“Will you?” Jack vibrates with rage, his thick blond brows slashing down over arctic blue eyes, every line of his monstrous frame leaning my way. But he doesn’t take another step.
“It is unlawful for a rider to cause another harm. While in a quadrant formation or in the supervisory. Presence of a superior-ranking cadet,” I recite from the Codex, my heartbeat still in my throat. “As it will diminish the efficacy of the wing. And given the crowd behind us, I think it’s clear to argue that it’s a formation. Article Three, Section—”
“I don’t give a shit!” He moves, but I hold my ground, and my dagger slices through the first layer of his breeches.
“I suggest you reconsider.” I adjust my stance just in case he doesn’t. “I might slip.”
“Name?” the rider next to me drawls, as if we’re the least interesting thing she’s seen today. I glance in her direction for a millisecond. She pushes the chin-length, fire-red strands of her hair behind her ear with one hand and holds the roll with the other, watching the scene play out. The three silver four-point stars embroidered on the shoulder of her cloak tell me she’s a third-year. “You’re pretty small for a rider, but it looks like you made it.”
“Violet Sorrengail,” I answer, but a hundred percent of my focus is on Jack again. The rain drips off the lowered ridge of his brow. “And before you ask, yes, I’m that Sorrengail.”
“Not surprised, with that maneuver,” the woman says, holding a pen like Mom uses over the roll.
It might be the nicest compliment I’ve ever been given.
“And what’s your name?” she asks again. Pretty sure she’s asking Jack, but I’m too busy studying my opponent to glance her way.
“Jack. Barlowe.” There’s no sinister little smile on his lips or playful taunts about how he’ll enjoy killing me now. There’s nothing but pure malice in his features, promising retribution.
A chill of apprehension lifts the hairs on my neck.
“Well, Jack,” the male rider on my right says slowly, scratching the trim lines of his dark goatee. He’s not wearing a cloak, and the rain soaks into the bevy of patches stitched into a worn leather jacket. “Cadet Sorrengail has you by the actual balls here, in more ways than one. She’s right. Regs state that there’s nothing but respect among riders at formation. You want to kill her, you’ll have to do it in the sparring ring or on your own time. That is, if she decides to let you off the parapet. Because technically, you’re not on the grounds yet, so you are not a cadet. She is.”
“And if I decide to snap her neck the second I step down?” Jack growls, and the look in his eyes says he’ll do it.
“Then you get to meet the dragons early,” the redhead answers, her tone bland. “We don’t wait for trials around here. We just execute.”
“What’s it going to be, Sorrengail?” the male rider asks. “You going to have Jack here start as a eunuch?”
Shit. What is it going to be? I can’t kill him, not at this angle, and slicing off his balls is only going to make him hate me more, if possible.
“Are you going to follow the rules?” I ask Jack. My head is buzzing, and my arm feels so damned heavy, but I keep my knife on target.
“Guess I don’t have a choice.” A corner of his mouth tilts into a sneer, and his posture relaxes as he raises his hands, palms out.
I lower my dagger but keep it palmed and ready as I move sideways, toward the redhead keeping roll.
Jack steps down into the courtyard, his shoulder knocking mine as he walks by, pausing to lean in close. “You’re dead, Sorrengail, and I’m going to be the one to kill you.”
Blue dragons descend from the extraordinary Gormfaileas line. Known for their formidable size, they are the most ruthless, especially in the case of the rare Blue Daggertail, whose knifelike spikes at the tip of their tail can disembowel an enemy with one flick.
—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind
CHAPTER
THREE
If Jack wants to kill me, he needs to get in line. Besides, I have a feeling Xaden Riorson is going to beat him to it.
“Not today,” I respond to Jack, the hilt of my dagger solid in my hand, and I somehow manage to suppress a shudder as he leans over and breathes in. He’s scenting me like a fucking dog. Then he scoffs and walks off into the crowd of celebrating cadets and riders that’s gathered in the sizable courtyard of the citadel.
It’s still early, probably around nine, but already I see there aren’t as many cadets as there were candidates ahead of me in line. Based on the overwhelming presence of leather, both the second- and third-years are here as well, taking stock of the new cadets.
The rain eases into a drizzle, as if it had only come to make the hardest test of my life even harder…but I did it.
I’m alive.
I made it.
My body begins to tremble, and a throbbing pain erupts in my left knee—the one I slammed on the parapet. I take a step, and it threatens to give out on me. I need to bind it before anyone notices.
“I think you made an enemy there,” the redhead says, casually shifting the lethal crossbow she wears strapped along her shoulder. She glances at me over the scroll with a shrewd look in her hazel eyes as she looks me up and down. “I’d watch your back with that one if I were you.”
I nod. I’m going to have to watch my back and every other part of my body.
The next candidate approaches from the parapet as someone grips my shoulders from behind and spins me.
My dagger is halfway up when I realize it’s Rhiannon.
“We made it!” She grins, giving my shoulders a squeeze.
“We made it,” I repeat with a forced smile. My thighs are shaking now, but I manage to sheath my dagger at my ribs. Now that we’re here, both cadets, can I trust her?
“I can’t thank you enough. There were at least three times I would have fallen off if you hadn’t helped me. You were right—those soles were slick as shit. Have you seen the people around here? I swear I just saw a second-year with pink streaks in her hair, and one guy has dragon scales tattooed up his entire biceps.”
“Conformity is for the infantry,” I say as she loops her arm through mine and tugs me along toward the crowd. My knee screams, pain radiating up to my hip and down to my foot, and I limp, my weight falling into Rhiannon’s side.
