The stench of sweat and grit hung heavy in the air of the training pavilion. I stood with my arms crossed, my back against one of the massive stone pillars that held up the roof, watching the first-years get systematically brutalized on the mats. It was a required part of a wingleader’s duties—assess the new crop, identify the weak links. Most of them were exactly what I expected: arrogant, terrified, or a clumsy combination of the two.

Then my eyes found her.

Violet Sorrengail. She looked even smaller here, swallowed by the black leathers that seemed to hang off her frame. She was pitted against Jack Barlowe, a sadist-in-training who outweighed her by a good fifty pounds of muscle and ego. It was a mismatch designed for humiliation. I expected it to be over in seconds.

It wasn’t.

Barlowe came at her with a brutish charge, and she sidestepped at the last possible moment, his momentum carrying him past her. He stumbled, catching himself before he went off the mat, and the small crowd of onlookers snickered. His face turned a blotchy red. He spun, his movements sloppy with anger, and swung a wide, clumsy fist. Violet ducked under it, but he was too big, his reach too great. His other hand caught her by the shoulder and he threw her.

She hit the mat with a hard slap that should have knocked the wind out of her. I saw her jaw clench, her face pale with the impact. For a second, she lay still. Barlowe swaggered toward her, puffing out his chest. “Had enough, Sorrengail?”

Slowly, deliberately, she pushed herself up. First to her hands and knees, then to her feet. She was unsteady, favoring her left side, but she was standing. Her silver-blonde hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, but her eyes—those sharp, intelligent eyes—were fixed on him with a defiance that was utterly stupid and somehow… familiar.

She is breakable, Sgaeyl noted in my mind, her assessment cold and clinical. The strange, pulling sensation from the hallway was still there, a low thrumming behind her thoughts. This is a waste of our attention.

She’s still standing, I thought back, the words forming before I could stop them.

The fight, if you could call it that, continued. It was a brutal display. He was a battering ram, and she was a splintering door. He knocked her down again and again. But every time, she got back up. She wasn’t winning. She wasn’t even landing any significant blows. But she was surviving. She was learning. I watched her adapt, her movements becoming smaller, more efficient. She stopped trying to dodge completely and instead started trying to deflect, to use his own weight against him. She’d turn his shoves into glancing blows, absorb the force of a kick by rolling with it.

It was a strategy born of pure desperation. It was the strategy of someone who knew they were outmatched in every physical way but refused to concede. It was the fight of a cornered animal, all instinct and stubborn will. I’d seen that look before. I saw it in the mirror every morning. I saw it on Imogen’s face, on Garrick’s, on every one of the marked children who had survived this long. It wasn’t about winning the bout; it was about refusing to be broken by it.

Barlowe finally caught her in a grapple, his forearm pressing against her throat. Her face began to purple, her hands scrabbling uselessly at his massive arm. She was seconds from passing out. Then I saw it. A glint of something sharp. She’d palmed one of the small daggers from her boot—an illegal move, but a smart one. With a final, desperate burst of energy, she drove the pommel hard into the soft flesh of his inner thigh.

He roared, his grip loosening just enough. She squirmed free, gasping for air, and scrambled away. The instructor called the match, declaring Barlowe the winner. He was still cursing, clutching his leg, while Violet pushed herself to her feet one last time at the edge of the mat. She was bruised, trembling with exhaustion, and utterly defeated.

But as she limped away, she glanced toward the pillars where I stood. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. There was no fear in them. Only pain, and a white-hot, burning determination that sent an unwelcome jolt of recognition straight through me. She wasn’t just the general’s daughter. She wasn’t just a liability.

She was a survivor. And that made her infinitely more dangerous than I’d ever imagined.

I turned away from the mats, the image of her defiant eyes burned into my mind. The respect she’d inadvertently earned was a bitter pill. Respect was dangerous. It was a step away from empathy, and empathy was a luxury I couldn’t afford, especially for her.

I walked the stone corridors back toward my quarters, the familiar weight of my responsibilities settling back over my shoulders. The encounter with Colton, the constant vigilance, and now this... this complication with Violet Sorrengail. It was another variable in an equation that was already impossible to solve.

My room was stark, functional. A bed, a desk, a weapons rack. Anything else was a vulnerability. As I closed the door, the silence was a brief respite. I ran a hand over my face, the tension in my jaw a familiar ache.

That one is all bone and nerve, Sgaeyl commented, her voice a low rumble in the back of my skull. The strange pulling sensation I’d felt earlier was a constant, low-grade hum, like a distant storm. She will not last the winter.

She might surprise you, I replied, stripping off my leather jacket and tossing it onto the bed.

