Chapter Text
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die.
That part's true.
What they don't tell you is how stupidly mundane most of it is.
Not the big moments. Not the milestones. It's the things I thought I'd have time for later—the emails I never sent, the apologies I rehearsed but never said out loud. The nights I stayed up studying because I was too afraid to admit I hated the path I'd chosen. The way I always told myself after this semester, after this exam, after this version of me.
The water pours in faster than I expect.
It's so cold it steals the breath from my lungs instantly. My scream never makes it out. The car lurches and settles, nose-down, and the world goes eerily still except for the sound of water swallowing everything.
My fingers fumble at the seatbelt. Once. Twice. Again. It won't release.
My legs are pinned. My chest aches. Every instinct in my body is screaming move, but there's nowhere to go.
I think about my textbooks sitting unopened on my desk. About the med school application I wasn't even sure I wanted. About how I never learned how to say no. How I let life happen to me instead of choosing it.
The pressure in my lungs becomes unbearable.
I realize—distantly—that I'm about to die.
And the strangest part?
I'm furious.
Not at the accident. Not at fate. At myself. At how small I made my life. At how I spent so much time being afraid of disappointing people who wouldn't even remember me in a year.
The darkness closes in.
There's a sharp, crystalline moment of clarity—my mind snapping into focus like a camera lens.
Terminal lucidity, a voice in my head supplies calmly, clinically. The brain's final gift.
I wonder what mine will look like.
Then everything goes black.
»»————-⚔️————-««
I come back choking.
Air burns its way into my lungs like fire, harsh and dry and wrong. My body convulses as I roll onto my side, palms scraping against something solid. Grit digs into my skin. Stone. Warm from the sun.
I cough until my throat aches.
There's no water. No blood. No crushing weight on my chest.
I suck in another breath, and another, panic spiraling upward.
This isn't right.
My hands shake as I press them to my ribs. They're whole. Unbroken. I pat down my arms, my legs, my stomach—expecting pain, expecting damage, expecting something to explain this.
That's when my fingers hit leather.
Thick. Reinforced. Strapped tight around my thigh.
I look down.
Black.
I'm dressed entirely in black—fitted riding leathers that hug my body like they were tailored for it. Reinforced seams at my shoulders and knees. Heavy boots that lace high up my calves, worn but sturdy. Practical.
And armed.
My breath stutters.
There's a dagger strapped to my thigh. At least another four at my ribs. One at the small of my back. When I twist, I feel the unmistakable weight of steel between my shoulder blades, hidden beneath crossed straps.
I have daggers, tucked into places I didn't know you could conceal weapons.
My heart starts pounding harder.
My hair—my hair—is braided tight down my back, long and heavy and unfamiliar against my spine. Auburn strands woven neatly, not the messy ponytail I always defaulted to.
This isn't me.
At least... it wasn't.
I push myself upright, dizziness washing over me as the world sharpens into focus.
Stone towers rise around me, massive and ancient, connected by narrow skybridges. Banners snap violently in the wind. The air smells like dust and heat and something metallic underneath it all.
Voices echo across a wide courtyard.
Shouting. Orders. Nervous laughter. Boots scuffing stone.
People.
Dozens of them.
All dressed like me.
My stomach drops.
Okay, I think wildly. Okay. This is it. This is the dream.
My brain is pulling from somewhere familiar—something I loved, something vivid enough to build an entire world out of. A story I escaped into when my own life felt unbearable.
I stagger forward a step, then stop.
Ahead of me, stretching out into open air, is a narrow strip of stone suspended between two towers.
Too narrow.
Too high.
Wind tears across it, strong enough that I can hear it roaring even from here. Below it—nothing but a sheer drop into mist and jagged rock.
My hands curl into fists.
I don't want to know this.
I do know this.
My pulse pounds in my ears as people ahead of me begin to move, one by one, toward the bridge. Some are pale. Some look sick. Some grin like this is exactly where they belong.
"This isn't real," I whisper under my breath.
It has to be my mind unraveling. Terminal lucidity. The last, most elaborate hallucination my brain can manage before it shuts down for good.
