The bliss users run onto the scene, fishing Broggen’s brutes out of the canyon. It’s hectic from the aerial view as I stare through the breaches in Boeru’s torn wing. Renesta’s shadows pierced one of them heavily in the abdomen. Grondus has an axe wound from neck to belly. Gods, Rogo really kicked up the spice for this one. It reminds me of my own wound still sizzling in my shin—Gen’s dark spike. I hardly feel it from the adrenaline. I’ll pay for that later, I’m sure.

  Whoosh!

  Boeru swoops mere feet from the ground, landing next to my guard in majestic fashion. With a ferocious roar, he fades into a smoky silhouette as he rewinds into my shoulders.

  “Good usage of your mastery, mortal. I am impressed,” Boeru’s voice lingers. “And you, guard. Not an ounce of my dark flames on you.”

  I smile at Layla—so proud that she knew exactly what to do in the most dire situation. It won us the Call to Arms, after all… and our advancing rank. With a quick swipe of her wrist, I hold her arm up.

  “We’re victorious!” Jurso laughs on a stretcher as he’s hoisted up a pulley from below. He has Elden soot all over his face and an ear-to-ear smile.

  My heart skips a beat for a second in worry, but when he leaps off the stretcher and runs at us, I learn to breathe again.

  “The roaring cadets, clapping elites… gods. It’s anything any of us ever could’ve dreamt from our lowly ranches in the sub-tier. Imagine? Like the heroes of old mythos, we stand together in front of a thousand elites gathered to watch. Hah!” He hugs us both, then gets grabbed by the bliss users to sit back down.

  “Thought your skinny ass got buried from the landfall.” Layla smirks.

  “In your dreams. How do you think you survived an arrow to the back? I work fast under pressure,” Jurso bickers.

  “I never got shot, you dragon-ass.”

  “Exactly. Bitch didn’t even know.” He looks at me like I’m going to take his side.

  “Our first Call to Arms victors!” Foren’s scribe calls from his podium, holding his hand out in our direction. “Haledyn Winbridge of House Sivus! Layla Barristan—”

  He lists our names as all sound muffles around me. Seeing Misty jumping up and down a mile away on the eastern bastion, Rogoshel limping up beside us holding his side, Tess sitting over the ledge as a healer works her shoulder, Renesta peeking out from her hiding space in a cave with soot all over her face… they’re all accounted for, and finally I can relax.

  Cheers ring from all around. We put on a good show, worthy of House Rhylock’s praise. Even the Danes put their hands together.

  “Can’t wind whip me to the walls out here, can you, jerkoffs?” Layla gestures a curse in their direction.

  “Lay!” I grab her arm.

  “What? I hate those pricks.” She shrugs me off. “And I have a bone to pick with you…”

  “Hm?”

  “Right before you blew dragon fire over the west bastion… you didn’t have to call out the stance in the air.”

  “I was worried. You know, kind of how you were so sure I was going to die back in the pits. Taste of your own gods-damn medicine.”

  “You did die,” she scowls.

  “We’re arguing sentiment, not outcome.” I arc my eyebrow.

  “Dragonshit.” She claps her shield to her back. We stare at each other for a long moment, and it’s confirmed here for the second time… I feel nothing but brotherly love for this woman. I’ll protect her ‘til the day I die, but she’s not going to be my future wife.

  She must feel the same. Because although she glances at my lips, she probably realizes I’m never going to make the move.

  “I’m with Renesta,” I blurt.

  “I know,” she says.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Do you really think you’re that slick? You can’t sneeze without the other marked or pledges talking about it, let alone the whole sanctum,” she says as we watch Broggen struggle to his feet. “It’s fine, Hale. All us ladies of batch twenty-eight had a thing for you when you—uhh—changed. Just a bit of infatuation,” she says the words, but her eyes look more pained than she’s leading on. Or I’m being too conceited about it. “Don’t let your head blow up. Oh, and since we’re being so brutally honest… I’m with Hitch.”

  “Ugh, the one with the flavor savor?” I frown.

  “Don’t be jealous.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Now who’s letting their head blow up?” We both cackle. Inside, my stomach untangles all of the knots that’ve been twisting over the past year. It’s a relief I can finally relax with my strange, aloof woman, and kick ass with my best friend.

  “Look at this.” She lifts her chin to her lineage staring right at us. “What do I do, wave? Oh hey assholes who left me to die under a black sky. Hey!” She goes to gesture a curse again, but I use both my arms to stop her this time.

  Boeru chuckles with his brothers, circling far above in my mental plane. They like Layla’s audacity. Truthfully, I do too. But I don’t want to be banned from addressing my brother.

  Her gaze moves back to my lineage. “Kane gives me the shivers, Hale. That deadlock stare… it’s like he’s not even in there.”

  It’s true—his one human eye is blank, while the ghoulish one reeks of deception and malice. Maybe hunger? I’m not sure, but I have to reach him.

  “Is that what we’re in for?” she worries. “Maybe it wasn’t the ghoul that made him the weapon you fear him to be… maybe it was all this prep for war, or war itself.”

  “I’m not sure, Lay. But all of this feels… off. Only in the dark mythos do they speak of ghoulish families sacrificing their children for war. Yet here, we have the most elite and noble that would shine in the tomes, staring down on us like nothing’s amiss.”

