There’s a drumlike sound as my feet beat against the ramp and the incline sharpens. Just because I haven’t personally conquered this obstacle doesn’t mean I haven’t watched my squadmates take it over and over again. I throw my body forward and momentum carries me upward, running up the side of the ramp.

I wait until I feel the precious shift, the moment gravity reclaims my body almost two feet from the top, and I swing my arm up and slam my dagger into the slick, soft wood of the ramp—and use it to fling myself the last foot upward.

A primal scream rips from my throat as my shoulder cries in protest just as my fingers graze the lip of the edge. I throw my elbow over the top to gain more leverage and pull myself up and over, using the handle of my dagger as a final step before lurching onto the top of the cliff.

Not done yet.

On my stomach, I turn to face the ramp, then reach over the side and yank my dagger free, sheathing it at my ribs before I stagger to my feet. I made it. Relief sucks the adrenaline straight out of my body.

Rhiannon’s arms sweep around me, taking my weight as I gasp for air. Ridoc hugs my back, squeezing me like I’m the filling of a sandwich as he hollers in happiness. I’d protest, but right now they’re all that’s keeping me upright.

“She can’t do that!” someone shouts.

“Yeah, well, she just did!” Ridoc tosses over his shoulder, loosening his grip on me.

My knees shake, but they hold as I suck in breath after breath.

“You made it!” Rhiannon takes my face in her hands, tears filling her brown eyes. “You made it!”

“Luck.” I draw in another breath and beg my galloping heart to slow. “And. Adrenaline.”

“Cheating!”

I turn toward the voice. It’s Amber Mavis, the strawberry-blond wingleader from Third Wing who was Dain’s close friend last year, and there’s nothing but fury on her face as she charges toward Xaden, who’s only a couple of feet away with the roll, recording times with a stopwatch and looking rather bored with it all.

“Back the hell up, Mavis,” Garrick threatens, the sun flashing off the two swords the curly-haired section leader keeps strapped to his back as he puts his body between Amber and Xaden.

“The cheater clearly used foreign materials not once but twice,” Amber yells. “It’s not to be tolerated! We live by the rules or we die by them!”

No wonder she and Dain are so close—they’re both in love with the Codex.

“I don’t take kindly to calling anyone in my section a cheater,” Garrick warns, his massive shoulders blocking her from view as he turns. “And my wingleader will handle any rule-breaking in his own wing.” He moves to the side, and I’m met with Amber’s glaring blue eyes.

“Sorrengail?” Xaden asks, arching an eyebrow in obvious challenge, a pen poised over the book. I notice not for the first time that other than his Fourth Wing and wingleader emblems, he doesn’t wear the patches others are so fond of displaying.

“I expect the thirty-second penalty for using the rope,” I answer, my breaths steadying.

“And the knife?” Amber’s gaze narrows. “She’s disqualified.” When Xaden doesn’t answer, she turns that glare on him. “Surely she’s out! You can’t tolerate lawlessness within your own wing, Riorson!”

But Xaden’s gaze never leaves mine as he silently waits for me to respond.

“A rider may only bring to the quadrant the items they can carry—” I start.

“Are you quoting the Codex to me?” Amber shouts.

“—and they shall not be separated from those items no matter what they may be,” I continue. “For once carried across the parapet, they are considered part of their person. Article Three, Section Six, Addendum B.”

Her blue eyes flare wide as I glance at her. “That addendum was written to make thievery an executional offense.”

“Correct.” I nod, looking between her and the onyx eyes that see straight through me. “But in doing so, it gave any item carried across the parapet the status of being a part of the rider.” I unsheathe the chipped and battered blade with a sharp bite of pain in my palms. “This isn’t a challenge blade. It’s one I carried across and therefore considered part of myself.”

His eyes flare, and I don’t miss the hint of a smirk on that infuriatingly decadent mouth of his. It should be against the Codex to look that good and be so ruthless.

“The right way isn’t the only way.” I use his own words against him.

Xaden holds my gaze. “She has you, Amber.”

“On a technicality!”

“She still has you.” He turns slightly and delivers a look that I never want directed at me.

“You think like a scribe,” she barks at me.

It’s intended as an insult, but I just nod. “I know.”

She marches off, and I sheathe the dagger again, letting my hands fall to my sides and closing my eyes as relief shucks the weight from my shoulders. I did it. I passed another test.

“Sorrengail,” Xaden says, and my eyes fly open. “You’re leaking.” His gaze drops pointedly to my hands.

Where blood is dripping from my fingertips.

Pain erupts, pushing past my mental dam like a raging river at the sight of the mess I’ve made of my palms. I’ve shredded them.

“Do something about it,” he orders.

I nod and back away, joining my squad. Rhiannon helps me cut off the sleeves of my shirt to bandage my hands, and I cheer our last two squadmates up the cliff.

We all make it.

Presentation Day is unlike any other. The air is ripe with possibilities, and possibly the stench of sulfur from a dragon who has been offended. Never look a red in the eye. Never back down from a green. If you show trepidation to a brown…well, just don’t.

—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind

CHAPTER

TWELVE

There are 169 of us by the time the morning is done and, even with my penalty for the rope, we’ve placed eleventh out of the thirty-six squads for Presentation—the piss-inducing parade of cadets before this year’s dragons willing to bond.

Anxiety seizes my legs at the thought of walking so close to dragons determined to weed out the weak before Threshing, and I suddenly wish we’d placed last.

The fastest up the Gauntlet was Liam Mairi, of course, earning him the Gauntlet patch. Pretty sure that guy doesn’t know how to take second place, but I wasn’t the slowest, and that’s good enough for me.

The box canyon that makes up the training field is spectacular in the afternoon sun, with miles of autumn-colored meadows and peaks rising on three sides of us as we wait at the narrowest part, the entrance to the valley. At the end, I can make out the line of the waterfall that might be just a trickle of a creek now but will rush at runoff season.

The leaves of the trees are all turning gold, as though someone has brought in a paintbrush with only one color and streaked it across the landscape.