“Exactly.” My fingernails bite into my palms. “He can’t see the real fight if we’re there. He has all his forces concentrating on Samara, when they should be—”

“At Basgiath,” Xaden finishes my thought, his eyes searching mine. “The Vale.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go back?” he asks.

“Of course we do,” Ridoc answers.

“I wasn’t asking you.” Xaden holds my gaze. “Do you want to go?”

Do I? Navarre has lied to their people—lied to us—for six hundred years.

“They would never come to our aid,” Sloane says.

“They’ve definitely never come to ours,” Cat agrees.

They’ve let Poromish civilians die time and again, safely tucked behind their wards, pulling the blindfold over Navarrian citizens’ lives.

“The hatching grounds are there,” Rhiannon argues.

“We have our own here,” Trager counters. At least I think it’s Trager, since I can’t seem to look away from Xaden.

He’s the stable ground beneath my feet as my mind spins faster and faster, my squadmates voicing contradicting opinions that match my own thoughts.

“My family is in Morraine,” Avalynn pleads.

The voices behind me blur as they truly begin to argue.

“We’d have to leave almost immediately,” Xaden says, his voice cutting through the noise.

“They lied to us. Executed your father. Tortured me.” I force myself to stop counting their transgressions before they overwhelm my conscience.

“Yes.”

“I keep thinking about the infantry cadets, and the healers, and even the scribes.

People like Kaori stayed behind, those who just want to defend their homeland.” Reaching forward, I grasp onto his arms to hold steady as the argument rages around us, and I get the distinct impression by the increase in volume that we’re not the only squad out here anymore.

“Yes.”

“If we don’t go, we’re no better than they are, leaving their civilians to die when we might be the very weapons they need.” My grip tightens on him.

“Do you want to fight?” he asks, leaning down as the argument lessens around us, everyone waiting to hear what I say next, probably. “Say the word, and I’ll take it to the Assembly. And if they won’t support it, we’ll go with whomever will. I go where you go.”

The thought of risking my friends, losing them, has my stomach churning. I don’t want to put Tairn and Andarna into danger. I would rather die than gamble with Xaden’s life. But is there really a choice? Going might risk death, but staying risks us becoming just like our enemy.

“We have to.”

We do not eat our allies.

—TAIRN’S PERSONAL ADDENDUM TO THE BOOK OF BRENNAN

AS QUOTED BY CADET VIOLET SORRENGAIL

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

“Ican make it on my own,” Andarna argues three hours later as cadets scurry into our hasty and unauthorized formation in the center of the valley.

“It’s an eighteen-hour flight,” I remind her, checking all the joints of her new harness. Thank gods she’s still only half the size of Sgaeyl now, so Tairn can still carry her. “I respect your decision to come, but this is the only way.” She can only fly for an hour or two before her wing muscle completely cramps.

“And you think I should be carried like a juvenile?” She huffs a breath of steam as I walk underneath her and fit my fingers between her scales and the smooth metal that curves under her shoulders.

“I think Tairn is capable of bearing your weight. You can fly until you tire or hold back the riot, but wearing a harness for quick clipping in is the only way I’m letting you come. I’m not risking you getting left behind if you fall out of formation.” I tug at the steel just to be sure it doesn’t give like mine did when we flew back to Basgiath last summer. “I get it. You don’t want to be carried. Sometimes I don’t want to fly in a saddle, but it’s what I need in order to ride. It’s your choice. You can come in the harness, or you can stay behind.”

“Dragons do not answer to humans.” She bristles, straightening her posture.

“No, but they do answer to their elders,” Tairn grunts, his claws flexing in the green grass beside us.

“Only to the eldest of our den,” she counters as I walk out from under her, careful not to step on my flight jacket and pack that I’ve left on the ground. It’s too damn hot up here to be dressed for the reality of December.

“Sure, I’ll just go ask Codagh really quick,” I quip sarcastically, jumping backward when a gryphon barrels by at full speed. They might be slower than dragons in the sky, but they’re frighteningly fast on the ground.

They’re also less than happy about being left behind, according to Maren.

“Try not to get killed before we get there, Vi. I think we might need you,”

Ridoc teases from my left, waiting in front of Aotrom, who snaps at the next gryphon who races by a little too close. I half expect to see feathers fall from between his teeth when he draws back his head.

“Perhaps I will be the eldest of my own den.” Andarna arches her neck, tracking a flock of birds in the sky. I follow her line of sight, then quickly look away when the brightness of the sun stings my eyes, burning into my vision for a second and making her scales look a shiny, sky blue before I blink the spots away.

“I’m still in my middling years,” Tairn grumbles. “You’ll be waiting awhile.”

“Really?” She shimmies the harness into a more comfortable position. “I figured you were decades into your elder era. You certainly act like it.”

Tairn turns his head slowly, his eyes narrowing on Andarna.

“You don’t act a day over a hundred,” I reassure Tairn, then offer a smile to Maren as she approaches with Cat.

“I hate that we can’t come,” Maren says, swinging her leather rucksack from her shoulders. “We’re supposed to stick together as a squad, right?”

“You wouldn’t be able to wield,” I remind her as she crouches, digging through her pack. “The second you crossed Navarrian wards, you’d be defenseless and targeted by riders and venin alike. That’s not a great combination.”

“And we’d slow you down. We’ve heard it.” Cat folds her arms in front of her chest, surveying the chaos as Feirge lands ahead of us, flaring her wings before touching down near Rhiannon. “Doesn’t mean we don’t feel like shit that you’re all rushing off to battle while we…study.”

“I’m not so sure about the study part, since I think that’s Devera’s Red Clubtail up there,” Ridoc adds, pointing toward the head of the formation.