Not sure I’m anything to brag about, considering I barely passed the history quiz this morning. At least I’m solid in math, but then again, math doesn’t change overnight.

“You’re an ice wielder, are you not?” Professor Trissa asks Ridoc.

He nods, and she holds out her hand.

Ridoc uncorks the skin strapped at his hip, then draws the water out from the mouthpeice in a frozen cylinder before walking it to Professor Trissa.

She places the ice on the board, and my gasp isn’t the only one heard as the ice dissolves in a matter of seconds and water drips from the sizzling wood. “Be careful of the medium you choose to hold the rune. A bit more power and that board would have gone up in flames.”

“Why does no one teach this?” Maren asks, glancing from her parchment to the board.

“It’s a skill the Tyrrish once controlled and perfected, but it was banned a couple hundred years after the unification of Navarre, even though many of our outposts and Basgiath itself were built upon them. Why?” She lifts her brows. “I’m so glad you asked. You see, riders are naturally more powerful, given the amount of magic we channel and the signets we wield.”

Trager rolls his eyes.

“But runes are the great equalizer,” Professor Trissa continues, setting the board on the grass now that it’s stopped sizzling. “A rune is only limited to how much power you choose to temper, how long you want it to last, and how many uses it has before it depletes. They banned runes so they wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.” She glances at the fliers. “Your hands, specifically. Get good enough at runes, and you can compete with a fair amount of signets.”

“So, you want us to…temper this?” Cat asks, studying the illustration with an arched eyebrow. “Out of…magic?”

I hate to admit it, but I’m with Cat on this one—and by the looks on the faces around me, we all are. Even Rhi is glancing at the drawing with trepidation. This feels…overwhelming.

“Yes. With the power you’ll learn to separate from yourselves, just like I showed you.” Professor Trissa opens her pack and dumps another pile of boards onto the first.

She made it look so easy.

“We’re going to start with a simple unlocking rune. Easy to build, easy to test.” She glances between our lines.

“We can all unlock doors with lesser magic,” Trager notes.

“Of course you can.” Professor Trissa sighs. “But an unlocking rune can be used by someone who doesn’t possess lesser magic. Now let’s go. I expect your first runes woven before sunset.”

“There’s no way we’re going to learn how to do that before sunset,” Sawyer argues.

“Nonsense. Every marked one has learned a simple unlocking rune the first day.”

“No pressure,” Rhi mutters.

“Sloane and Imogen can do this?” I ask.

“Naturally.” Professor Trissa shakes her head at me.

This is why Xaden had me practicing runes with fabric. Is that man ever going to learn to just tell me things outright? Or am I always going to have to dig information out of him? “‘I’ll answer any question you ask,’” I mock under my breath. It’s hard to ask questions I don’t even know exist.

“You’re supposed to be the best of your year, so stop gawking and get to work,” Professor Trissa lectures. “The first thing you’ll need to do is learn to separate a piece of your own power. Let it fill your mind, then reach in and visualize plucking a thread of it from the current.”

Rhiannon, Sawyer, Ridoc, and I exchange a series of what-the-fuck glances that are echoed by the fliers across from us.

“Advice?” I ask Tairn and Andarna.

“Don’t blow anything up.” Tairn shifts his weight behind me.

“At least blowing something up would be interesting,” Andarna notes, eliciting a growl from Tairn.

“Now,” Trissa demands, then holds up a finger. “Oh, and be careful. Power gets temperamental when you pull from it. That’s why your bondeds are here. The closer the source, the easier it is for the first time.” She looks us over, then folds her arms across her chest. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

I shut my eyes and envision my Archives and the swirling power that surrounds it. The blazing, molten stream of Tairn’s power that flows behind his giant door looks capable of consuming me, but the pearlescent flow of Andarna’s power just beyond the windows feels…approachable.

Steadying my breath, I reach for Andarna’s power—

Boom. An explosion sounds, and my eyes fly open, every head whipping toward Sawyer as he flies backward. He lands just short of Sliseag’s claws, a scorch mark left smoking in the grass where he’d been standing.

“And that is why we’re having this class outdoors.” Professor Trissa shakes her head. “On your feet. Try again.”

Ridoc walks back and helps Sawyer to his feet, and then we do just that.

Try again. And again. And again.

Before sunset, I manage to weave an unlocking rune, but I’m not the first.

Cat has that honor and, unlike the rest of us, no scorch marks beneath her feet.

It is somewhat fitting that the only weapon capable of killing a dark wielder is the same thing that drove them to soullessness…power.

—CAPTAIN LERA DORRELL’S GUIDE TO VANQUISHING THE VENIN PROPERTY OF CLIFFSBANE ACADEMY

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

“Runes?” Xaden asks a few days later, leaning over my shoulder as I sit at the desk in his room, practicing today’s assignment, a triangular piece of torture that’s supposed to somehow boost hearing. He picks up one of my five discarded attempts, burned into hand-size wooden disks, and I breathe deeply, savoring the scent of soap on his freshly washed skin.

A private bathing chamber is definitely one of the perks of sleeping in his room.

“We’re the trial squad. I meant to tell you last night.” I take the delicate strand of pearlescent power and bend it into the third shape in the pattern Professor Trissa gave us for homework, then let it burn brightly in front of me while I gently reach for another. Now that I know what to look for, I see the flow of power clearly before me, somehow both solid and insubstantial, glowing strands that flex under my touch. Seeing it doesn’t make pulling individual strands any easier, though.

“I meant to tell you a lot last night, too,” he says, setting the disk back down on the desk with the others. “But once I found you in bed, my mouth was otherwise occupied.”

My lips curve at the memory as I form the next triangle, this one smaller, and set it within the larger ones floating in front of me. He’s been gone more than he’s been home, running the weapons from our forge to the front lines near the Stonewater River and filling Tecarus’s armory. This trip lasted an extra day when he and Garrick found themselves caught in an attack.

“Do you want my help?” he asks, skimming his mouth down the side of my neck.

“That is…” My breath catches when he reaches the collar of my armor. “Not helping.”

“Pity.” He kisses the side of my neck, then stands, leaving me to my homework. Good thing, too, since I have class in a few minutes.

“This is why you left me that book in Navarre, isn’t it?” I take the next strand and form the circle that should stabilize the shapes within and place it around the rune. That should do it.

“I wanted you to have a head start,” he says, picking up Warrick’s journal from where I abandoned it on the desk and thumbing through it.