I put my hand on the stone and call my power to rise while she descends, blacking out the sun momentarily on her way down, where no one else can see. Power flows out of me in a steady drip, buzzing the ends of my fingertips as I feed it into the stone.
She lands, sticking to the shadows the morning light doesn’t yet touch.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her golden eyes blink in the darkness. “Tell you what?”
“I know.” I shake my head at her. “I should have known earlier. The second I saw you after Resson, I knew something was different about the sheen of your scales, but I figured I’d never been around an adolescent, so what would I know?”
“Different.” She cocks her head to the side and steps out of the darkness, her scales shifting from midnight black to a shimmering deep purple. “That’s exactly how I’ve always felt.”
“It’s why you feel like you don’t fit in with the other adolescents,” I note, my hand shaking as I hold the power steady, giving the stone what I can until others arrive to help. “It’s why you were allowed to bond. Gods, you told me yourself, but I thought you were just being…”
“An adolescent?” she challenges, flaring her nostrils.
Nodding, I try to ignore the sounds of battle high above so I can concentrate on saving us, even as anger barrels down the bond from Tairn, and fury… I can’t think about what Xaden’s doing. “I should have listened when you said you were the head of your own den. That’s why no one could fight your Right of Benefaction last year. Why the Empyrean allowed a juvenile to bond.”
“Say it. Don’t just guess,” she demands.
Even a slow breath won’t calm my racing heart. “Your scales aren’t really black.”
“No.” Even now, her scales are changing, taking on the grayish hue of the stone around us. “But he is, and I so badly want to be just like him.”
“Tairn.” It’s not hard to guess.
“He doesn’t know. Only the elders do.” She lowers her head, resting it on the ground in front of me. “They revere him. He is strong, and loyal, and fierce.”
“You are all those things, too.” I wobble under the strain of wielding but keep my balance, keep the power flowing into the stone. “You didn’t have to hide. You could have told me.”
“If you didn’t figure it out, you weren’t worthy of knowing.” She huffs. “I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of the weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine.” She leans into my hand. “You are as unique as I am. We want the same things.”
“You couldn’t have known I would be a rider.”
“And yet, here we are.”
A thousand questions go through my head, none of which we have the time for, so I give her exactly what I wanted—to be seen for who and what she is. “You are not a black dragon, or any of the six that we know of. You’re a seventh breed.”
“Yes.” Her eyes widen in excitement.
I suck in a quick, steadying breath. “I want you to tell me everything, but our friends are dying, so I need to ask if you are willing to breathe fire for the stone.” Sweat pops on my forehead as my temperature rises, and yet I pull more and more power, my arm trembling with the effort to keep it leashed, keep it trickling instead of striking.
“It is why I was left behind.” She cocks her head to the other side. “At least from what I remember. It has been centuries.”
“Nice to see you, Cam. Your father’s been looking for you.” I hear Mom’s voice from the other side of the stone.
“I’m a bonded rider. There’s nothing he can—”
“Don’t really care. It holds power?”
Mom? What the hell could she be doing here? She should be on the battlefield. “Fly,” I order Andarna, my voice weakening. “I don’t trust her to see you.”
“It holds power,” Brennan replies.
Andarna hesitates, then launches, flying for the top of the chamber. My fingers scrape across the stone as I slowly make my way around the side.
“You are pushing the limits,” Tairn warns, distress tightening his tone.
“I have no choice.” Taking a few staggered steps, I reach for Xaden lightly, not to distract but just to feel— His shields are up, blocking me completely out.
“He fights,” Tairn says, and my vision darkens momentarily before clearing again…with a view of the battlefield. I’m seeing through his eyes just like I had Andarna’s last year.
A swath of gray blocks out the world a second before the sky appears again, red flowing against the clouds in a stream, and then Tairn glances beneath him, watching the wyvern fall with a burst of satisfaction before he scans the ground, spotting Xaden near the edge of the ravine.
My heart beats erratically as I watch the Sage easily block each of Xaden’s shadows with blasts of blue daggers of fire, then stops completely when the dappled sunlight catches on two blades imbedded in the ground behind the staff-wielding venin.
Xaden must have thrown his daggers and missed. I know he carries a third, but will he get to use it? Because the Sage isn’t losing territory. He’s gaining on Xaden, coming closer step by step, backing Xaden against the edge of the ravine.
Green fire streams from overhead, and Tairn jerks his attention upward to Sgaeyl and the three wyvern moving in to attack, one blasting cherry-red fire. Oh gods, there are even more breeds than we know about. Terror floods the pathway, and my vision darkens again, my ears ringing as if I’ve just been hit.
I blink and breathe deeply, forcing air through my throat as it constricts, and the chamber comes back into view. Stumbling one step, then another and another, I drag my hand along the slowly warming stone as I turn the corner to the front of the wardstone chamber, catching sight of Mom, Brennan, and Aaric in the middle of a conversation I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears.
The power not only burns but scorches my veins, my muscles, my very bones.
“You’re burning out,” Andarna warns, her voice pitching high with worry.
The next breath I take singes my lungs.
“Silver One!” Tairn roars.
