As soon as we’re outside the walls, I throw my hands up and let it burst free.

Lightning streaks the sky, earning us the notice of the horde of wyvern, one of which peels off its flight pattern and soars in our direction, its poison-barbed tails flicking behind it.

Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

“We’re committed now,” Tairn reminds me.

Right.

They’re finally outside the city walls.

I summon more power and wield, my arms trembling with the effort to control the deluge of raw energy. Lightning strikes once, missing the wyvern by more than I’d like to admit. Dread fills my mouth with the taste of ash. I’m not ready for this.

“Try again.”

“I don’t have enough control—”

“Try again!” Tairn demands.

I wield again, ripping down the walls between Tairn and me, and more of the energy he channels rips through me. Lightning splits the dusk-hued sky in a blast so bright, I blink.

“Again!”

I let the power overcome me again and again, concentrating on the location of the wyvern as Tairn dodges blasts of blue fire. Finally, a strike hits the one behind us, dropping him from the sky. It hits the hillside with a satisfying crash.

“What about the venin it’s bonded to?” I tremble with the effort of controlling the power, fighting to keep it from overtaking me. Sweat drips down my face.

“Hopefully they’re like us. Kill the wyvern and the rider dies, but it’s hard to tell with so many riderless ones.”

“‘Hopefully’ isn’t the best word right now…” I turn in the saddle and watch in horror as two more riderless wyvern fly out of the valley. “The civilians need more time to reach the mine. Let’s give it to them.”

Tairn growls in agreement, and we speed back over the post.

Xaden has one wyvern by the throat, strangling it with shadows as a third-year hurls ice at its rider, and the other four are doing everything they can to drive the newcomers back with a combination of dragon fire and magic.

Power jolts through me in wave after burning wave as I wield more lightning than I ever have in practice. I swing my arm around and aim another bolt at a wyvern flying near the front gate—or what used to be the front gate. I miss the wyvern but hit an empty tower, sending stone flying in all directions, a large chunk hitting a wyvern in the tail and causing it to spin in midair.

Tairn banks another hard turn and we come back around. I take a deep breath, then call a lightning bolt—this one striking a wyvern directly in its upper back with a satisfying sizzle. The giant beast shrieks, then smashes into a nearby hillside with a thunderous boom.

Coming back around again for another pass, and heady from my recent kill, I throw out three more bolts of lightning in quick succession. Unfortunately, more speed doesn’t translate to more accuracy, and the adrenaline rush isn’t helping my aim, either. I manage to cause three more alarming explosions, though—one of which distracts a rather large wyvern that had been on Bodhi’s tail, giving him a moment’s advantage, which his dragon seizes by banking hard left and coming up behind the wyvern and sinking its teeth into its leathery gray neck. There’s an ominous crack, and then Bodhi’s dragon releases the wyvern’s lifeless body, letting it fall to the ground fifty feet below.

“On the left!” I shout as two more wyvern come into view on our rear flank.

I leave the evasive maneuvers up to Tairn and concentrate on bringing down as many strikes as possible as the wyvern gain speed on us. My arms tremble, growing weaker and weaker with each bolt I try to control to keep from hitting our own riders.

Sgaeyl is on the west side of the outpost, and my heart crawls into my throat when she flies low and Xaden does an impressive running jump off her back, landing with a roll onto the street below. Almost immediately, shadows pull in every direction and cover the people screaming as they try to run for cover from the snarling jaws of a hungry wyvern.

One of the wyvern on my tail must notice Xaden out of the saddle, because it tucks its wings for a moment, diving for the ground, only to widen them and pull out at the last minute, gliding mere feet above the silky shadows. Shit. It’s heading straight for Xaden, its jaws opening wide as though it plans to just snatch Xaden up like a quick bite to eat.

“Xaden!” I scream out loud, but he’s already noticed the wyvern, throwing a rope of shadows high above the buildings in a perfect lasso around Sgaeyl’s head, and she yanks him up off the ground and out of the path of the oncoming wyvern. One minute Xaden is dangling from the shadow rope and the next he’s back in his saddle as Sgaeyl banks for another low pass through town.

