“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.”
Jack huffs and marches off across the field.
I glance at the generals still gathered in heated discussion on the dais. “Professor Kaori, has anyone ever bonded two dragons?” If anyone knows, it’s the professor of Dragonkind.
He turns with me to face the arguing leadership. “You would be the first. Not sure why they’re fighting about it, though. The decision won’t be up to them.”
“It won’t?” Wind gusts as dozens of dragons land on the opposite side of the first-years, rows of mage lights hanging between them.
“Nothing about who dragons choose is up to humans,” Kaori assures me. “We only like to maintain the illusion that we’re in control. Something tells me they’ve just been waiting for the others to make it back before they meet.”
“The leadership?” My brow furrows.
Kaori shakes his head. “The dragons.”
The dragons are going to meet? “Thank you for tending to my ankle. I’d better get back over there.” I offer him a tentative smile and head across the dimly lit field to Tairn and Andarna, feeling the weight of every stare in the valley as I stop and stand between the two dragons.
“You two are causing a ruckus, you know.” I look at Andarna, then glance up at Tairn before turning around to face the field like the other first-years. “They’re not going to let us do this.” Oh shit, what if they make me choose?
My stomach plummets.
“It’s up to the Empyrean to decide,” Tairn says, but there’s an edge of tension in his tone. “Don’t leave the field. This might take a while.”
“What might—” My question dies on my tongue as the biggest dragon I’ve ever seen, even larger than Tairn, stalks toward us from the opening to the valley. Each dragon it passes walks into the center of the field and follows after, gathering dozens as it walks. “Is that…”
“Codagh,” Tairn answers.
General Melgren’s dragon.
I make out the patchy holes in his battle-scarred wings as he comes closer, his golden gaze focused on Tairn in a way that makes me nauseous. He growls, low in his throat, turning those sinister eyes on me.
Tairn rumbles his own growl, stepping forward so I’m between his massive claws.
There’s zero doubt I’m the subject of both disgruntled snarls.
“Yep! We’re talking about you!” Andarna says as the line passes by, and she joins.
“Stay close to the wingleader until we return,” Tairn orders.
Surely he meant to say squad leader.
