Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
“Pull yourself up, Dylan!” Rhiannon shouts.
“Oh gods!” My hand flies to cover my mouth, but he loses his grip on the water-slick stone and falls, disappearing from view. The wind and rain steal any sound his body might make in the valley below. They steal the sound of my muffled cry, too.
Xaden never takes his eyes from me, watching silently with a look I can’t interpret as I bring my horrified gaze back to his.
“Why would I waste my energy killing you when the parapet will do it for me?” A wicked smile curves his lips. “Your turn.”
There’s a misconception that it’s kill or be killed in the Riders Quadrant. Riders, as a whole, aren’t out to assassinate other cadets…unless there’s a shortage of dragons that year or a cadet is a liability to their wing. Then things may get…interesting.
—Major Afendra’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant
(Unauthorized Edition)
CHAPTER
TWO
I will not die today.
The words become my mantra, repeating in my head as Rhiannon gives her name to the rider keeping tally at the opening to the parapet. The hatred in Xaden’s stare burns the side of my face like a palpable flame, and even the rain pelting my skin with each gust of wind doesn’t ease the heat—or the shiver of dread that jolts down my spine.
Dylan is dead. He’s just a name, another soon-to-be stone in the endless graveyards that line the roads to Basgiath, another warning to the ambitious candidates who would rather chance their lives with the riders than choose the security of any other quadrant. I get it now—why Mira warned me not to make friends.
Rhiannon grips both sides of the opening in the turret, then looks over her shoulder at me. “I’ll wait for you on the other side,” she shouts over the storm. The fear in her eyes mirrors my own.
“I’ll see you on the other side.” I nod and even manage a grimace of a smile.
She steps out onto the parapet and begins walking, and even though I’m sure his hands are full today, I send up a silent prayer to Zihnal, the god of luck.
“Name?” the rider at the edge asks as his partner holds a cloak over the scroll in a pointless attempt to keep the paper dry.
“Violet Sorrengail,” I answer as thunder cracks above me, the sound oddly comforting. I’ve always loved the nights where storms beat against the fortress window, both illuminating and throwing shadows over the books I curled up with, though this downpour might just cost me my life. With a quick glance, I see Dylan’s and Rhiannon’s names already blurring at the end where water has met ink. It’s the last time Dylan’s name will be written anywhere but his stone. There will be another roll at the end of the parapet so the scribes have their beloved statistics for casualties. In another life, it would be me reading and recording the data for historical analysis.
“Sorrengail?” The rider looks up, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “As in General Sorrengail?”
“The same.” Damn, that’s already getting old, and I know it’s only going to get worse. There’s no avoiding the comparison to my mother, not when she’s the commander here. Even worse, they probably think I’m a naturally gifted rider like Mira or a brilliant strategist like Brennan was. Or they’ll take one look at me, realize I’m nothing like the three of them, and declare open season.
I place my hands on either side of the turret and drag my fingertips across the stone. It’s still warm from the morning sun but rapidly cooling from the rain, slick but not slippery from moss growth or anything.
Ahead of me, Rhiannon is making her way across, her hands out for balance. She’s probably a fourth of the way, her figure becoming blurrier the farther she walks into the rain.
“I thought she only had one daughter?” the other rider asks, angling the cloak as another gust of wind blows into us. If it’s this windy here, my bottom half sheltered by the turret, then I’m about to be in for a world of hurt on the parapet.
“I get that a lot.” In through my nose, out through my mouth, I force my breathing to calm, my heart rate to slow from its gallop. If I panic, I’ll die. If I slip, I’ll die. If I… Oh, fuck it. There’s nothing more I can do to prepare for this.
I take the lone step up onto the parapet and grip the stone wall as another gust hits, knocking me sideways against the opening in the turret.
“And you think you’ll be able to ride?” the asshole candidate behind me mocks. “Some Sorrengail, with that kind of balance. I pity whatever wing you end up in.”
I regain my balance and yank the straps of my pack tighter.
“Name?” the rider asks again, but I know he’s not talking to me.