  “I feel the whips when I look at them,” Lay says. “The burning lashes that still ache my chin. The arrogance of that woman—look, the way she has a hold over your brother and my friend.” She nods to the eerily stoic seederborn who I fear may be my mother. “It shouldn’t be this way.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t have to be.” I clench my jaw. “Maybe when we get to the next level, we can effectuate real change.”

  Thinking to the roost of dragons swirling in my mind—I know the power I hold. The lightning bolt through Izfael is all the proof I’ll ever need. The Elden rank system can be bent. So can everything else.

  “And challenge the likes of them?” she scoffs. “With pleasure. I’d do it now if we had the power.”

  Maybe we do.

  We listen to the scribe announce the highlights of our battle, the nuance in our magi and affinities as well as weaponry skill. He’s about to announce our rank increase for sure.

  “As decreed by Head Magus Foren Torell, twenty merits awarded to each victor, earning them all satisfaction of ascendance from glass rank to iron!”

  Cheers from behind us radiate.

  “Cadets! Hold out your arms!”

  From across the way on the opposite side of the canyon, Foren marches down the edge, making a show of twisting his sphere in his hand like he did when he branded us with the sanctum’s mark.

  “As a victorious squad of Elshard, and in great commendation to House Sivus, I hereby grant the rank of iron. May all here remember what the Call to Arms produced.” Foren thrusts up his arm, sending high-magic wisps flowing our way. The ice slivers hiss as they slap into our marks, changing them from glass symbol to iron before they melt back into our skin.

  It’s strange. I feel oddly more connected to the air around me, the dark I pull from. Rank increase is like unlocking a large treasure chest, only to find another inside.

  Gen watches stoically from the sidelines. Foiled again on his second challenge, when being so sure he’d beat me this time. Head-to-head, without our friends or our bonds, maybe that’d be the outcome. But we’re more than that, aren’t we?

  “Haledyn Winbridge. As leader of the victorious, the floor is yours.” Head Magus leisurely motions my way, leaving all eyes to shift to me.

  A rush of pins and needles prickle my chest, reminding me of my first days in Elshard. The whole student body wanted to hurl spells at me just for existing—or maybe for showing up with such ornate weaponry tucked into my shredded rags—but either way, I’ve gained their attention.

  We were prepped many times on how to address elites. War-tutors hinted or outright told us what and what not to say. But I threw that rulebook out the window when put on trial for Izfael’s death. And I’ll do it again here.

  I clear my throat. “The Torn Wing would say my actions are what got me here—alive and thriving with my friends in Elshard—but that’d only be partly true. What drove me past the brink of death on more than one occasion was hope to reunite with one man. The one who protected me as a kid, and who now sits as a caged weapon at the hands of my lineage.” I raise my arm underhanded toward my brother. “I don’t know what happened to you, Kane, or who the elites at your back claim to be… but I know one thing, we’re brothers—”

  Foren’s eyes may as well be daggers pointed my way. I can see the disdain in my periphery.

  “—And I’ll do everything in my power to bring you back.”

  “A child’s temperament is always good theater,” the seederborn woman says. “Who knew this dragonborn had so many talents?”

  My would-be father stands next to her stoically, staring at me, not giving credence to her snide remark. Not sure if that’s better or worse.

  Then there’s Kane… gazing a thousand miles beyond everyone, warring dark swirling in his irises. He truly has lost himself. Though for the briefest instant in time, I swear a human flicker peers through his macabre eyes.

  “Frightened to let the ghoulborn speak for himself?” I challenge my would-be mother.

  “This one hasn’t spoken since I met him, Dragonborn. In war, it’s best to make decisions based on the facts at hand. Let that be a free lesson to you from far, far above.” She lifts her chin and backhands the air, telling Foren to wrap it up.

  “Bitch,” Lay whispers next to me.

  “I’d expect nothing less.” I clench my jaw. “At least now I know what I’m dealing with.”

  Call to Arms continues as if nothing happened at all. Our victory is soon overshadowed by the next groups at play. Two myth weavers are going at it below with their gryphons cycling through the air to chase them.

  If nothing else, there’s a load off my back as I sit on the high stands on a designated victorious section in front of the cadets, with prized seats granting a perfect overhead view of the Elden stage.

  “So soon.” Renesta hooks my arm, still wearing that creepy smile.

  “Muttering to yourself again?” I glance at her. “I really wish I could tell when you’re being a shade.”

  “Where would the fun in that be?”

  Fiora the shapeshifter leaps up from the enemy bastion as the latest victor. Everyone cheers, including me. She gives some thankful speech about sponsors awarding her the spear she used to impale her fellow cadet, earning praise from the elites. The more traditional war-tutors glare at me still, as if saying that is how to give a speech.

  I’m not here for sponsors, however.

  Renesta squeezes my arm, and I let it happen now that I’ve revealed myself to Layla. It’s about the extent of our relationship I’m willing to show the public, but when I glance at her again, I realize it’s not me she’s paying attention to.

  Her emerald eyes reflect something vibrant in the sky. Something swirling purple and blue. “You wanted to know where I was all of those nights, Hale? Well, here’s your answer.”