—COLONEL KAORI’S FIELD GUIDE TO DRAGONKIND

CHAPTER TWO

I shut the tall door behind me before moving toward Brennan. This meeting is definitely not open to the public.

“Did you eat enough?” He rests on the edge of the table like he used to when we were kids. The move is so…him, and as for the question, I ignore it entirely.

“So this is where you’ve been the last six years?” My voice threatens to break. I’m so glad he’s alive. That’s all that should matter. But I can’t forget the years he’s let me grieve for him, either.

“Yes.” His shoulders drop. “I’m sorry I let you believe I was dead. It was the only way.”

Cue awkward silence. What am I supposed to say to that? It’s all right, but not really? There’s so much I want to say to him, so much I need to ask, but suddenly the years we’ve been apart feel…defining. Neither of us is the same person.

“You look different.” He smiles, but it’s sad. “Not in a bad way. Just… different.”

“I was fourteen the last time you saw me.” I grimace. “I think I’m still the same height. I used to hope I’d get a last-minute growth spurt, but alas, here I am.”

“Here you are.” He nods slowly. “I always pictured you in scribe colors, but you look good in black. Gods…” He sighs. “The relief I felt when I heard you’d survived Threshing is indescribable.”

“You knew?” My eyes flare. He has sources at Basgiath.

“I knew. And then Riorson showed up with you stabbed and dying.” He looks away and clears his throat, then takes a deep breath before continuing. “I’m so damned glad you’re healed, that you’ve made it through your first year.” The relief in his eyes takes some of the sting out of my anger.

“Mira helped.” That’s putting it mildly.

“The armor?” he guesses correctly. There’s something to be said for the delicate weight of my dragon-scale armor under my flight leathers.

I nod. “She had it made. She gave me your book, too. The one you wrote for her.”

“I hope it was useful.”

I think back to the naive, sheltered girl who crossed the parapet, and everything she survived in the crucible of her first year to forge me into the woman I am now. “It was.”

His smile falters, and he glances out the window. “How is Mira?”

“Speaking from experience, I’m sure she’d be a lot better if she knew you’re alive.” There’s no point mincing words if we only have a short time.

He flinches. “Guess I deserve that.”

And I guess that answers that question. Mira doesn’t know. But she should.

“How exactly are you alive, Brennan?” I shift my weight to one leg, crossing my arms. “Where is Marbh? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you come home?”

“One at a time.” He holds up his hands like he’s under attack, and I glimpse a rune-shaped scar on his palm before he grips the edge of the table. “Naolin… He was—” His jaw flexes.

“Tairn’s previous rider,” I suggest slowly, wondering if he was more than that to Brennan. “He was the siphon who died trying to save you, according to Professor Kaori.” My heart sinks. “I’m sorry your rider died saving my brother.”

“We will no longer speak of the one who came before.” Tairn’s voice is rough.

A corner of Brennan’s mouth lifts. “I miss Kaori. He’s a good man.” He sighs, lifting his head to hold my gaze. “Naolin didn’t fail, but it cost him everything. I woke up on a cliffside not far from here. Marbh had been wounded, but he was alive, too, and the other dragons…” His amber-colored eyes meet mine. “There are other dragons here, and they saved us, hid us in the network of caves within the valley, then later with the civilians who survived the city being scorched.”

My brow furrows as I try to make sense of his words. “Where is Marbh now?”

“He’s been in the valley with the others for days, keeping watch on your Andarna with Tairn, Sgaeyl, and—since you woke up—Riorson.”

“That’s where Xaden has been? Guarding Andarna?” That makes me a little less pissed that he’s blatantly avoided me. “And why are you here, Brennan?”

He shrugs as though his answer is obvious. “I’m here for the same reason you fought at Resson. Because I can’t stand by, safe behind the barriers of Navarre’s wards, and watch innocent people die at the hands of dark wielders because our leadership is too selfish to help. That’s also the reason I didn’t come home. I couldn’t fly for Navarre knowing what we’ve done—what we’re doing—and I sure as hell couldn’t look our mother in the eye and listen to her justify our cowardice. I refused to live the lie.”

“You just left Mira and me to live it.” It comes out a little angrier than I intend, or maybe I’m angrier than I realize.

“A choice I’ve questioned every single day since.” The regret in his eyes is enough to make me breathe deeply and center myself. “I figured you had Dad—”

“Until we didn’t.” My throat threatens to tighten, so I turn to look at the map, then walk closer to take in more of the details. Unlike the one at Basgiath, which is updated daily with gryphon attacks on the border, this one reflects the truths Navarre is hiding. The region of the Barrens—the dry, desert-covered peninsula in the southeast that all dragonkind abandoned after General Daramor ruined the land during the Great War—is completely painted in crimson. The stain stretches into Braevick, over the Dunness River.

What have to be newer battle sites are marked with an alarming number of bright red and orange flags. The red ones mar not only the oceanic eastern border of the Krovlan province along the Bay of Malek but are heavily concentrated north into the plains as well, spreading like a disease, even infecting dots of Cygnisen. But the orange ones, those are heavily concentrated along the Stonewater River, which leads straight to Navarre’s border.

“So the fables are all true. Venin coming out of the Barrens, sucking the land dry of magic, moving city to city.”

“You’ve seen it with your own eyes.” He moves to my side.

“And the wyvern?”

“We’ve known about them for a few months, but none of the cadets did. Until now, we’ve limited what Riorson and the others have known for their own safety, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. We know they have at least two breeds, one that produces blue fire and a faster one that breathes green fire.”

“How many?” I ask him. “Where are they making them?”

“Do you mean hatching them?”

“Making,” I repeat. “Don’t you remember the fables Dad used to read to us? They said wyvern are created by venin. They channel power into wyvern. I think that’s why riderless ones died when I killed their dark wielders. Their source of power was gone.”

“You remember all of that from Dad reading?” He glances at me, bewildered.

“I still have the book.” It’s a good thing Xaden warded my room at Basgiath so no one will discover it while we’re here. “Are you telling me you not only didn’t know they’re created but have no clue where they’re coming from?”

“That’s…accurate.”

“How comforting,” I mutter as electricity prickles my skin. I shake my hands, pacing in front of the large map. The orange flags are awfully close to Zolya, the second most populous city in Braevick, and where Cliffsbane, their flier academy, is located. “The one with the silver beard said we have a year to turn it around?”

“Felix. He’s the most rational of the Assembly, but personally I think he’s wrong.” Brennan waves his hand in the air in a general outline of Braevick’s border with the Barrens along the Dunness River. “The red flags are all from the last few years, and the orange are the last few months. At the rate they’ve been expanding, not only in their numbers of wyvern, but in territory? I think they’re headed straight up the Stonewater River and we have six months or less until they’re strong enough to come for Navarre—not that the Assembly will listen.”

Six months. I swallow the bile fighting to rise in my throat. Brennan was always a brilliant strategist, according to our mother. My bet is on his assessment. “The general pattern is moving northwest—toward Navarre. Resson is the exception, along with whatever that flag is—” I point to the one that looks to be an hour’s flight east of Resson.

The desiccated landscape around what had been a thriving trading post flashes in my memory. Those flags are more than outliers; they’re twin splotches of orange in an otherwise untouched area.

“We think the iron box Garrick Tavis found at Resson is some kind of lure, but we had to destroy it before we could fully investigate. A box like it was found in Jahna, already smashed.” He glances my way. “But the craftsmanship is Navarrian.”