I can almost accept that.
What I can't accept is the girl a few rows ahead of me.
She's small. Slighter than the others. Her posture is tense, like she's bracing for a blow that hasn't landed yet.
And her hair—
Brunette that slowly loses its warmth down its length until its silver.
Braided neatly in a crown around her head.
My breath catches painfully in my throat.
I've imagined that braid a hundred times.
Words on a page. Described in ink.
My vision blurs.
"No," I whisper.
She turns slightly, just enough for me to see her profile.
The sharp focus in her eyes. The way her shoulders are squared, despite how fragile she looks.
"Violet Sorrengail."
The name hits me like a blow.
Not because she's important.
But because she's fiction.
And yet there she is, standing a few feet away from me, breathing the same air, dressed in the same black, staring down the same death sentence.
My knees threaten to give out.
This is too specific. Too detailed. Too cruel.
My chest tightens as something inside me fractures—not all at once, but slowly, like ice cracking under pressure.
If this is my dying dream... then my mind has chosen something merciless.
A place where survival is earned in blood. Where fear kills just as surely as the fall.
A place where I always wondered what it would be like to be brave.
The line inches forward.
The Parapet looms closer.
My heart is racing, but beneath the fear, something else stirs—something dangerous and sharp and intoxicating.
If this is the end...
Then I'm done being afraid.
The line moves slowly.
I follow it without thinking, feet dragging just enough to keep me in step. The air tastes like sun-warmed stone and distance, sharp with wind. Everything feels too real. Too vivid.
And still, I tell myself it isn't.
This isn't happening.
It can't be.
I died.
I remember the water. The pressure. The stillness at the end. My lungs filling with nothing. My thoughts fraying like threads caught in wind.
That was real.
This? This is the dream. The grand finale of a brain desperate to make meaning out of nothing.
And yet...
My boots are solid. My weapons are heavy. My braid is tight against the back of my neck.
And the girl ahead of me is Violet Sorrengail.
She's smaller than I thought she'd be. Not weak, but coiled, like something barely held together. Her hands tremble when she adjusts her pack, but her spine stays straight.
My heart stutters.
I watch her take a shallow breath, glancing toward the stairs that spiral up and out of view, vanishing somewhere into the wind above us.
The Parapet waits at the top.
Of course it does.
The line jolts forward again, and I follow, dazed.
The courtyard stretches wide here at the base of the tower. Stone everywhere—slabs underfoot, towers overhead, slate banners snapping in the wind. A scribe waits at the foot of the stairs, scroll in hand, taking names without ceremony or warmth.
I step up as Violet moves past him, her name already recorded. I'm close enough to hear the whisper of her voice. It's strange. Familiar. Like watching a movie I've seen too many times, but the actors are suddenly real.
Then the scribe looks at me.
"Name?" he asks, bored.
For a second, my mind goes blank.
Not because I don't know.
Because I do.
I know my real name. The one printed on my student ID. The one my professors mispronounced. The one I carried through a life of expectations and compromise.
But that girl died in a car at the bottom of a lake.
And this version of me—this version wrapped in black, armed to the teeth, standing on the edge of a fantasy I never thought I'd touch?
She's not that girl.
She's not scared.
I lift my chin.
"Nova Ashryn."
The scribe squints, scanning his list. "No record of that name."
A pause.
Then a shrug. "Guess it's new."
He makes a note, already moving on.
But I don't.
Not right away.
Because even though the name came out of my mouth like it belonged there, part of me is still reeling.
I said it. Out loud.
And no one questioned it.
Not even me.
A name like a blade. A name like a choice.
Nova Ashryn.
I roll it over in my head as I take the first step onto the stairs.
It fits.
More than the old one ever did.
The stairs curve tightly upward, carved into the stone like a spiral artery. The higher we go, the more the air thins. The wind whistles through narrow arrow slits, slicing through my leathers with icy fingers.
Violet climbs just ahead of me.
I watch her the way I always have—from a distance. Not out of admiration. Not exactly.
