“Interesting. I didn’t take you for an exhibitionist.”

“Keep pushing, and I guess you’ll find out.” His gaze drops to my mouth.

“I thought you said kissing me was a mistake.” I don’t care if the entire quadrant is watching if that means he’ll kiss me again.

“It was.” He smirks. “I’m just teaching you that blades aren’t the only way to disarm an opponent. Tell me, Violence, are you disarmed?”

Arrogant ass.

I scoff and start plucking knives from their sheaths, flinging them across the mat while he watches with impatient amusement. Then I lock my legs around his hips and force a roll to the left, putting Xaden on his back. Willingly, of course—there’s no way I’m kneeling on top of him if he doesn’t want it that way—but I throw a forearm against his collarbone with the pretense of pinning him anyway and proceed to steal the other daggers he has sheathed along his side.

“And lastly,” I say with a smile, leaning forward, our heated bodies nearly flush as I snatch the dagger right out of his hand. “Thank you.”

The final blade secure, Xaden throws his palms to the mat and shoves with unnatural strength, arching us straight back until my spine kisses the mat again.

“That’s.” I suck in a breath, the move shocking me to my toes and lodging him firmly between my thighs. It takes everything I have not to arch up against him and see if he really thinks that kiss was a mistake. “Not fair to use your powers on the mat.” Magical. Sexual. Whatever. It’s all unfair.

“That’s the other thing.” He jumps to his feet and offers his hand. I take it, my head rushing as I stand. Not now. Do not get dizzy now. “Emetterio doesn’t allow powers in order to level the playing field when it comes to challenges. But out there? The field is anything but level, and you need to learn to use whatever you’ve got.”

“I can’t do much beside ground, shield, and move a piece of parchment.” I sheathe the new dagger, then collect the others and do the same. They really are lovely, all marked with different runes. It’s a shame there are so many parts of Tyrrish culture that were lost centuries ago during the unification, including most runes. I don’t even know what they all mean.

“Well, looks like we’re going to have to work on that, too.” He sighs and takes up a fighting stance. “Now, earn your nickname and try your best to kill me.”

…

February flies by in a blur of exhaustion. Xaden takes every unscheduled moment of my day, and Dain’s gritted his teeth more than once when the wingleader has pulled me out of squad training because he has something infinitely more important for me to do.

Which usually ends with me getting my ass handed to me repeatedly on the mat.

But I have to say, he doesn’t baby me like Dain, and he doesn’t take it easy on me like Rhiannon does. He pushes me to my physical limit every session but never further, usually leaving me a boneless, sweaty heap on the sparring gym floor, gasping for breath.

That’s usually when Imogen reminds me that I’m needed in the weight room.

I hate them both.

Kind of.

It’s hard to argue with the results when I’m learning to take down the strongest fighter in the quadrant. I have yet to beat him, but I’m all right with that. It means he doesn’t let me win.

He also doesn’t kiss me again, even when I push.

March arrives with uncountable feet of snow that have to be shoveled before morning formation every day. And the moments the relic burns in my back and I feel like I might crawl out of my own skin if the power building within me doesn’t release reminds me that I still don’t have a signet. It’s already almost been three months.

Every morning I wake up wondering if today is the day I’ll spontaneously combust.

“Sharla Gunter,” Captain Fitzgibbons reads from the death roll, his gloved hands slipping on the frozen parchment. It’s warmer this week, but not by much. “And Mushin Vedie. We commend their souls to Malek.”

“Vedie?” I ask Rhiannon, my eyebrows shooting up as formation ends. I didn’t know him well, since he was in Second Wing, but the name is still a shock, considering he was rumored to be one of the best among us.

“You didn’t hear?” She pulls her fur-lined cloak closer around her neck. “His signet manifested in the middle of Carr’s class yesterday, and he burst into flames.”

“He…burned himself to death?”

She nods. “Tara said Carr thinks he was supposed to be able to wield fire, but it just overwhelmed him in that first rush and…”

“He went up like a torch,” Ridoc adds. “Kind of makes you glad your signet’s still hiding, huh?”

