There’s nothing special about this morning. Our first trial on the Gauntlet has made the roll longer, but it’s just another list on just another day…except it’s not. The exceptional cruelty of this ritual has never hit me this hard before. It’s not like the first day anymore. I know more than half of the names as they’re called. My vision blurs. “Newland Jahvon,” he continues.

Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing. He had breakfast duty with me.

We have to be in the twenties by now. How can this be all there is? We say their names once and then go on as if they never existed?

Rhiannon shifts her weight at my side, and she abruptly sniffles, the motion jerking her shoulders once.

“Aurelie Donans.”

A single tear escapes and I bat it away, ripping open one of the scabs along my cheek. A trickle of blood follows as the next name is called, but I let that one stain me.

…

“You’re sure about this?” Dain asks the next night, two worried lines between his brows as he clasps my shoulders.

“If her parents aren’t coming to bury her body, then I should be the one to handle her things. I’m the last person she saw,” I explain, rolling my shoulders to adjust the weight of Aurelie’s pack.

Every Basgiath parent has the same option when their cadet is killed. They can retrieve the body and personal effects for burial or burning or the school will put their body under a stone and burn their effects themselves. Aurelie’s parents have chosen door number two.

“And you don’t want me to go with you?” he asks, palming my neck.

I shake my head. “I know where the burn pit is.”

He mutters a curse. “I should have been there.”

“You couldn’t have done anything, Dain,” I say softly, covering his hand with mine so our fingers lightly lace. “None of us could have. She didn’t even have time to reach for the rope,” I whisper. I’ve replayed that moment over and over in my head, coming to the same conclusion each time.

“I never got the chance to ask you if you made it all the way up,” he says.

I shake my head. “I got caught at the chimney formation and had to use a rope to get back down. I’m too short to span the distance, but I’m not thinking about that tonight. I’ll figure something out before the official timed Gauntlet on Presentation day.”

I’ll have to. They don’t allow cadets to climb back down on the final day. You either complete the Gauntlet—or you fall to your death.

“All right. Let me know if you need me.” He lets me go.

I nod and make every excuse to get out of the dormitory hallway. The weight of Aurelie’s pack is staggering. She was strong enough to carry so much over the parapet, and yet she fell.

And I’m somehow still standing.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m carrying her with me as I climb the stairs of the academic tower’s turret, past the Battle Brief room and up to the stone roof, going by a few other cadets on their way down. The burn pit is nothing more than an extra-wide iron barrel, whose only purpose is to incinerate, and the flames burn bright against the night sky as I stumble out onto the roof, my lungs straining for oxygen.

A couple of months ago, I couldn’t have carried a pack this heavy.

There’s no one else up here as I slip the bag from my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my fingers digging into the wide strap of the pack as I fling it up and over the metal edge of the bin.

The flames catch and whoosh as it becomes more fuel for the fire, just another tribute to Malek, the god of death.

Instead of walking back down the stairs, I make my way to the edge of the turret. It’s a cloudy night, but I can make out the shadows of three dragons as they approach from the west and even see the ridge where the Gauntlet lays, waiting to claim its next victim.

It won’t be me.

But why? Because I’ll conquer it? Or because I’ll give in to Dain’s request and hide in the Scribe Quadrant? My entire being repels against the second option, which makes me question everything as I stand here, letting minutes tick by before the bells sound for curfew. I climb back down the stairs without a solid answer as to why.

I walk through the courtyard, empty but for a couple who can’t decide if they’d rather kiss or walk near the dais, and I avert my gaze, heading for the alcove where Dain and I first sat after Parapet.

It’s almost been two months, and I’m still here. Still waking every morning to the sunrise. Doesn’t that mean something? Isn’t there a chance, no matter how small, that I might just be enough to make it through Threshing? That I might just belong here?

The door that leads to the tunnel we took to cross the ridgeline to the Gauntlet this morning opens along the courtyard wall, just left of the academic building, and my brow furrows. Who would be returning this late?

Sitting back against the wall, I let the darkness conceal me as Xaden, Garrick, and Bodhi—Xaden’s cousin—pass under a mage light, headed in my direction.

Three dragons. They were out…doing what? There were no training ops that I know of tonight, not that I’m privy to everything third-years do.

“There has to be something more we can do,” Bodhi argues, looking to Xaden, his voice low as they pass by me, their boots crunching on the gravel.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Garrick hisses.

My scalp prickles and Xaden stops mid-step ten feet away, the set of his shoulders rigid.

Shit.

He knows I’m here.

Instead of the usual fear that spikes in his presence, only anger rises in my chest. If he wants to kill me, then fine. I’m over waiting for it to happen. Over walking through the halls in fear.

“What’s wrong?” Garrick asks, immediately looking over his shoulder in the opposite direction, toward the couple who definitely decided making out is more important than getting into the dorms by curfew.

“Go on. I’ll meet you inside,” Xaden says.

“You sure?” Bodhi’s forehead puckers, and his gaze sweeps over the courtyard.

“Go,” Xaden orders, standing completely still until the other two walk into the barracks, turning left toward the stairwell that will take them to the second- and third-year floors. Only when they’re gone does he turn and face the exact spot where I’m sitting.

“I know you know I’m here.” I force myself to stand and move toward him so he doesn’t think I’m hiding or worse—scared of him. “And please don’t prattle on about commanding the dark. I’m not in the mood tonight.”

“No questions about where I’ve been?” He folds his arms across his chest and studies me in the moonlight. His scar looks even more menacing in this light, but I can’t seem to find the energy to be scared.

“I honestly don’t care.” I shrug, the movement making the throb in my shoulders intensify. Awesome, just in time to practice on the Gauntlet tomorrow.

He cocks his head to the side. “You really don’t, do you?”

“Nope. It’s not like I’m not out after curfew myself.” A heavy sigh blows through my lips.

“What are you doing out after curfew, first-year?”

“Debating running away,” I retort. “How about you? Feel like sharing?” I ask mockingly, knowing he’s not about to answer me.