Mom looks up to my right, where Mira stands with a few of her friends, then drops her gaze to me. “The assignments given tonight have been decided with the best interest of Basgiath and the Vale in mind. There are incredibly powerful signets among you. Gifted riders.” She looks in the first row, where Emetterio sits. “And even combat masters. But I will not lie to you—”

“That’s a first,” I mumble, and Rhiannon scoffs softly under her breath. “—we are outnumbered,” Mom continues. “We are underpowered. However, the odds may be against us, but the gods are with us. Whether you left after Threshing or stayed, we are all Navarrian riders, bonded for the purpose of defending dragonkind in the darkest hour, and this is it.”

The darkest hour on the longest night of the year. My stomach churns as I fight off the spiraling weight of hopelessness.

“I want you to leave for Aretia,” I tell Andarna. “Get out before they arrive. Hide where you can and make your way back to Brennan.”

“I will be where I am needed, and it is with you,” she counters.

Every argument I could make to keep her alive doesn’t matter, and we both know it. Humans do not give dragons orders. If she’s determined to die with Tairn and me, there’s nothing I can do about it. I press my lips between my teeth and bite down to ward off the sting that comes to my eyes.

My fingernails bite into my palms as Mom assigns the active riders to cadet squads, splitting the experience among the group. Garrick is assigned to First Squad, Flame Section, and Heaton to First Squad, Claw Section, while Emery is assigned to a squad in First Wing. “Captain Sorrengail.” Mom looks up at Mira. “You’ll be with Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing.”

Our entire squad looks over at Mira, and my eyes widen at the fear that flares in her eyes.

Anger simmers along my bond with Xaden. “Fuck that.”

“With all due respect, General Sorrengail,” Mira replies, rolling her shoulders back, “if we’re to truly use our signets to their best advantage, then I should be paired with you as a last line of defense, since I can now shield without the wards.”

Mom’s eyebrows rise in surprise, and my gaze jumps between them like I’m watching a sporting match.

Mira swallows, then locks eyes with me. “And Lieutenant Riorson should be placed into Second Squad, as his signet has previously proven in battle to complement Cadet Sorrengail’s.” She looks at me like we’re sitting across the dining room table from each other and not in the midst of a pre-battle briefing. “As much as I would love to be her shield, he gives us the highest probability of keeping our most effective weapon alive.”

A tense second passes as I look to our mother.

“So be it.” Mom nods, then finishes the unit changes.

The heat along the bond recedes, and my posture sags in relief. At least we’ll be together.

“We get both of you?” Ridoc offers a quick smile. “Maybe we have a shot of lasting an hour.”

“My money’s on two,” Sawyer chimes in with a nod.

“Both of you shut up before I knock your heads together,” Imogen warns from a seat behind us. “Anything less than four hours is unacceptable.”

How long did Resson last? One? And there were ten riders and seven fliers against four venin.

“Now that that’s settled,” Mom says as Kaori steps onto the floor, throwing up an illusion in the form of a top-down map of Basgiath and the surrounding area. “We’re dividing Basgiath, the Vale, and surrounding areas into a grid of sectors.”

Kaori flicks his fingers, and gridlines appear on the map.

“Each squad will be responsible for a sector of airspace while infantry covers the ground,” Mom continues, nodding to Kaori. Squad insignia appear on different grids, and it takes me a second to locate ours on the side of the Vale, paired with a squad from First Wing. No patches are inside the space, but there are plenty of unbonded dragons no doubt ready to defend their hatching grounds. “Memorize these grids, because you’re not going to have time to pull out a map when you’re up there. If it’s in your airspace, you kill it. If it crosses into another squad’s airspace, you let them kill it. Avoid leaving your airspace at all costs, or it will turn into a disorganized melee, and that leaves us with inevitable weak grids. We’ll reassign you as necessary as casualties are reported.”

Not if they’re reported.

The grid behind the main campus, where the ward chamber is located, is horrifyingly bare, as though they’ve already surrendered the space.

“This is wrong,” I whisper. “We should be defending the wardstone.”

“The broken one?” Sawyer questions quietly.

“Say it,” Rhiannon urges.

“You have a better chance of living through it,” Ridoc mutters, shifting in his seat.

I clear my throat. “It’s a mistake to abandon the wardstone.”

My mother levels a disapproving look on me, and the temperature drops a few degrees. “Why is it that only my daughters speak out of turn?”

“We get it from our mother,” Mira snipes in a dry tone, and that lethal look pivots to her.

“It’s a mistake,” I push on. “We don’t know what power remains in the stone, and it was placed in that exact location because it’s over the strongest natural flow of power, according to Warrick.”

“Hmm.” It’s not my mother looking my way this time. It’s General Sorrengail. “Your opinion is noted.”

Hope surges in my chest. “So you’ll assign a squad?”

“Absolutely not. Your opinion, as noted as it is, is wrong.” She dismisses me without another word, without the reasoning we would have been given had this been a Battle Brief, leaving me half my original size, shrinking in my chair.

A wave of warmth floods the bond, but it doesn’t dim the chill from her rejection.

“You have your orders for the morning,” Mom says. “Riders, find the nearest bed and sleep for as many hours as you can. Most of you who left Basgiath will find your rooms have not been commandeered, and most still contain your bedding. We need you rested to be effective.” She looks over the briefing room like it might be the last time she sees us. “Every minute we hold out gives us a shot at reinforcements making it back. Every second counts. Make no mistake,

we will hold out as long as possible.”

I glance up at the clock. It’s not even eight yet, which means I can keep my mantra for the next few hours. I will not die today.

I can’t say the same about tomorrow.

The stars still wink in the night sky as Xaden and I dress in the relative silence of my room. Turns out the remaining cadets had left all but the wingleaders’ quarters untouched, as if we’d see the error of our ways and return.

What few hours of sleep we’d gotten had been sporadic at best, leaving me at less than full strength and a little dizzy, but at least I wasn’t plagued with nightmares.

Or maybe my imagination really is that overactive.

Xaden kisses a path down my spine, his lips brushing every inch of skin as he laces me into my armor over the cross-body wrap on my left shoulder that stabilizes the aching joint. My eyes slide shut when he reaches my lower back, and the desire he’d more than sated last night flares anew, flushing my skin. A few simple kisses are all it ever takes, and my body is instantly attuned to his.

“Keep doing that, and you’ll be taking this right off,” I warn him, glancing down over my shoulder.

“Was that a threat or a promise?” His eyes darken as he stands and ties me in, tucking the laces so they don’t come loose. “Because I have no problem spending our last quiet minutes this morning tangled up in you.” He slides his hand over the curve of my hip as he moves to face me, trailing his fingers along the waistband of my flight leathers, then dipping them between the buttons and my stomach.

We can’t do this, can’t hide away and pretend war isn’t coming for us. Can’t ignore that more than a dozen lures haven’t been destroyed—or even found—when just one was enough to lead the venin to Resson, and we’ve only found half of what Jack left around campus. Can’t deny that the last reports from the few riders brave enough to stay at the midland forts along the route from Samara relayed that attack is imminent in the next couple of hours. But gods do I want to.