Then the wyvern crosses the invisible barrier, and my heart stops beating altogether as its wings flap once. Twice.

“Prepare to dive.” Tairn swivels his head, his jaw opening as the wyvern closes the distance to less than a body length, and I brace for the maneuver. “Never mind.”

The wyvern’s wings and head sag, and its body follows suit—as though someone plucked out its life force—and then it falls, propelled only by its previous momentum, passing forty feet beneath us and crashing into the field below, leaving a deep furrow before stopping.

“We should check—”

“Its heartbeat ceased,” Tairn tells me, his attention already redirected to the other two wyvern along the border and the horde behind them. “The wards work.”

The wards work. Relief restarts my heart.

The Sage swings his staff again and lets out a furious shout, sending the wyvern on the right, who meets the same fate a few seconds later, impacting a short distance from the first one.

Tairn doesn’t look when Sgaeyl dives for the carcasses, but he does lower his shields.

“They’re dead,” Xaden confirms a moment later, and I glance down to see Felix arriving on his Red Swordtail.

We’re safe. I throw out my hands and release the searing energy within me, letting it snap free as I wield. Lightning cracks open the sky, striking a few feet from the remaining wyvern, and I curse under my breath.

Close, but I didn’t hit him.

It’s enough for the Sage to call off the attack, and though I can’t see his eyes from here, I feel the hatred of his stare locking onto me as he looks back before joining the rest of the horde.

“That’s it?” I ask Tairn as he holds position, watching the wyvern become a cloud of gray once again. How…anticlimactic. “Now what?”

“Now we stay long enough to be sure, and then we go home.”

We wait another three hours before flying back, long enough for Suri to arrive and tell us of three similar incidents along the cliffs. We weren’t the lucky recipients of a lone horde. It was a coordinated, simultaneous attack.

But we survived.

The joyous atmosphere is contagious when we walk into Riorson House a few hours later, accompanied by Felix, and I’m promptly pulled into Rhiannon’s hug.

“You got the wards up!” Her flight leathers are still cold from the night air, meaning she’s just returned, too.

“We got the wards up,” I counter before I’m yanked out of her arms and smooshed against Ridoc’s chest, then Sawyer’s, as riders and fliers celebrate around us, the noise filling the cavernous space of Riorson House’s foyer and somehow making the area feel smaller in the best way, less like a fortress and more like a home.

“We’re needed in the Assembly chamber right now,” Xaden says, leaning past Sloane and raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony.

Our eyes lock and I nod, keeping my shields firmly in place to block him out, which feels not only unnatural but…wrong. How ironic to celebrate a monumental victory and still feel like I’ve lost something precious. There hasn’t been a second alone to discuss the fact that if my shields were down, he’d already know how fucked up my head is about the signet he’s hidden.

I can’t imagine walking away from this, from us, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have some serious issues we need to discuss—nor that I am not pissed as hell that he’s given me another reason to doubt my own ability to trust my own judgment. And just because I can’t imagine walking away doesn’t mean I won’t do it if we can’t find some healthy ground. I’m quickly learning it’s possible to love someone and not want to be with them at the same time.

The second we walk into the Assembly chamber and a guard shuts the door behind us, the noise outside falls away and eight pairs of eyes turn in our direction. None of them appear as happy as they should be, given what we’ve just accomplished.

Syrena and Mira break away from the Assembly and walk toward us as Felix calls Xaden over from the dais with an urgent tone.

“We need to find time to talk,” Xaden says quickly and quietly, and I know he only says it out loud because I won’t let him into my mind.

“Later,” I agree just to end the conversation before Mira and Syrena hear us. There isn’t enough time in the world to process what he’s told me.

He walks away as they approach, and I peel my gaze from his back to give my attention to my sister. The tension in her face has power rising within me swiftly, my body preparing for battle. “What’s wrong?”

“As soon as the attack was over, a missive was delivered to Ulices,” she tells me. “He was at the Terria outpost—”

“On the border with Navarre,” I finish for her, anxious to get to the heart of the matter.

“Melgren has asked us to meet with him tomorrow. He requested whomever represents our movement—no more than two marked ones allowed—along with Violet and Mira Sorrengail.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes gently. “You can say no. You should say no.”

“Why would the commanding general of all Navarrian forces ask for a cadet and lieutenant?” My voice trails off and I glance over to the dais, where Brennan is locked in a quiet, heated discussion with the other six. “Our mother will be there.”

“And if a fight breaks out, we know it ends in his favor—otherwise, he would never summon us. He’s already seen the outcome.”

I stick that predicament on the growing list of things I’ll have to deal with.

“There’s something else you need to know,” Syrena says, drawing a dagger and placing it on her outstretched palm. With a flick of the flier’s wrist, the dagger rises a few inches, then spins when she twirls her index finger.

It’s a simple, lesser magic, something I learned last year—

“You can still wield.” My heart sinks at the wider implications, and my shoulders sag.

She nods solemnly. “As glad as I am to not be stripped of my power, I’m sorry to say there’s something wrong with your wards.”

Fuck.

The day Augustine Melgren manifested his signet changed warfare

for the kingdom of Navarre forever.

—NAVARRE, AN UNEDITED HISTORY

BY COLONEL LEWIS MARKHAM

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

The irony of meeting at Athebyne is not lost on me, nor is the fact that this is the second time I’m visiting the outpost on the edge of the Esben mountain range after finding out Xaden Riorson has hidden pertinent information from me.

I spent last night in the library, which was probably in the best interest of everyone as I continue to muddle through my thoughts. Intentions. What-thefuck-ever.

Today, I’m bleary-eyed and restless, with more questions than answers. But as I glance over at Xaden landing on Sgaeyl’s back, his face tense and drawn, I can recognize that telling me, whether or not he wanted to, was the ultimate gesture of trust.

And this time, I’m not the last to know. I’m the first. Maybe it makes me completely, utterly foolish, but somehow that makes a difference, even if I haven’t had the opportunity to tell him that…or the opportunity to interrogate his ass about how many of my intentions he’s read.

I’m just not sure how many this-times I have in me, no matter how much I love him.

Our riot of ten lands in the clearing over the ridgeline from the outpost at noon—a full hour before we’re due to meet—and four of the dragons back into the cover of the forest immediately, hiding in the shelter of the enormous evergreen trees that surround the field. The other six stand wing to wing, ready to launch at a moment’s notice.