But I was so focused on Xaden, I completely forgot about the wyvern on my own tail. Tairn hasn’t, though, and starts to climb higher and higher, leading the wyvern from the post as he gains altitude nauseatingly fast.

“Violence!” Xaden screams. “Beneath you!”

I look down and gasp. A stream of blue fire billows up toward us. “Bank!”

Tairn rolls left, and my ass leaves the saddle, held in only by the straps as he rolls us upside down to narrowly avoid the blast. But when he straightens, the wyvern is still on us. My heart lurches into my throat as its mouth gapes open, its sharp, bloodied teeth snapping as it lunges for Tairn’s side.

“No!” I lift my arms to throw a bolt in its direction and prepare for impact.

A blur of blue shoots between us, and the wyvern is knocked away by the body of a navy dragon—Sgaeyl. Her jaws tear through the side of the wyvern in several rapid, brutal bites, flesh ripping and blood spraying in the most vicious midair meal I have ever seen. Then she flips and catches the devoured wyvern by the head with her daggertail, sending its dead body sailing several hundred feet before crashing to the ground.

Sgaeyl picks up speed, banks, and flies right by us, her wing gliding under Tairn’s almost affectionately—which is in complete contrast to the menacing glare that seems directed at me, wyvern blood still dripping from her jaws. Message received. It’s her job to keep an eye on Xaden’s back, and mine is to watch Tairn’s.

I do a quick turn in my saddle, checking all our sides for more wyvern, then tell Tairn, “Let’s climb so we can get a better count of what we’re facing.”

We’ve barely made it a hundred feet above the town when I spy Liam and Deigh flying hard and fast in the opposite direction, with a venin riding a wyvern on his tail.

“Liam needs help!” I rush to explain.

“On it,” Tairn says, flipping us in midair. We hang in the sky for a second before his massive wings catch the air and turn us so that we’re heading straight for Liam.

The venin raises a staff of some sort, sending balls of blue flame at Deigh, but he manages to avoid them all as Liam stands up and runs along Deigh’s spine toward his daggertail. At the last second, Deigh uses his tail to whip Liam up into the air toward the wyvern. I don’t even have time to scream before he lands in a crouch on the wyvern’s rear and pulls out one of the runed daggers like the two Xaden gave me.

The venin whips around, raising his staff, but Liam is brutally fast and slits the venin’s throat with sickening precision. The wyvern stops beating its wings within seconds, its heavy body free-falling to the ground, and Liam leaps from his back just as Deigh flies beneath, easily catching him.

A wyvern flies at us from the left, approaching with great beats of its wings.

“Tairn!” Power fills my veins and I lift my hands, but Tairn rolls, flipping my world upside down as he rakes his claws and morningstartail along the wyvern, from throat to tail, splitting it open in midair, then leveling out as the wyvern streaks a bloody path to the ground.

The rush in my head is a result of more than Tairn’s acrobatics.

For the first time since we agreed to try to defend the civilians in this trading post, since we were told there were four venin and no way we could win, a little bit of the panic sitting on my chest starts to ease. We might actually be able to survive today. Maybe.

Just then, another wyvern drops out of a cloud above us, diving at Tairn, gaining speed as it tucks in its wings, becoming a teeth-tipped spear.

There’s no time for evasive maneuvers. It’s seconds away—but red fills my vision and Deigh is there, driving into the side of the massive gray beast.

There’s no breath of relief as the collision sends Liam hurtling off Deigh’s back and across the base of Tairn’s neck at breakneck velocity.

“Violet!”

“Liam!” I catch his scrambling hands as he slides by and hold on, a cry escaping as my shoulders pop and subluxate from the strain of catching his weight, and Tairn pitches in a sharp turn to follow Deigh. “Hold on!”

Grimacing, Liam crawls forward on his elbows despite the impossible angle, then grasps the pommels of the saddle. I throw myself over him, sheltering his head and holding on with everything I have as Tairn rolls and banks to keep close but clear of Deigh and the massive gray wyvern.

Locked in battle only a few feet away, their talons shred through the scales of the other amid snapping teeth—and Deigh’s catastrophic roars of pain. They’re too close for me to act, and there’s no guarantee I’ll hit the wyvern and not Deigh with my lightning.