters and what were once lucrative trade routes,” I recite, calming my racing heart.

“You still do that?” Mira lifts her brows at me.

“Only when I’m—”

The double doors of the chest burst open, sending both guards sprawling across the ground with startling force as a man jolts forward and falls to his hands and knees on the grass. His maroon tunic and trousers are tattered, like he’s been kept prisoner for weeks.

“What the fuck?” Mira mutters.

His head jerks up to look at us, and my heart seizes with pure, immovable terror.

Distended red veins branch out from bloodshot eyes.

“Violet!” Xaden roars.

Venin.

Though her extraordinary signet allows her to extend the wards around herself and her dragon, Cadet Sorrengail lacks the consistent ability to produce her own wards without extreme emotional distress. I’m sorry to report I doubt this ability will develop in time.

I had such hopes for her.

—MEMORANDUM FROM PROFESSOR CARR TO GENERAL SORRENGAIL

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“Is that…” Mira whispers, already palming her daggers as the dark wielder digs his hands into the soft green grass of the arena floor, laughing maniacally. Breathe. I have to breathe. But there’s no air.

Purple robes billowing. Soleil charging forward, Fuil running behind her. The spread of death and decay reaching them both. The fall. Their bodies becoming nothing more than husks, drained of power and life.

“Silver One!” Tairn’s roar splits my head, ripping me from the past before it swallows me whole. Rain splatters the ground around us, falling in heavy but sporadic drops. This isn’t Resson, this is Cordyn, and I have to protect Mira.

“Move!” I scream at the guards, two of whom run while one other scrambles backward, leaving the last to stare in frozen shock. “Get out of here,” I order Mira, sizzling heat filling my veins as I open the floodgates on Tairn’s power.

“I’m not leaving you with that thing!” She flicks her dagger.

“No!” I shout, but it’s too late—the dagger lands in the venin’s shoulder. He hisses, ripping the weapon free and grabbing for the petrified guard in the same breath.

“Great, and now he has a knife!” I lift my hands and release the energy burning through my limbs.

Lightning cracks, so white it’s almost blue, and I throw up my hand to shield my eyes as it strikes the iron chest as though drawn to it. Sparks shower the arena, one singeing the back of my hand before I can brush it off.

“Tairn, I need you!”

“On the way.”

Panic threatens to grab hold of me, and I waste precious seconds looking over my shoulder at where Xaden is already lunging for the steps. “Stay put and keep your emotions to yourself. We need that luminary.”

“Violence—”

“I can do this.” If I can’t take on one emaciated venin, then what chance does the Continent stand?

The wind shifts, blowing my hair into my face, and I twist to see the venin’s hands wrap around the guard’s neck, but I don’t need to watch to know exactly what’s about to happen.

“Only the alloy-hilted daggers can kill him,” I tell Mira, yanking my dagger from its sheath and slicing through a strip of fabric in my hem. If I can’t aim, this is coming down to hand-to-hand.

The screams of the guard cut straight through me.