“Already on my way. We’re twenty miles out.” The edge of panic lacing his tone puts a knot of fear in my throat, which only grows when I see Deigh and Liam locked in battle above us with a familiar Orange Scorpiontail—Baide.

Jack.

“We have to help Liam.”

“On it.” Tairn accelerates and Andarna falls away. Once I see her tuck into the mountainside where she’ll be safe, I hunker down on Tairn’s neck, giving him less wind resistance to fight as we climb faster than ever before. Wind yanks at the halo braid of my hair, the loosened strands whipping at my face as I keep my eyes locked on Deigh and Liam.

Baide snaps her tail at Deigh, the venomous bulb perilously close to Deigh’s throat.

“His scales are thicker than you think. It’s Liam who’s in danger,” Tairn warns, climbing higher.

We’re almost there when Jack unsheathes his sword and jumps from Baide’s back to Deigh’s, catching Liam by surprise as the dragons grapple close to the tower we’re approaching at breakneck speed.

There’s barely time for Liam to gain his feet before Jack thrusts the sword through his side.

“Liam!” The scream tears from my throat as Jack kicks his boot into Liam’s stomach, forcing Liam’s body off the blade…and Deigh.

No. No. No.

Liam falls, his arms flailing as he plummets ahead of us.

“Catch him!” I demand, afraid we won’t make it.

Deigh and Baide collide with the tower, and I glimpse Jack rolling to safety on the highest turret, his sadistic grin wide enough to see from here as Tairn changes course with a dramatic right roll.

Only the leather straps across my thighs keep me seated as we chase Liam’s tumbling body, Tairn’s wings tucked in tight, but the outcroppings are too close, and we’re too high.

No. My throat closes. I refuse to lose him. Not when he’s dedicated so many months of his life to keeping me alive. Failing isn’t an option. It’s just…not.

“Andarna?” I cry, already throwing open the window in my mind to where her glittering gift lies in wait.

“Do it,” she answers. “Focus on everything except you and Tairn!”

She’s right. There’s no point in me catching up to Liam if Tairn is frozen.

“Do it!”

I reach for the golden power and my back arches as it barrels down my spine, flooding through my fingers and toes, enveloping every cell in my body before blasting outward in a shock wave that passes over Tairn.

Suddenly, we’re the only ones moving, plunging through a windless sky toward Liam’s frozen body, mere feet from the rugged outcropping of rocks below.

Heartbeats, that’s all we have. My entire body trembles with the effort to hold it, the power flowing from Andarna ebbing as Tairn extends his wings and claw, snatching Liam’s body from midair and taking out the rocks with the force of his tail as we barely escape death ourselves.

“Got him.”

Time snaps back, wind blasting me in the face as we climb, turning tightly to avoid colliding with the ridgeline.

“Andarna?”

“Safe.” Her voice is barely a whisper in my head.

Wrath and fury boil my blood as my eyes lock onto the figure on top of that tower. This is the last time this asshole will come after my friends or me.

Feirge appears from below, Rhiannon’s arms outstretched as they rise beneath us. Tairn slows just enough to transfer Liam to her. He’s alive—he has to be. It’s the only outcome I’ll accept.

In my peripherals, I see Cath and other dragons arrive from the north just as another squad launches from the cliff above.

Baide is airborne behind us, racing toward her asshole of a rider, who is still gloating on the top of that fucking tower.

“Climb!” I order, unsheathing a blade at my ribs and leaving one hand free to unsnap the buckles when it’s time.

“You will not unseat yourself!” Tairn bellows at me as we surge forward, leaving the smaller orange dragon behind us. He swivels his head left, blasting a stream of fire toward the line of First Wing dragons to warn them off and succeeding as we barrel past.

A growing power sizzles in my chest as I lock my gaze on Jack. I can see the sick pleasure on his face as we fly closer, the blood that drips from his sword. Liam’s blood.

An enormous dragon appears on the horizon. I don’t need to look or even open my feelings to know it’s Xaden, but I can’t spare a moment for him. Tairn is climbing faster than we’ve ever climbed, and power is racing along my skin, scorching my blood.

If this is it, if my power is backlashing, then I’ll be damned if I don’t take that asshole with me. Tairn is fireproof—but not Jack.

“Faster!” I shout, my voice desperate with worry we won’t make it in time.

Tairn charges the tower, his wings beating faster and faster, and I instinctually throw my hands forward, as though I can project all this power lashing within me toward the enemy who just tried to kill my friend, who has done his best to kill me at every opportunity.

That sizzle of magic grows to a lethal, swirling vortex of energy, and though my feet are still firmly grounded, the power rises to a breaking point and the roof of my Archives disintegrates. Power crackles above me, swirls around me, wraps along my feet below me.

I am the sky and the power of every storm that has ever been.

I am infinite.

A scream rips from my throat just as lightning splits the sky with a terrifying crack of thunder.

The bluish streak of silver death slams into the tower, and sparks flare as it explodes in a blast of stone. Tairn banks to avoid the blast, and I pivot in the saddle.

Jack falls down the mountainside in an avalanche of rock that I know he can’t survive.

From the way Baide cries beneath us, she knows it, too.

My hand trembles as I sheathe the clean dagger at my ribs. The only blood to be found is on the rocks below, though I look at my hands as though they should be covered in death.

Tairn roars with the unmistakable sound of pride.

“Lightning wielder.”

The death of a cadet is an inevitable yet acceptable tragedy. This process thins the herd, leaving only the strongest riders, and as long as the cause of death does not break the Codex, any rider involved in extinguishing another’s life shall not be punished.

—Major Afendra’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant

(Unauthorized Edition)