I unlock my door with a flick of my hand and yank it open to find not only every second- and third-year flier in our squad but a few of our first-years, including Sloane.
And Brennan.
Without thought for regulation or decorum, I fling myself into his arms, and he catches me, pulling me tight against his chest. “You came.”
“I left you and Mira here to fight this on your own once before, and I’ll never do it again. I knew I’d fucked up as soon as you left, but gryphons don’t fly as quickly as dragons.” He squeezes harder for a second, then lets me down. “Tell me where I can be of use.”
“Are those fliers?” Every head turns down the hall as my mother approaches with two of her aides, but her steps falter when her gaze shifts toward my brother. “Brennan?”
“I’m not here for you.” He dismisses her without another word in her direction. “Matthias is going to send the fliers to hunt the lures. They’re faster on the ground and better with runes, anyway.”
“We are,” Cat agrees with a casual shrug, assessing the hallway like she’s searching for structural weaknesses. Which she probably is. “And we don’t abandon our drifts. We’ll fight.”
I might not like her, but damn do I respect her. Finding those lures will give us precious time to—
I grab onto Brennan’s arms, and a spark of hope lights within my chest. “Have you ever encountered something you can’t mend?”
“Magic,” he answers. “I can’t mend a relic or anything. Probably not a rune, either.”
If he can do it, we’ll just have to hold on long enough for Codagh to arrive. “What about a wardstone?”
Brennan’s eyebrows shoot up, and I glance past him to Rhiannon. “We have to guard the chamber, at least let him try.”
Rhi nods, then turns to my mother, who’s still staring at Brennan like he’s a hallucination. “General Sorrengail, Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing officially requests permission to guard the airspace above the wardstone chamber.”
Mom doesn’t take her eyes off Brennan. “Granted.”
Though there is some debate, it is greatly believed that turning venin heightens one of the dark wielder’s senses. It is this scholar’s belief that the one responsible for the death of King Grethwild developed keener eyesight. For not even the best of His Majesty’s royal fliers could see through the darkness the venin hid within to slay our beloved king.
—MAJOR EDVARD TILLER’S UNACCREDITED STUDY OF THE VENIN PROPERTY OF THE LIBRARY OF CORDYN
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Dawn is still an hour away as the riders in our squad stand on the ridgeline above the main campus of Basgiath, our dragons lined up behind us. The horizon holds a vague outline, the promise of light, but it winks in and out of my vision as the skyline shifts, the wavering shape on constant approach growing larger with every minute.
Hundreds of feet below, in front of the gates of Basgiath, my mother waits upon Aimsir, with her personal squad, including Mira and Teine, slightly behind her. She’s in front of us all, her three children and the place she’s sacrificed us—and her very soul—for.
“They’re coming,” Tairn tells me, his posture stiff while the others shift their weight or dig their talons into the snow-covered decomposed granite of the mountainside.
Squads from Third and Fourth Wings stand in formation up and down the mountains around us, but both First and Second Wings—half our forces, now that we’re back with the Basgiath cadets—have been sent to the edge of the Vale. while our squad guards the airspace above the hundred yards between the back of main campus and the steep ridgeline we stand on, including the very well-hidden entrance to the ward chamber hundreds of feet below, where Brennan is working. Sloane, Aaric, and the other first-years are with him under the guise of fetching whatever he needs, but Rhi ordered them to Brennan’s side mostly to keep them safe.
“I know.” I glance over my shoulder at where Andarna nips at her harness between Tairn and Sgaeyl. She showed up an hour ago and refused to leave.
“Is this how it felt in Resson?” Rhiannon asks from my right, her hands nervously flitting over her sheaths and scabbard.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“So scared I’m pretty sure either my heart’s going to give out or I’m about to shit myself,” Ridoc answers from her other side.
“I was going to say horrifyingly scared, but sure, that works, too.” Rhiannon nods.
“Yes. That’s exactly how it felt.” I do the customary checks again, not that I’d have time to get back to my room if I left anything. Xaden retrieved the dagger I’d put in Jack’s shoulder, which gives me a full twelve, plus two alloy-hilted ones and the handheld crossbow strapped at my right thigh. I’m fully armed.
Thanks to the daggers we brought with us and the forge here at Basgiath, every cadet is armed.
“Does it ever get easier? Going into battle?” Sawyer asks beside Ridoc, peering down at the college. Infantry has been deployed into every courtyard, every hallway, and every entrance, the last line of a very fragile defense.
“No,” Xaden answers from my left. “You just get better at hiding it. Everyone clear on the plan?”
“Riders answer to Rhi, fliers answer to Bragen,” Quinn recites to our squad from down the line to the left. “When they arrive.”
The fliers are still hunting down the boxes. Without the lures, maybe the wyvern would have waited until daylight. Maybe it would have taken them longer to get a feel for where the hatching grounds are. Maybe destroying the lures will deter the next horde that inevitably follows. But a thousand maybes won’t change what we’re facing now.
“We stay in our sector,” Imogen says from Quinn’s side, braiding the longer pink strands of her hair to keep it out of her eyes. “Should a wyvern leave our airspace, we let it become another squad’s responsibility, so that we don’t accidentally leave our sector unguarded. We maintain our airspace at all costs.”
“Rhiannon is on dagger duty,” Ridoc says, rubbing his hands together even though it’s uncharacteristically warm this morning. I can’t even see my breath. “She’ll fetch and distribute should any venin fall from their wyvern and take our dagger with them.”
“Any reason you can’t just drag them all down with all that shadow power?” Sawyer glances Xaden’s way like there’s any possible chance he hasn’t already considered that, the look mirrored by Rhi and Ridoc.
“Other than the reason that I almost burned out holding forty of them back in a narrow space like a valley, and there are what looks to be ten times that amount on an open plain?” Xaden counters, arching his scarred brow.
“Right. That.” Sawyer nods to himself.
“Getting caught up in the wyvern is a mistake,” I warn them as the downslope breeze becomes noticeable wind, but it, too, lacks the icy chill of December. “Yes, they’ll try to kill us, but don’t let them distract you from their creator. Kill the venin who created them, and those wyvern will fall. In our experience, they stick close to their creations during a battle.”
“You know your pairs?” Rhi asks, glancing down the line.
