“Tairn. What am I supposed to—” I think at him.

“Tell the roll-keeper her name,” Tairn echoes.

“Violet?” the roll-keeper repeats. “Do you need a mender?”

I turn back to the woman and clear my throat. “And Andarnaurram,” I whisper.

Her eyes fly wide. “Both dragons?” she squawks.

I nod.

And all hell breaks loose.

Though this officer considers himself to be an expert on all matters dragonkind, there is a great deal we don’t know about the way dragons govern themselves. There is a clear hierarchy among the most powerful, and deference is paid to elders, but I have not been able to discern how it is they make laws for themselves or at what point a dragon decided to bond only one rider, rather than go for better odds with two.

—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

“Absolutely not!” one general shouts loud enough that I can hear her all the way from the little medical station that’s been set up at the end of the bleachers for riders. It’s nothing but a row of a dozen tables and some flown-in supplies to tide us over until we can get to the Healer Quadrant, but at least the pain medication is taking effect.

Two dragons. I have…two dragons.

The generals have been screaming at each other for the last half hour, long enough for a chill to settle in the night air and for an instructor I’ve never met to sew up both sides of my arm.

Lucky for me, Tynan mostly sliced through muscle but didn’t sever it.

Unlucky for me, Jack is getting his shoulder examined about a dozen feet away. He strutted over from the back of an Orange Scorpiontail to record his bond with the roll-keeper, who’d kept doing her job regardless of the generals arguing on the dais behind her.

Jack hasn’t quit staring at Tairn across the field.

“How is that?” Professor Kaori asks quietly, tightening the straps around my splinted ankle. There are about a million other questions in his slashing, dark eyes, but he keeps them to himself.

“Hurts like hell.” The swelling made it nearly impossible to get my boot back on without loosening every single lace to its widest position, but at least I didn’t have to crawl across the field like a girl from Second Wing who had broken her leg during dismount. She’s seven tables back, crying softly as the rider field medics try to set her leg.

“You’ll be focused on strengthening your bonds and riding in the next couple of months, so as long as you don’t have trouble mounting or dismounting”—his head tilts as he ties off the straps of my splint—“which, after what I saw, I don’t think you will—this sprain should heal before your next round of challenges.” Two lines deepen between his brow. “Or I can call Nolon—”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’ll heal.”

“If you’re sure?” He obviously isn’t.

“Every eye in this valley is on me and my dragon—dragons,” I correct myself. “I can’t afford to appear weak.”

He frowns but nods.

“Do you know who made it out of my squad?” I ask, fear knotting my throat. Please let Rhiannon be alive. And Trina. And Ridoc. And Sawyer. All of them.

“I haven’t seen Trina or Tynan,” Professor Kaori answers slowly, like he’s trying to soften a blow. It doesn’t.

“Tynan won’t be coming,” I whisper, guilt gnawing at my stomach.

“That is not your kill to take credit for,” Tairn mentally growls.

“I see,” Professor Kaori murmurs.

“What the hell do you mean you think it needs surgery?” Jack bellows from my left.

“I mean, it looks like the weapon severed a couple of ligaments, but we’ll have to get you to the healers to be sure,” the other instructor says, his voice infinitely patient as he secures Jack’s sling.

I look Jack straight in those evil eyes and smile. I’m done being scared of him. He ran back in that meadow.

Rage mottles his cheeks in the mage light, and he swings his feet over the end of his table and charges toward me. “You!”

“I what?” I slip off the end of my table and leave my hands loose by the sheaths at my thighs.

Professor Kaori’s eyebrows jump as he glances between us. “You?” he murmurs.

“Me,” I answer, keeping my focus on Jack.

But Professor Kaori moves between us, throwing his palm out at Jack. “I wouldn’t get any closer to her.”

“Hiding behind our instructors now, Sorrengail?” Jack’s uninjured fist curls.

“I didn’t hide out there, and I’m not hiding here.” I raise my chin. “I’m not the one who ran.”

“She doesn’t need to hide behind me when she’s bonded to the most powerful dragon of your year,” Professor Kaori warns Jack, whose eyes narrow on me. “Your orange is a good choice, Barlowe. Baide, right? He’s had four other riders before you.”

Jack nods.

Professor Kaori looks back over his shoulder at the line of dragons. “As aggressive as Baide might be, from the way Tairn’s looking at you, he’ll have no problem scorching your bones into the earth if you take another step toward his rider.”

Jack stares at me in disbelief. “You?”

“Me.” The throbbing in my ankle is down to a manageable, dull ache, even standing on it.

He shakes his head, and the look in his eyes transforms from shock, to envy, to fear as he pivots toward the professor. “I don’t know what she told you about what happened out there—”

“Nothing.” The instructor folds his arms across his chest. “Is there something I need to know?”

Jack pales, going white as a sheet in the mage light as another injured first-year hobbles over, blood streaming from his thigh and torso.

“Everyone who needs to know already knows.” I lock eyes with Jack.

“Guess we’re done for the night,” Kaori says as a line of dragons flies in, only visible by their silhouettes in the darkness. “The senior riders are back. You two should return to your dragons.”