But now I’m cornered between my desk and the armoire.
There are too many of them.
And they all rush at the same damn time.
My dagger is kicked out of my hand with appalling ease, and my heart seizes as Oren grips my throat, yanking me toward him. I sweep out for his knees, but my bare feet make no impact as he lifts me off the ground, cutting off my air supply as I kick for purchase.
No. No. No.
I dig my hands into his arm, my fingernails puncturing his skin as I claw, drawing blood. He might bear my scars after this, but his grip doesn’t ease as he crushes my throat.
Air. There’s no air.
“He’s almost there!” Tairn promises, panic lacing his tone.
He who? I can’t breathe. Can’t think.
“Finish her!” one of the men yells. “He’ll only respect us if we finish her!”
They’re after Tairn.
Tairn’s roar of rage fills my head as Oren lowers my body, flipping me around as he curls his arm so my back is against his chest. At least my feet are on the ground, but the edge of my vision goes dark, my lungs fighting for oxygen that isn’t there.
The greedy eyes of a bleeding first-year stare back into mine. “Do it!” she demands.
“Your dragon is mine,” Oren hisses in my ear, and his hand falls away, replaced by a blade.
Air rushes into my lungs as cold metal caresses my throat, the oxygen flooding my blood and clearing my head enough to realize this is it. I am going to die. From one heartbeat to what will probably be my last, an overwhelming sorrow seizes my chest, and I can’t help but wonder if I would have made it. Would I have been strong enough to graduate? Would I have become worthy of Tairn and Andarna? Would I have finally made my mother proud?
The knife tip touches my skin.
My bedroom door flies open, the wood splintering as it slams against the stone wall, but I don’t have a chance to turn to see who is standing there before a shriek pierces my vision.
“Mine!” Andarna screams. Skin-prickling energy zings down my spine, then rushes to my fingertips and toes, and the next breath I take is in total, complete silence.
“Go!” Andarna demands.
I blink and realize the first-year in front of me doesn’t. She isn’t breathing. Isn’t moving.
No one is.
Everyone in this room is frozen in place…except me.
In response to the Great War, dragons claimed the western lands and gryphons the central ones, abandoning the Barrens and the memory of General Daramor, who nearly destroyed the Continent with his army. Our allies sailed home and we began a period of peace and prosperity as the provinces of Navarre united for the first time behind the safety of our wards, under the protection of the first bonded riders.
—Navarre, an Unedited History
by Colonel Lewis Markham
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
What. The. Hell.
It’s as if everyone in my room has turned to stone, but I know that can’t be true. Oren’s body is warm behind me, his skin malleable under my fingers as I shift my grip and shove his bloody forearm, forcing the blade away from my neck.
A single drop of blood drips from the sharp tip, splattering on the hardwood, and there’s a trickle of wetness down my throat.
“Quick! I can’t hold it!” Andarna urges, her voice thready.
She’s doing this? I gulp heaving breaths through my battered windpipe and duck under Oren’s forearm, freeing myself, then sidestep quickly in the silence.
Complete, unearthly silence.
The clock on my desk isn’t ticking as I squeeze between Oren’s elbow and a giant guy who used to be from Second Wing. No one breathes. Their gazes are frozen. To the left, the woman I sliced open is hunched over, clutching her forearm, and the man I stabbed is leaned against the wall on the right, staring in horror at his thigh.
I mark time in thunderous heartbeats as I stumble into the only open space in my room, but my path to the now-open door isn’t clear.
Xaden fills the doorway like some kind of dark, avenging angel, the messenger of the queen of the gods. He’s fully dressed, his face a mask of veritable rage as shadows curl from the walls on either side of him, hanging in midair.
For the first time since crossing the parapet, I’m so fucking relieved to see him that I could cry.
Andarna gasps in my mind—and chaos resumes.
Nausea clenches my stomach.
