“Here.” Maren pulls out a small crossbow and leather-capped quiver from her pack, then stands. “Hate to tell you this, but you’re awful with a longbow.”

“Ummm. Thanks?”

“This will give you a secondary weapon if you run out of daggers. Just pull back the string until it catches here, then nock the arrow in the flight groove”—she points to the center of the bow—“and pull the lever with your forefinger.”

It’s compact and won’t take too much strength to operate. The gesture is so kind that a lump grows in my throat. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” I take the weapon from her, but she pulls the quiver just out of reach.

“These are all maorsite arrowheads, imbued and runed to explode on impact.” She lifts her dark brows. “They’re cushioned in the quiver but do. Not. Drop. This.”

“Got it.” I take the quiver from her, then slip them both into my pack.

“The Assembly won’t budge,” Xaden says. He’s dressed in full flight gear, his swords strapped across his back as he walks with my siblings.

“Stubborn assholes.” Mira’s also dressed for flight, her sword sheathed at her side, but Brennan isn’t, and the anger simmering in my brother’s narrowed gaze is aimed straight at me.

“They won’t fight even knowing the hatching grounds are at risk?” Ridoc challenges, heading our way with Sawyer, Imogen, and Quinn.

“They think we’re wrong,” Xaden answers.

“They think that rushing into enemy territory with untrained cadets is a mistake,” Brennan snaps. “And I agree. You’re going to get cadets—including yourself—killed.”

“It’s not like we’re taking the first-years,” Rhiannon says, fastening the straps of sheaths around her flight jacket.

“Which is bullshit,” Aaric bites out, Sloane and the other first-years walking up with him, all wearing flight leathers and determination. “We have just as much right to defend the hatching grounds as second- and third-years.” The pleading yet accusatory look he gives me sinks my heart. He has just as much right—maybe more so—to defend Navarre as anyone here.

“None of you are going—” Brennan starts.

“You’d rather stay here, knowing there’s every chance Mom will die?” I step toward my brother, and Mira pivots to my side, facing Brennan.

He flinches, his head drawing back like I hit him. “She had no trouble sending any of the three of us to our deaths.” Brennan’s gaze jumps between Mira and me, looking for understanding that neither of us gives him.

“We don’t have time for this,” Xaden lectures. “If you aren’t coming, Brennan, then that’s on you, but if we don’t leave now, there’s a chance we’ll be too late to defend Basgiath.” He turns, pointing a finger at the first-years. “And absolutely not. Most of you haven’t even manifested a signet, and I’m not serving you up with your dragons as another energy source.”

“I’ve manifested,” Sloane protests, grasping the straps of her rucksack.

“And you’re still a first-year,” Xaden counters. “Matthias, get your squad ready to launch, then find your wingleader for further orders. We’ll need to fly straight through. I’ll take Violet with the—”

“With all due respect”—Rhiannon straightens her posture and stares him down—“unlike War Games, Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing will remain intact, though you’re welcome to join us.”

Sawyer and Ridoc move to my sides, and I know if I fall back, Quinn and Imogen will be there waiting.

Xaden lifts his scarred brow at me, and instead of contradicting Rhiannon, I glance at my sister. “Same goes for you. You’re welcome to join, but I stay with my squad.”

The wind blows bitterly cold against my face nearly eighteen hours later as we cross into the Morraine province and follow the Iakobos River through the winding mountain range that leads to Basgiath. I’ve never been so thankful that my body heats when I channel. Everyone else in our party must be frozen to the core.

It’s a testament to General Melgren’s certainty about Samara that we aren’t stopped by any patrols…because there are none. Even the mid-guard posts are devoid of riders as we fly over in a riot of fifty led by Tairn and Sgaeyl.

We may have left the first-years behind, but we also gained some of the active riders who hadn’t been stationed along the cliffside border, like Mira, who’s flying with Teine directly behind me as if she’s scared to let me out of her sight.

“Aimsir is indeed within the Vale. Teine will relay communications for the squad while you locate your mother.” Tairn finishes telling me the plan devised by leadership midflight that will allow us to recon, then adjust to whatever we find waiting for us.

My assigned task is to get through to my mother. No pressure or anything.

“When we reach the upcoming bend in the river, you’ll release your harness from mine,” Tairn tells Andarna. “Fly to the Vale and stay there. An adolescent black dragon will raise human suspicion at Basgiath. Hide among our kind until it’s over.”

“What if you need me? Like last time? I can stay hidden right at your side.”

My heart clenches at the memory of how she’d appeared on the battlefield even after I’d begged her to stay hidden. She’d risked her life to help us and nearly lost it in the process. “Stay with the feathertails—they’ll need all your protection if the wards fall—and report anything the second it feels off.”

If we’re too late, then gods help us all.

At the bend in the river, Andarna detaches and flies alongside us until the beats of her smaller wings can’t keep up, then dives toward the ice-crusted river beneath us.

“The Vale,” I remind her.

“I will be where I am needed,” she counters, banking left, leaving the trail of the river in favor of the snowcapped ridgeline that leads back behind the flight field and up into the Vale.

“That didn’t sound like she intends on listening,” I tell Tairn, watching her until she fades from view.

“I warned you what adolescents are like.” He tucks his wings and dives, leaving my stomach behind as we drop a thousand feet in altitude in a matter of breaths, then levels out once we’re only a hundred feet above the tall oak trees that line the river, approaching Basgiath from the south.

Everything looks as it should in the dying evening light, identical to when we left six weeks ago, simply covered in a fresh coat of snow. I look over my shoulder to see half the riot—First, Second, and Third Wings—break off, heading toward the flight field.

As long as everyone sticks to the plan, the next quarter will land in the courtyard of the quadrant while the rest of us continue onto the main campus.

“Can you sense anything off?” I ask as the walls of the Riders Quadrant come into view. Only half the windows in the dormitory are lit from within. An ache settles in my chest. No matter what cruelty transpired here, there’s an enormous part of me that considers this place home.

It’s where I studied, where I climbed trees with Dain, and where my father taught me the wonder of the Archives. It’s where I fell in love with Xaden and learned just how much had been omitted from those very Archives.

“The wards are still up. We’ve made our presence known to the Empyrean, and I can definitely sense their displeasure, if that’s what you mean.” We cross over the courtyard, and Tail and Claw Sections peel off the formation with Devera in the lead, causing untold damage to the masonry as they land wherever they’ll fit along the walls. “But Greim is in residence, and she’s reaching out to her mate, who is at Samara to contact Codagh.”

“At what point will you and Sgaeyl be able to cover distances like that?” We pass the parapet in nothing more than a heartbeat, and then Tairn banks left.

“Years. Greim and Maise have been mated for many decades.” He races over the bell tower of the main college of Basgiath, then flares his wings and beats them backward, halting our momentum to the sound of alarmed cries from the watchmen in the four towers, shouting down their warnings.

“There are people down there,” I tell him as he sinks gracefully into the main campus’s courtyard.

“They’ll move.”

Sure enough, people scurry, scattering out of his way as he lands. “Should you change your mind, I’ll simply claw through the roof to reach you.”

I unbuckle quickly, unstrap the bag of daggers I was assigned to carry—each of us has one—and climb out of the saddle. “I’ll be all right,” I promise, working to his shoulder without so much as removing my flight goggles or tightening the straps on my pack. Speed matters, since only one dragon can land here at a time. I’ll be alone until Sgaeyl follows.