A flicker of movement outside my window caught my eye. It wasn't a person, just a slight disturbance in the shadows on the stone ledge. I crossed the room and pushed the heavy glass pane open. A small, carved piece of obsidian shaped like a feather sat on the sill. It was cool to the touch. A signal.

I scanned the courtyard below. Empty. Whoever left it was long gone. I brought the feather inside, my pulse quickening. Messages from my network were rare and always urgent. I ran my thumb over the carving, feeling for the small, nearly invisible catch. A click, and the feather split lengthwise. Tucked inside was a tightly rolled piece of parchment no bigger than my thumbnail.

Unrolling it was a delicate process. The message was written in a numerical cipher keyed to a specific text—a book of Tyrrish poetry my father had given me. I retrieved the worn leather volume from its hiding place beneath a loose floorboard. It took me ten minutes of cross-referencing page numbers, lines, and word counts, my frustration mounting with each deciphered word. The message was short, blunt.

Northern garrisons running silent. Supply manifests forged. Leadership reports patrols that never leave the ground. They’re stealing from us. They’re letting the border rot.

I stared at the decoded words, a cold dread seeping into my bones, chilling me more than the mountain air ever could. I’d known there was corruption. I’d known there was prejudice. I’d built my entire network on the assumption that we couldn’t trust the command structure to protect the marked children.

But this was worse. This wasn’t just about us. Forging supply manifests, faking patrols… that was treason on a scale that threatened the entire kingdom. They weren’t just letting us die; they were actively weakening the borders, leaving Navarrian citizens vulnerable. For what? Greed? Power? It didn’t matter. The result was the same. The gryphons and the venin would eventually push past the weakened wards, and thousands would die, all because some commander wanted to line his pockets.

A wave of fury, so potent it was almost nauseating, washed over me. I crushed the tiny piece of parchment in my fist. All our sacrifices, all the lives lost, all for a kingdom run by vipers who would sell out their own people. My father died fighting for this. My rebellion was supposed to protect the innocent children of the so-called traitors. Now, it seemed the real traitors were the ones wearing Navarre’s uniform.

The weakness is a disease, Sgaeyl’s voice was a blade of ice in my mind. It must be cut out.

She was right. But the rot was in the leadership. The very people we were sworn to obey. And at the head of that leadership was one man: General Melgren. The man who ordered my father’s execution. The man whose daughter just refused to stay down on the mat, her eyes full of the same fire that was currently burning through my veins. The question was, did she know? Was she a part of the lie, or was she just another cog in their corrupted machine, as blind as everyone else? I had to know.

I found her exactly where I expected to. Not in the library, hiding behind books, but leaving the infirmary, a place she was likely becoming far too familiar with. The setting sun cast long shadows across the courtyard, and she was a small, solitary figure moving through them, her limp more pronounced than it had been on the mats.

I moved to intercept her, stepping out from the archway of the academic building to block her path. She stopped short, her head snapping up. Her face was a canvas of purpling bruises, a small white bandage taped over her cheekbone. For a moment, all I could see was the damage Barlowe had inflicted, the physical proof of her stubborn refusal to quit.

“Sorrengail,” I said, my voice low and devoid of warmth.

She straightened her shoulders, a pathetic attempt to mask the pain that must have been radiating through her ribs. “Riorson.” Her tone was clipped, exhausted. “If you’re here to offer your congratulations on my defeat, you’re late.”

“I don’t congratulate failures.” I took a step closer, deliberately invading her space. She didn’t retreat, but I saw her hands clench into fists at her sides. Her scent filled the small space between us—the clean, antiseptic smell of the infirmary clinging to her clothes, and something else underneath it, something faintly floral and uniquely her. “I’m just curious. How does it feel?”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “How does what feel?”

“To fight so hard for a system that’s utterly corrupt,” I said, my voice dropping, laced with the cold fury from the message. “To put your body on the line for leaders who lie, cheat, and steal from the very people they’ve sworn to protect. Does the hypocrisy ever choke you?”

Her eyes, a startling shade of hazel flecked with gold, widened slightly before narrowing into defiant slits. The flicker of surprise was all the answer I needed. She didn’t know. Or if she did, she hid it better than any actor I’d ever seen.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “But I’m not going to stand here and listen to you slander my father.”

“Your father?” I let out a short, humorless laugh. “Your father is the pinnacle of it all. General Sorrengail, who preaches honor while his command rots from the inside out. He sends conscripts to their deaths on the parapet while commanders forge supply manifests and fake patrols, leaving the borders undefended.” I leaned in closer, my mouth just inches from her ear. “Tell me, does he share those little secrets over dinner? Or are you just the dutiful daughter, blissfully ignorant of the rot you’re a part of?”

