“The good, the bad, the unforgivable.” That’s what he said to me when he put my safety above the best interest of the movement. And he may want the wards up because I’m here and he isn’t, but he also has a province to think of.

“No.” I shake my head slowly. “I think he’ll act in the best interest of Tyrrendor”—I leave myself out of the equation—“and want them up as soon as possible, but I can still try.”

“We’re no good to our people if we can’t channel,” Maren says, looking past Aaric to the window and drumming her fingers on the table.

“Yeah, well you’re no good to them if you’re dead, either,” Imogen counters, keeping an eye on Cat. “And by not raising those wards right now, we’re exposing all of Aretia—the riots, the drifts—hell, all of Tyrrendor beyond Navarre’s wards to danger that’s no longer necessary. So you’d better decide if you’re willing to stay, knowing that it can happen at any moment, or if you’re better off taking shelter in Cordyn, where you’ll have power and dark wielders.”

I don’t envy them the choice, but at least we gave it to them.

“And if you stay, we won’t leave you powerless.” I reach under the table and retrieve my pack, then set the black leather bag on the table and unbutton the top. “Turns out alloy isn’t the only thing we can imbue.” I take out the six conduits Felix gave me yesterday after I trusted him with the truth, each containing an arrowhead like the ones I’ve been imbuing for weeks.

“What’s in that?” Bragen asks, two lines etched between his brows.

“The kind of ore we don’t use to make the alloy. It’s not quite as rare as Talladium but it’s about ten times as explosive. Trust me, I’ve seen this stuff blow sky-high raw, let alone imbued.” I glance at Sloane, who slowly smiles before she responds.

“Maorsite.”

I’m suspended again over that sunburned field, the death wave a heartbeat from overtaking me once the Sage releases me from his hold, and he will. He does it every time.

I recognize the scenario for what it is now—a recurring nightmare—and yet I’m still held powerless, still too slow to reach Tairn, still can’t force my consciousness to snap me awake.

“I grow weary of this. Now wield,” the Sage whispers, his robes purple tonight. “Rip free. Show me the power you used to slay our forces above the trading post. Prove me right that you are a weapon worth watching, worth retrieving.” His hand hovers over mine but doesn’t touch me. “The one who watched thinks you’ll never yield, that we should kill you before you grow into your full abilities.”

My stomach turns, my mouth watering with nausea as the bony hand drifts upward, pausing at my neck.

“Usually, jealousy sways the tongue of young wielders.” He drags a single, long fingernail down my throat, exposing an expanse of tan arm under his robes, and I twitch, fear accelerating my heartbeat.

I force my mouth to open, but no sound comes out. Touching me is new. Touching me is terrifying.

“The rest turn for the power,” he whispers, coming so close I can smell a hint of something sweet on his breath. “But you will turn for something much more dangerous, much more volatile.” He wraps his hand around my throat loosely.

I manage to shake my head in denial.

“You will.” His dark, eyelash-less eyes narrow, and the jagged fingernails slice into my skin with an all-too-real bite of pain. “You’ll tear down the wards yourself when the time comes.”

The temperature plummets, and my next exhale is visible in the frozen air. I blink and snow covers the ground. The only warmth is a quickly cooling trickle along my neck.

“And you won’t do it for something as trite as power or as easily satiable as greed,” he promises in a whisper, “but for the most illogical of mortal emotions— love. Or you’ll die.” He shrugs. “You both will.”

He flicks his wrist, and a bone-jarring crack tears me from my sleep.

I jolt upright in bed, reaching for my throat and gulping lungful after lungful of air, but there’s no cut, no ache, and when I turn the mage light on with lesser magic and a twist of my hand, I see there’s no blood, either.

“Of course there isn’t,” I whisper aloud, the raw sound cutting through the silence of my bedroom as the first hints of sunlight lighten the sky to purple beyond my window. “It’s just a fucking nightmare.”

There’s nothing that can touch me here, Xaden asleep beside me.

“Stop talking to yourself,” Tairn grumbles, as though I’ve woken him. “It makes us both seem unstable.”

“Do you see my dreams?”

“I have better things to do than monitor the machinations of your subconscious mind. If a dream bothers you, then leave it. Stop allowing yourself to be tortured like a hatchling and wake yourself like an adult.” He cuts off conversation before I can tell him that human dreams don’t always work like that, and the bond dims, a sign that he’s already gone back to sleep.

So I lie back down, curling my body around Xaden’s, and his arm wraps around my back and pulls me closer like it’s a reflex, like this is the way we’ll sleep for the next fifty years. I settle in against his warmth and lay my head on his chest, above the most comforting rhythm in the world besides Tairn’s and Andarna’s wingbeats—Xaden’s heart.

Six days later, there are six new names on the death roll. The December snow makes flying absolutely miserable outside the valley, and at Basgiath, the dragons would simply refuse to train due to discomfort—theirs, of course, not ours—but we can’t afford not to fly at every available opportunity, so here we are in the flight field, waiting for orders, facing off against Claw and Tail Sections for the squad exercises Devera and Trissa have organized.

“You’d think we were in the Barrens, it’s so fucking hot in this valley,” Ridoc mutters, unbuttoning his flight jacket to my right. “And it’s only eleven.”

A bead of sweat races from the hairline at the nape of my neck to the collar of my flight jacket, so it’s not like I can disagree with him. Winter flight leathers aren’t exactly meant for the Vale…or the valley.

“It won’t be the second we’re in the air.” Sawyer’s eyes briefly narrow, staring ahead of us, where Rhiannon, Bragen, and the other squad leaders meet with Devera and Trissa.

“You all right?” I ask quietly, so the first-years ahead of us can’t hear.

“It’s for the good of the squad, right?” Sawyer forces a tight, closed-lipped smile. “If they can stay and tolerate knowing we might strip their powers away at any second, I can deal with losing my position as executive officer.”

“I want to go with you,” Andarna says for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes, and I look over my shoulder to see her flexing her claws beside Tairn, her talons digging into the earth. Her black scales shine with a green hue this morning, reflecting the grass around her. Maybe it’s the result of lingering gold, and breathing fire will steal the last of the shimmer.

“I have no clue how far they’ll want us to fly.” I keep my voice as gentle as possible.

“Longer than you’re capable of, Little One,” Tairn adds.

“I made it an hour yesterday,” Andarna argues, because that is what she does now. Tairn could tell her the grass is green, and she’d eviscerate yet another sheep on it just to change the color.

I lift my brows at Tairn, who simply huffs—whatever the hell that means.

“Trouble in double dragon land?” Ridoc asks, and Cat glances my way from his other side, Maren following suit now that we stand in rows of four.

“She wants to fly with us,” I answer.

“I am flying with you,” she insists, digging more than just her physical claws in. “And this matter isn’t up for debate amongst your human friends. Dragons do not consult humans.”

“I’m starting to wish I’d protested your right of benefaction when you asked the Empyrean to bond,” Tairn grumbles.

“Good thing you’re not the head of my den, then, isn’t it?”