Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“No way.” Ridoc shakes his head. “It’s her dragon, her rules. Right, Vi?”
Every head turns in my direction. “Assuming they put us on orders, I’ll provide a list of people I trust to go.” A list that’s been through so many drafts, I’m not even sure I’m carrying the right one.
“You should take the squad,” Sawyer suggests. “We work best as a team.” He scoffs. “Who am I kidding. You’ll work best as a team. I’m barely climbing stairs.” He nods to the crutches beside his bed.
“You’re still on the team. Hydrate.” Rhi reaches across the bedside table and over a note that looks to be in Jesinia’s handwriting to grab a pewter mug.
“Water’s not going to grow my leg back.” Sawyer takes it, and the metal handle hisses, forming to his grip. He looks up at me. “I know that’s a shitty thing to say after you lost your mother—”
“Pain isn’t a competition,” I assure him. “There’s always enough to go around.”
He sighs. “I got a visit from Colonel Chandlyr.”
My stomach hollows. “The commander of the retired riders?”
Sawyer nods.
“What?” Ridoc folds his arms. “Second-years don’t retire. Die? Yes. Retire? No.”
“I get that,” Sawyer starts. “I just—”
A shrill scream echoes throughout the infirmary in a knee-wavering pitch that’s reserved for something far worse than pain—terror. The silence that follows chills me to the bone, apprehension lifting the hair on the back of my neck as I unsheathe two of my daggers and turn to face the threat.
“What was that?” Ridoc slides off Sawyer’s bed, and the others move behind me as I step outside the bay and pivot toward the open infirmary doors.
“She’s dead!” A cadet in infantry blue stumbles in and falls to his hands and knees. “They’re all dead!”
There’s no mistaking the gray handprint marking the side of his neck.
Venin.
My heart seizes. We haven’t found them out on patrol—because they’re already inside.
The rarest of signets—those that rise once in a generation or century—have manifested concurrently with an equal twice in our records, both critical times in our history, but only once have the six most powerful walked the Continent simultaneously. As fascinating as that spectacle must have been, I would rather not live to see it happen again.
—A Study on Signets by Major Dalton Sisneros
CHAPTER TWO
“They’re within the walls!” Tairn bellows.
“Already figured that out.” I swap my daggers for two alloy-hilted ones at my thighs and move quickly to hand one to Sawyer. “None of us die today.”
He nods, taking the blade by the hilt.
“Maren, protect Sawyer,” Rhiannon orders. “Cat, help whoever you can. Let’s go!”
“Guess I’ll just…stay here?” Sawyer calls after us, muttering a swear word as we take off sprinting between the rows of infirmary beds.
We’re the first to make it to the doors, where Winifred holds the wailing infantry cadet by his upper arms. “Violet, don’t go out there—” she starts.
“Lock the doors!” I shout as we run through.
“Like that’s going to stop them?” Ridoc challenges as we enter the tunnel, then all three of us skid to a halt at the sight before us.
The blankets on every overflow bed down the hallway have been thrown back, revealing desiccated bodies. My stomach plummets. How did this happen so fast?
“Oh shit.” Ridoc draws another dagger at my right as two more riders sprint through the infirmary doors behind us, both from Second Wing.
I reach for Xaden and find his shields not only up but impenetrable.
Frustrating, but fine. I’m perfectly capable of fighting on my own, and I have Ridoc and Rhi with me.
“You do not have a conduit,” Tairn reminds me. Which means I can’t pinpoint my lightning strikes, especially not indoors.
“I’ve always been far more accurate with daggers than my own power. Warn whoever’s riders guard the wardstone.”
“Already done,” he replies.
“Check the bridge!” Rhiannon commands the two from Second Wing, and they take off toward the Riders Quadrant.
“Bring their bodies outside once you’re done killing them so we can roast them for fun,” Andarna suggests.
“Not right now.” I calm my breath and concentrate.
“Eyes open,” Rhiannon says, her voice as steady as her hand as she pulls an alloy-hilted dagger and moves to my left. “Let’s go.”
Then we move as one, quiet and quick as we make our way down the hall. I keep my eyes forward as Rhi and Ridoc check left and right respectively, and their silence tells me all I need to know. There are no survivors.
We follow the curve of the tunnel, passing the last cot, and a scribe flies out of the stairwell ahead, his robes billowing behind him as he runs toward us at full speed.
I flip the dagger in my hand and pinch it by the tip, my heart starting to beat double-time.
“Which way did they go?” Rhi asks the cadet.
The scribe’s hood falls back, revealing red-rimmed eyes with spiderwebbed veins at his temples. Nope, definitely not a cadet. He reaches beneath his robes, but I’ve already flicked my wrist by the time he grabs the pommel of a sword.