She flinched, not from my words, but from my proximity. I could feel the heat radiating from her skin, see the rapid pulse beating in the bruised flesh of her throat. My body reacted before my mind could stop it, a low, primal pull that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with the fierce, cornered energy she was throwing off. I wanted to see her break. I wanted to see her fight back. I wanted to push her until I saw the core of who she was—survivor or pawn.

“Get away from me,” she hissed, turning her face toward me. Her breath was warm against my cheek. Her gaze was pure fire, burning away any trace of the victim. In that moment, she wasn’t small or fragile. She was magnificent.

The thought was a betrayal. My fascination with her was a weakness, a dangerous distraction from the war I was fighting. I needed to hate her. It was simpler. Safer. But standing this close to her, seeing the unyielding strength in her battered face, hate was the last thing I felt.

I straightened up, pulling back abruptly. The air between us crackled with the sudden space. “Be careful who you trust, Sorrengail,” I said, my voice a harsh rasp. “The shadows in this place are longer than you think. And they swallow little girls whole.”

I turned and walked away without another word, leaving her standing alone in the fading light. My heart was pounding, not with the thrill of confrontation, but with a confusing, unwelcome turmoil. I had tested her defenses, and all I’d managed to do was solidify my own unwelcome fascination with the woman I was supposed to destroy.

As I stalked back toward my chambers, the cool night air did nothing to quiet the storm inside me. Every instinct screamed that I had just made a mistake. Showing that much of my hand, revealing the depth of my contempt for the leadership to her, of all people, was a tactical error. But seeing her standing there, so defiant in her brokenness, had shattered my control.

You are drawn to her fire, Sgaeyl noted, a hint of something that sounded dangerously like amusement in her tone. The persistent, humming pull in my mind, the one I’d felt since the conscripts arrived, sharpened into a distinct, undeniable yearning. It was her feeling, not mine, bleeding through our bond with an intensity that was new.

I’m drawn to a vulnerability I can exploit, I shot back, the lie feeling hollow even in my own head.

Liar. The word was a physical force, a shove against my mental shields. You see the same strength in her that I feel in him.

Before I could demand what she meant, the world dissolved. It wasn't a thought or a suggestion. It was a complete sensory takeover. The stone corridor of the Riders Quadrant vanished, replaced by an image so vivid, so real, that my legs stuttered to a halt.

Power. Ancient, absolute, and utterly unapologetic.

I was seeing through Sgaeyl's eyes, feeling with her heart. And what she was showing me was a dragon. He was magnificent, a creature of midnight and fury. His scales were the color of polished obsidian, each one a perfectly formed blade. Muscle coiled beneath the dark hide, promising devastating strength. A series of jagged spines ran the length of his back, culminating in a tail tipped with a massive, brutal club of bone and scale. His jaw was heavy, his teeth like daggers of white quartz. He was larger than Sgaeyl, older, a being forged in the heart of a volcano and tempered by millennia of war.

But it was his eyes that held me captive. They were molten gold, swirling with ancient knowledge and a profound, weary arrogance. He wasn’t looking at Sgaeyl, or at me. He was looking at something below him, something small, and the emotion that flooded my system through the bond was a complex cocktail of possessiveness, irritation, and a deep, resonant affection that staggered me.

The image was a snapshot, a single, perfect moment of another dragon’s existence, but it was imbued with so much feeling, so much raw presence, that it felt more real than the stone beneath my own boots. I knew this dragon. Not personally, but from a hundred tales, a thousand warnings. Every rider knew of him. The Black Clubtail. The most powerful of his kind still living.

Tairneanach. Tairn.

The vision receded as quickly as it had come, leaving me gasping in the empty hallway, my hand braced against the cold stone wall. The world swam back into focus, grey and dull after the breathtaking clarity of the vision.

The pull in my mind was no longer a vague sensation. It was a clear, ringing note of connection. A tether. Sgaeyl’s longing was a physical ache in my chest, a hollow yearning for her other half.

Her mate.

My blood ran cold. The legends were clear. Tairn hadn't bonded a rider in more than a century, not since the great war. He was considered all but retired, too old, too powerful, too unwilling to accept a human. Yet Sgaeyl’s vision was not a memory. It was happening now. He was here. At Basgiath. And if Tairn was here, it could only mean one thing.

He had bonded.

The realization struck me with the force of a physical blow. Sgaeyl’s mate, one of the most powerful dragons in existence, had chosen a rider from this year’s conscripts. And a new, terrifying piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The pull I felt toward Violet Sorrengail—that incessant, irritating, magnetic draw—it wasn’t just mine. It was a pale reflection of the cataclysmic bond between our dragons.