“Hiding is one way to put it.” Other than the ability I’m not supposed to even whisper about, I’m proving to be the one thing my mother hates—average. And it’s not as though I can go to Tairn or Andarna for help. The signet is all about me, and I’m apparently not delivering, as the stinging relic on my back constantly reminds me. There’s a tiny, secret part of me that hopes my signet hasn’t manifested yet because it’s different than the others, not only useful but…meaningful, like Brennan’s was.

“Definitely makes me want to skip class today,” Rhiannon mutters, blowing on her hands to keep them warm.

“No skipping class,” Dain admonishes, pinning us with a stare. “We’re weeks away from the Squad Battle and we need every single one of you at your best to win.”

Imogen snorts. “Come on, Aetos, I think we all know Second Wing has that squad in Tail Section that’s going to smoke the rest of us. Have you ever seen them sprint up the Gauntlet? Pretty sure they’ve been out there even though it’s still covered in ice.”

“We’re going to win,” Cianna, our executive officer, proclaims with a decisive nod. “Sorrengail here might slow us down on the Gauntlet”—she wrinkles her hawkish nose—“and probably in the wielding department, too, at the rate she’s advancing—”

“Gee, thanks.” I fold my arms across my chest. Bet I can shield better than all of them combined.

“But Rhiannon’s skills more than make up for that,” Cianna continues. “And we all know Liam and Heaton are both going to decimate on the mat for the challenge competition. That only leaves flight maneuvers and whatever task the wingleaders come up with to judge this year.”

“Oh, is that all? Man, I thought it was going to be hard.” The sarcasm rolling off Ridoc is thick enough to earn him a glare from Dain.

“We’re down to ten of you,” Dain says, glancing over our group. “Twelve of us in total, which puts us at a slight disadvantage against a couple other squads, but I think we’ll manage.”

We lost two of the new additions last week when the smaller one’s signet manifested in Battle Brief and they both froze to death in seconds, nearly taking out Ridoc with the exposure, too. He was treated for frostbite but didn’t have any permanent damage. Now Nadine and Liam are the only ones left from the batch we acquired after Threshing.

“But in order to manage, I need you guys to get to class.” He lifts his brows at me. “Especially you. A signet would be great, you know. If you can maybe make that happen.” It’s as if he can’t decide how to treat me lately, as the first-year who’s struggling but still here or the girl he grew up with.

I hate how unsettled everything feels between us, all wrongly sticky, like putting on clothes before you can dry after a bath, but it’s still Dain. At least he’s finally being supportive.

“She’s going to miss Carr’s class today,” Xaden interrupts, appearing behind Sawyer, who hurries to clear a path.

“No I’m not.” I shake my head and ignore the quick jump of my pulse at the sight of him.

“She needs to go,” Dain argues, then grits his teeth. “I mean, unless the wing has more pressing matters for Cadet Sorrengail, her time is best spent developing her wielding skills.”

“I think we both know she’s not going to manifest a signet in that room. She would have already if that was the key.” I wouldn’t wish the look Xaden levels Dain with on my worst enemy. It’s not anger or even indignation. No, he looks…annoyed, as if Dain’s complaints are entirely beneath him, which, according to our chain of command, they are. “And yes, the wing has more pressing matters for her.”

“Sir, I’m just not comfortable with her going a day without at least practicing her wielding, and as her squad leader—”

He doesn’t know that Xaden’s been giving me extra wielding sessions while we spar.

“For Dunne’s sake.” Xaden sighs, invoking the goddess of war. He reaches into the pocket of his cloak and takes out a pocket watch, holding it in his outstretched palm. “Pick it up, Sorrengail.”

I glance at the two men and wish they’d just sort their shit out between themselves, but there’s about a zero percent chance of that happening. For the sake of expediency, I throw my mental feet into the floor of the Archives. White-hot power flows around me, raising goose bumps on my arms and lifting the hair at the back of my neck.

Raising my right hand, I envision that power twining between my fingers, and little shocks blossom along my skin as I give form to the energy, making it a hand of its own as I ask it to stretch the few feet that separate me from Xaden.