Tairn chuffs and every dragon besides Sgaeyl stiffens on the wall, even Amber’s. The riders are quick to follow, silence filling the courtyard, and I know they know.

“That spineless wretch,” Rhiannon seethes, her hand squeezing mine even tighter.

Dain pales.

“Believe me now?” I hurl it like the accusation it is. “You’re supposed to be my oldest friend, Dain. My best friend. There’s a reason I didn’t tell you.”

He staggers backward.

“The wingleaders have formed a quorum and are in unanimous agreement,” Xaden announces, flanked by Nyra and Septon while the commandant hangs back. “We find you guilty, Amber Mavis.”

“No!” she shouts. “It is no crime to rid the quadrant of the weakest rider! I did it to protect the integrity of the wings!” She paces in panic, looking to everyone—anyone for help.

As a whole, the formation moves backward.

“And as is our law, your sentence will be carried out by fire,” Nyra states.

“No!” Amber looks to her dragon. “Claidh!”

Amber’s Orange Daggertail snarls at the other dragons and lifts a claw.

Tairn swivels his massive head toward Claidh, his roar shaking the ground beneath my feet. Then he snaps his teeth at the smaller orange, and she retreats, her head hanging as she grips the wall again.

The sight breaks my heart, not for Amber but for Claidh.

“Do you have to?” I ask Tairn.

“This is our way.”

“Please don’t,” I beg, forgetting to think the words. It’s one thing to punish Amber, but Claidh will suffer as well.

Maybe I could talk to Amber. Maybe we can still work through our issues. Maybe we can find common ground, turn our anger to friendship or at least casual indifference. I shake my head, my heart pounding in my throat. I did this. I was so focused on whether anyone would believe me, I didn’t stop to think what might happen if they did.

I turn to Xaden and beg again, my voice breaking by the end. “Please give her a chance.”

He holds my gaze but doesn’t so much as show a flicker of emotion.

“I let someone live once, and he almost killed you last night, Silver One,” Tairn says. Then, as if this is all that really matters in the end, “Justice is not always merciful.”

“Claidh,” Amber whimpers, the courtyard so unbelievably silent that the sound carries.

The formation splits at the center.

Tairn leans low, extending his head and neck past the dais toward where Amber stands. Then his teeth part, he curls his tongue, and he incinerates her with a blast of fire so hot, I can feel it from here. It’s over in a heartbeat.

A gruesome scream rends the air, shattering a window in the academic wing, and every rider slams their hands over their ears as Claidh mourns.

Don’t freak out if you can’t immediately channel your dragon’s powers, Mira. Yeah, I know you have to be the best at everything, but this isn’t something you can control. They’ll channel when they feel you’re ready. And once they do, you’d better be ready to manifest a signet. Until then, you’re not ready. Don’t push it.

—Page sixty-one, the Book of Brennan

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

“This really isn’t necessary.” I glance sideways at Liam as we make our way toward the door of the Archives. The cart doesn’t even squeak anymore. He fixed that the very first day.

“So you’ve told me for the last week.” He shoots me a grin, revealing a dimple.

“And yet you’re still here. Every day. All day.” It’s not that I don’t like him. To my absolute annoyance, he’s actually…nice. Courteous, funny, and ridiculously helpful. He makes it difficult to loathe his constant presence, even though he leaves wood shavings in little piles everywhere he goes—which is everywhere I go now. The guy is constantly whittling with that smaller knife of his. Yesterday he finished the figurine of a bear.

“Until otherwise ordered,” he says.

I shake my head at him as Pierson jolts upright at the Archives doors, straightening his cream tunic. “Good morning, Cadet Pierson.”

“You as well, Cadet Sorrengail.” He offers me a polite smile, which dies as he glances at Liam. “Cadet Mairi.”

“Cadet Pierson,” Liam responds, as if the scribe’s tone hadn’t completely changed.

My shoulders tense as Pierson hurries to open the door. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t been around marked ones before Basgiath, but the outright hostility toward them is becoming glaringly, uncomfortably obvious to me.

We walk into the Archives and wait by the table just like every other morning.

“How do you do that?” I ask Liam in a hushed whisper. “Handle when people are that rude without reacting?”

“You’re rude to me all the time,” he teases, drumming his fingers on the handle of the cart.

“Because you’re my babysitter, not because…” I can’t even say it.

“Because I’m the son of the disgraced Colonel Mairi?” His jaw ticks, his brow furrowing for a heartbeat as he looks away.

I nod, my stomach sinking as I think back over the last few months. “I guess I’m really no better, though. I hated Xaden on sight, and I didn’t know a single thing about him.” Not that I do now, either. He’s infuriatingly good at being completely inaccessible.

Liam scoffs, earning us a glare from a scribe near the back corner. “He has that effect on people, especially women. They either despise him for what his father did or want to fuck him for the same reason, just depends on where we are.”

“You actually know him, don’t you?” I crane my neck to look up at him. “He didn’t just pick you to shadow me because you’re the best in our year.”

“Just now catching on, huh?” A grin flashes across his face. “I would have told you that on the first day if you hadn’t been so busy huffing and puffing about the pleasure of my company.”

I roll my eyes as Jesinia approaches, her hood up over her hair. “Hey, Jesinia,” I sign.

“Good morning,” she signs back, her mouth curving in a shy smile as her gaze darts up to Liam.

“Good morning.” He signs with a wink, clearly flirting.

It shocked me to my toes that first day that he knew how to sign, but honestly, I’d been a little judgy just because I didn’t want a shadow.