“Anything I need to know about what’s going on between you and…” Liam raises his eyebrows at me as we gather our things.

“Absolutely nothing is going on between us. Not one damn thing,” I insist. If Xaden doesn’t want to see if there might be more between us, message received. I turn to Rhiannon. “So are you excited to finally be able to write to your sister in ten days?”

She grins. “I’ve been writing her once a month since we got here. Now I’ll finally get to post them.”

At least one good thing is coming with graduation. We’ll all be able to talk to our loved ones again.

…

Later that night, I adjust the sash across the bodice of my black dress uniform and tuck a loose strand of my hair back into the pretty arrangement Quinn helped me with earlier before meeting Rhiannon in the hallway.

She’s unbound her hair from its usual braided, protective style, and the tight coils form a beautiful halo around her face, which she’s dusted with gold-tinted blush. Her chosen option of sleek, tailored dress pants and a cross-body doublet that cuts across her torso on the diagonal looks phenomenal on her taller frame. “Hot,” I say with a nod as she tugs on her sash.

I went with the high neck, sleeveless option to hide my armor and the flowing, floor-length skirt with the slit up the thigh, which Devera told me was for mobility in case of attack. Personally, I’m not against the flash of thigh it gives when I move, especially with all the work I’ve put in to strengthen my legs with Imogen. My sash is simple, the same black satin as everyone else’s, with my name embroidered just beneath my shoulder and the star of a first-year.

“I heard there’s going to be a mob of infantry guys there,” Nadine says as she joins us.

“Don’t you prefer a little brain with your brawn?” Ridoc slides right in, Sawyer at his side.

“You did not try to leave without me!” Liam shouts as he runs forward, darting through the crowd as we move toward the staircase that leads to Basgiath’s main campus.

“I was hoping you’d been given the night off,” I answer truthfully as he reaches my side. “Don’t you look handsome.”

“I know.” He preens sarcastically, straightening his sash over a midnight-black doublet. “I’ve heard healer cadets have a thing for riders.”

“Hardly.” Rhiannon laughs. “As often as they have to put us back together? I bet they’re more into scribes.”

“What are scribes into?” Liam asks me as we descend the stairs in a sea of black, taking the path we tread every morning toward the Archives. “Seeing as you were almost one of them?”

“Usually other scribes,” I answer. “But I guess riders, in my father’s case.”

“I’m just excited to see some people who aren’t riders,” Ridoc says, holding open the door so we can pass through the tunnel. “It’s getting kind of incestuous around here.”

“Agreed.” Rhiannon nods.

“Oh, whatever. You and Tara have been on again, off again all year,” Nadine says, then blanches. “Shit. Are you off again?”

“We’re taking a breather until Parapet,” she says, and we enter the Healer Quadrant.

“Hard to believe we’ll be second-years in a little more than two weeks,” Sawyer says.

“Hard to believe we’ve survived,” I add. There was only one name on the death roll this week, a third-year who didn’t come back from an overnight mission.

By the time we make it to the courtyard, the party is in full swing. There’s a blend of pale blue for the healers, cream for the scribes, and the navy-blue uniforms of the infantry more than overwhelming the scattered black uniforms. There must be a thousand people or more in here.

Mage lights hang above us in the form of a dozen chandeliers, and drapes of rich velvets cover the stone walls of Basgiath, transforming the functional outdoor space into a ballroom of sorts. There’s even a string quartet playing in the corner.

“Where are you?” I ask Xaden, but there’s no answer.

We all seem to scatter as we enter, but Liam stays at my side, as tense as the string on my crossbow. “Tell me you’re wearing your armor under all that.”

“You think someone is going to knife me in front of my mother?” I gesture to the exposed balcony where Mom appears to be holding court, surveying her domain. Our gazes collide and she whispers something to the man next to her, disappearing from view.

Nice to see you, too.

“I think if anyone was going to knife you, now would be the time, especially knowing that killing you has a good chance of ending Fen Riorson’s son.” His voice tightens.

That’s when I notice the stares of the officers and cadets around us. They’re not gawking at my hair or the name on my sash. No, their gazes widen at Liam’s wrist and the visible swirls of his rebellion relic.

I hook my arm through his and lift my chin. “I’m so sorry.”

“There is absolutely nothing for you to be sorry about.” He gives my hand a reassuring pat.

“Of course there is,” I whisper. Oh gods, everyone is here to gather in celebration of the end of what he and the others call the apostasy. They’re celebrating his mother’s death. “You can go. You should go. This is…” I shake my head.

“I go where you go.” His hand tightens over mine.

A boulder lodges in my throat, and I scan the crowd, instinctively knowing that he’s not here. There’s no Garrick, no Bodhi, no Imogen, and definitely no Xaden. No wonder he was in such a shit mood today.

“This isn’t fair to you.” I glare at the infantry officer who has the nerve to look appalled at the sight of Liam’s wrist.

“I highly doubt you enjoy celebrating the anniversary of your brother’s death, either.” Liam holds himself with a dignity I could never imagine.

“Brennan would hate all of this.” I gesture to the crowd. “He was more about getting the work done than celebrating its completion.”

“Yeah, sounds like—” His words die, and I squeeze his arm tighter as I note the separating crowd before us.

King Tauri walks at my mother’s side, and from the direction of his wide, toothy smile, he’s headed this way. A purple sash crosses his doublet, pinned to his chest by a dozen medals he’s never won from a hundred battlefields he’s never stepped foot on.

Mom’s medals are all earned, and they adorn her black sash like jewelry as it drapes across her high-necked, long-sleeve dress uniform.

“Go,” I hiss at Liam in a whisper, forcing a smile for my mother’s sake as General Melgren joins them. Melgren may be brilliant, but he’s also unnerving as fuck to be around.

“When your greatest danger approaches? I think not.” His spine straightens.

I’m going to rip Xaden’s gorgeous head off for forcing Liam through this.

“Your Majesty,” I murmur, dropping a foot behind me like Mira taught and bending as I bow my head, noting that Liam has bowed at the waist.

“Your mother tells me you’ve bonded with not one but two exceptional dragons,” King Tauri says, smiling under his mustache.

“Yes, she is quite confident in your power,” Melgren adds, his smile icy as he stares at me in blatant appraisal.

“I would not say the same at this time,” I answer with a polite smile. I’ve spent enough time around egotistical generals, politicians, and royalty to know when to be humble. “I’m still learning how to wield.”

“Don’t be so modest, daughter,” Mom chides. “From what her professors say, they’ve only seen a gift this powerful a few times in the last decade, in Brennan and the Riorson boy.”

That boy is a twenty-three-year-old man, but I know better than to correct her and put an even bigger target on Xaden’s back.