“With that said, I’ll leave you to your wingleaders. My best advice? Don’t die.” He walks off the dais with the executive commandant, leaving only the riders on the stone stage.

A brunette woman with wide shoulders and a scarred sneer stalks forward, the silver spikes on the shoulders of her uniform flashing in the sunlight. “I’m Nyra, the senior wingleader of the quadrant and the head of the First Wing. Section leaders and squad leaders, take your positions now.”

My shoulder is jostled as someone walks by, pushing between Rhiannon and me. Others follow suit until there are about fifty people in front of us, spaced out in formation.

“Sections and squads,” I whisper to Rhiannon, in case she didn’t grow up in a military family. “Three squads in each section and three sections in each of the four wings.”

“Thank you,” Rhiannon answers.

Dain stands in the section for Second Wing, facing me but averting his eyes.

“First Squad! Claw Section! First Wing!” Nyra calls out.

A man closer to the dais raises his hand.

“Cadets, when your name is called, take up formation behind your squad leader,” Nyra instructs.

The redhead with the crossbow and roll steps forward and begins calling names. One by one, cadets move from the crowd to the formation, and I keep count, making snap judgments based off clothing and arrogance. It looks like each squad will have about fifteen or sixteen people in it.

Jack is called into the Flame Section of First Wing.

Tara is called into the Tail Section, and soon they start on Second Wing.

I let loose a thankful sigh when the wingleader steps forward and it isn’t Xaden.

Rhiannon and I are both called to Second Squad, Flame Section, Second Wing. We get into formation quickly, lining up in a square. A quick glance tells me that we have a squad leader—Dain, who isn’t looking at me—a female executive squad leader, four riders who look like they might be second- or third-years, and nine first-years. One of the riders with two stars on her uniform and half-shaved, half-pink hair has a rebellion relic that winds around her forearm, from her wrist to above her elbow, where it disappears under her uniform, but I look away so she won’t catch me staring.

We’re silent as the rest of the wings are called. The sun is out in full now, beating into my leathers and scorching my skin. I told him not to keep you in that library. Mom’s words from this morning haunt me, but it’s not like I could have prepared for this. I have exactly two shades when it comes to the sun, pale and burned.

When the order sounds, we all turn to face the dais. I try to keep my gaze on the roll-keeper, but my eyes jerk right like the traitors they are, and my pulse leaps.

Xaden watches me with a cold, calculating look that feels like he’s plotting my death from where he stands as the wingleader for Fourth Wing.

I lift my chin.

He cocks his scarred eyebrow. Then he says something to Second Wing’s wingleader, and then every wingleader joins in on what’s obviously a heated discussion.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Rhiannon whispers.

“Quiet,” Dain hisses.

My spine stiffens. I can’t expect him to be my Dain here, not under these circumstances, but still, the tone is jarring.

Finally, the wingleaders turn around to face us, and the slight tilt to Xaden’s lips makes me instantly queasy.

“Dain Aetos, you and your squad will switch with Aura Beinhaven’s,” Nyra orders.

Wait. What? Who is Aura Beinhaven?

Dain nods, then turns to us. “Follow me.” He says it once, then strides through formation, leaving us to scurry after him. We pass another squad on the way from…from…

The very breath freezes in my lungs.

We’re moving to Fourth Wing. Xaden’s wing.

It takes a minute, maybe two, and we take our place in the new formation. I force myself to breathe. There’s a fucking smirk on Xaden’s arrogant, handsome face.

I’m now entirely at his mercy, a subordinate in his chain of command. He can punish me however he likes for the slightest infraction, even imaginary ones.

Nyra looks at Xaden as she finishes assignments, and he nods, stepping forward and finally breaking our staring contest. I’m pretty sure he won, considering my heart is galloping like a runaway horse.

“You’re all cadets now.” Xaden’s voice carries out over the courtyard, stronger than the others. “Take a look at your squad. These are the only people guaranteed by Codex not to kill you. But just because they can’t end your life doesn’t mean others won’t. You want a dragon? Earn one.”

Most of the others cheer, but I keep my mouth shut.

Sixty-seven people fell or died in some other way today. Sixty-seven just like Dylan, whose parents would either collect their bodies or watch them be buried at the foot of the mountain under a simple stone. I can’t force myself to cheer for their loss.

Xaden’s eyes find mine, and my stomach clenches before he looks away. “And I bet you feel pretty badass right now, don’t you, first-years?”

More cheers.

“You feel invincible after the parapet, don’t you?” Xaden shouts. “You think you’re untouchable! You’re on the way to becoming the elite! The few! The chosen!”

Another round of cheers goes up with each declaration, louder and louder.

No. That’s not just cheering, it’s the sound of wings beating the air into submission.

“Oh gods, they’re beautiful,” Rhiannon whispers at my side as they come into view—a riot of dragons.

I’ve spent my life around dragons, but always from a distance. They don’t tolerate humans they haven’t chosen. But these eight? They’re flying straight for us—at speed.

Just when I think they’re about to fly overhead, they pitch vertically, whip the air with their huge semitranslucent wings, and stop, the gusts of wing-made wind so powerful that I nearly stagger backward as they land on the outer semicircular wall. Their chest scales ripple with movement, and their razor-sharp talons dig into the edge of the wall on either side. Now I understand why the walls are ten feet thick. It’s not a barrier. The edge of the fortress is a damned perch.

My mouth drops open. In my five years of living here, I’ve never seen this, but then again, I’ve never been allowed to watch what happens on Conscription Day.

A few cadets scream.

Guess everyone wants to be a dragon rider until they’re actually twenty feet away from one.

Steam blasts my face as the navy-blue one directly in front of me exhales through its wide nostrils. Its glistening blue horns rise above its head in an elegant, lethal sweep, and its wings flare momentarily before tucking in, the tip of their top joint crowned by a single fierce talon. Their tails are just as fatal, but I can’t see them at this angle or even tell which breed of dragon each is without that clue.

All are deadly.

“We’re going to have to bring the masons in again,” Dain mutters as chunks of rock crumble under the dragons’ grips, crashing to the courtyard in boulders the size of my torso.

There are three dragons in various shades of red, two shades of green—like Teine, Mira’s dragon—one brown like Mom’s, one orange, and the enormous navy one ahead of me. They’re all massive, overshadowing the structure of the citadel as they narrow their golden eyes at us in absolute judgment.

If they didn’t need us puny humans to develop signet abilities from bonding and weave the protective wards they power around Navarre, I’m pretty sure they’d eat us all and be done. But they like protecting the Vale—the valley behind Basgiath the dragons call home—from merciless gryphons and we like living, so here we are in the most unlikely of partnerships.