Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
“I need to find Xaden.” I sling my pack over my shoulders and slip my arms through the straps, preparing to stand. “It’s not Samara.”
“All right.” Rhiannon puts her things away, and the rest of the squad follows her lead. “We’re coming with you.”
There’s no time to argue, so I nod and we all file out, earning us a few shouted protests from Devera, but the sound only blurs into the roaring in my ears as my thoughts spin faster and faster.
The hallway is relatively empty, since every cadet is at Battle Brief, making for a quick exit from the western wing of the house.
“Where are you?” I ask down the bond.
“In a strategy meeting in the Assembly chamber,” Xaden answers. “Why?”
“I’m headed your way. I need you.” We pass the doors to the history classroom and then the great hall.
“Is anyone going to tell us why we just walked out of Battle Brief?” Cat asks, a few steps behind me.
“Violet has a look in her eyes,” Rhiannon explains, keeping up at my side.
“The same one she had before the Squad Battle last year,” Sawyer says.
“She’s onto something, and from our experience, you just roll with it,” Rhiannon finishes.
Xaden walks out of the Assembly chamber and heads straight for me, meeting us in the middle of the hallway. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not Samara we have to worry about.”
“Why?” He keeps his eyes on me despite the shuffling of my squadmates.
“Because they’re sitting there waiting,” I explain. “They’ve been waiting for three days. Why?”
“If I knew their thought process, this war would be over,” he replies.
“Melgren says they’re overrun on solstice. That’s the day after tomorrow.” Gods, we’re going to have to move quickly.
He nods.
“Wyvern aren’t going to take down the wards at Samara. They can’t fly past them. Plus, smaller hordes were moved along the full border. I think Samara is just a distraction. I think they’re waiting for them all to fall.”
His eyes flare for a heartbeat.
“The battle can’t take place somewhere else,” Sawyer argues. “Melgren would see it.”
“Not if we’re there,” Sloane counters. “Melgren can’t see the outcome if three of us are there, remember?” She holds up her forearm, where her relic winds above the edge of her sleeve.
“Exactly.” My fingernails bite into my palms. “He can’t see the real fight if we’re there. He has all his forces concentrating on Samara, when they should be—”
“At Basgiath,” Xaden finishes my thought, his eyes searching mine. “The Vale.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go back?” he asks.
“Of course we do,” Ridoc answers.
“I wasn’t asking you.” Xaden holds my gaze. “Do you want to go?”
Do I? Navarre has lied to their people—lied to us—for six hundred years.
“They would never come to our aid,” Sloane says.
“They’ve definitely never come to ours,” Cat agrees.
They’ve let Poromish civilians die time and again, safely tucked behind their wards, pulling the blindfold over Navarrian citizens’ lives.
“The hatching grounds are there,” Rhiannon argues.
“We have our own here,” Trager counters. At least I think it’s Trager, since I can’t seem to look away from Xaden.
He’s the stable ground beneath my feet as my mind spins faster and faster, my squadmates voicing contradicting opinions that match my own thoughts.
“My family is in Morraine,” Avalynn pleads.
The voices behind me blur as they truly begin to argue.
“We’d have to leave almost immediately,” Xaden says, his voice cutting through the noise.
“They lied to us. Executed your father. Tortured me.” I force myself to stop counting their transgressions before they overwhelm my conscience.
“Yes.”
“I keep thinking about the infantry cadets, and the healers, and even the scribes.
People like Kaori stayed behind, those who just want to defend their homeland.” Reaching forward, I grasp onto his arms to hold steady as the argument rages around us, and I get the distinct impression by the increase in volume that we’re not the only squad out here anymore.
“Yes.”
“If we don’t go, we’re no better than they are, leaving their civilians to die when we might be the very weapons they need.” My grip tightens on him.
“Do you want to fight?” he asks, leaning down as the argument lessens around us, everyone waiting to hear what I say next, probably. “Say the word, and I’ll take it to the Assembly. And if they won’t support it, we’ll go with whomever will. I go where you go.”
The thought of risking my friends, losing them, has my stomach churning. I don’t want to put Tairn and Andarna into danger. I would rather die than gamble with Xaden’s life. But is there really a choice? Going might risk death, but staying risks us becoming just like our enemy.
“We have to.”
We do not eat our allies.
—TAIRN’S PERSONAL ADDENDUM TO THE BOOK OF BRENNAN
AS QUOTED BY CADET VIOLET SORRENGAIL
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“Ican make it on my own,” Andarna argues three hours later as cadets scurry into our hasty and unauthorized formation in the center of the valley.