She always annoyed me.
Too stubborn. Too pure. Too willing to suffer for a cause instead of doing what needed to be done.
Reading her was one thing.
Being behind her in line for a death bridge?
Surreal.
There's a surreal gleam to everything now. Like I'm walking through a memory I didn't make.
Still, I keep climbing.
If this is my brain's final fireworks show, I might as well see the finale.
The light gets brighter.
Voices rise.
And somewhere ahead, the Parapet waits.
The last step crests into open sky, and for a moment, all I can do is breathe.
The wind is stronger up here, full of heat and cold in turns, tugging at my braid, at the edges of my riding blacks. The Parapet stretches out in front of us—narrow, stone, endless. The only thing separating this tower from the next.
And in front of it?
Him.
My brain blanks for half a second.
Because Xaden Riorson is real.
Not words on a page. Not a dark, brooding love interest in a fantasy book I reread when life got too heavy. Not a theory. Not a trope.
Real.
Towering in black, twin swords sheathed across his back, scar curling down one side of his face like a signature. His presence is magnetic—aggressive. The kind that pulls all the oxygen out of the air without saying a word.
I stop mid-step. My breath catches.
Holy shit.
I've seen fanart of him. I've read scenes, picked apart quotes, watched fandom fights over his moral grayness. But none of that compares to this.
This isn't a hallucination version of him.
This is someone who could crush bone with one hand, command an army with the other, and still have enough bandwidth left to ruin your whole worldview with a single look.
And he's doing just that—looking. At Violet.
She's standing too close, her chin lifted in that stubborn, self-righteous way that always made me grit my teeth when reading.
And then I hear it.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asks, voice taut.
I roll my eyes before I can stop myself.
Because—really?
Really?
Of all the dramatic, unnecessary things to say—
The words leave my mouth before I remember where I am.
"Oh, would you please get over yourself?" I snap, way too loud. "I seriously doubt he's going to waste time plotting your murder before you've even managed to walk across the Parapet. You're holding up the line."
Silence slams down like a guillotine.
My stomach free-falls. Its as if id forgotten that I'm not reading this from the safety of my dorm. They can hear me, My brain yells abort, abort, but it's too late.
Everyone heard me.
He heard me.
Xaden turns—slow, deliberate—and looks straight at me.
And God help me, I forget how to breathe.
Because this isn't just "oh, he's handsome." This is lethal beauty, the kind that rewrites your instincts. His eyes are so dark they don't even glint—like they're absorbing the light around them. His entire posture shifts, not threatening exactly, but assessing.
Like I'm a puzzle.
Or a problem.
Or something sharp he didn't expect to step on.
Behind him, one of the older riders mutters something under his breath, but I'm locked in Xaden's stare. There's a flicker of surprise there. And beneath it—amusement. Barely. Just a trace.
Violet's staring too.
So is everyone else.
Well.
I already lit the match. Might as well hold it high.
I give a shrug and tilt my head, summoning every ounce of dead-girl energy I've got.
"She asked," I say casually, "and clearly no one else was answering."
Xaden's expression doesn't change, but something shifts. His eyes track the length of me—my leathers, my weapons, the posture of someone who should not be mouthing off right now.
"Name," he says, flatly.
It takes me a second to realize he's talking to me.
Everyone's watching.
And for once in my life, I don't flinch.
"Nova Ashryn," I answer, chin up.
A breath of a pause.
Then, to my utter astonishment, Xaden's mouth twitches. Just enough to suggest a smile—dry and dangerous.
"Duly noted," he says.
"Pause, and you die Ashryn. Better get going." There is that glint in his eye that I can't quite decipher. It does something to me that I can't quite explain, before Ive even had a chance to think about it I'm opening my mouth,
"Oh, I'm already long dead, Riorson, just enjoying the last of the ride." And then because I am suddenly a possessed woman, I wink at him.
I fucking wink, and I don't know who is more shocked by it, His eyebrows hit his hairline opening up those beautiful eyes, onyx flecked with gold.
I turn to face the parapet before I drown for the second time that day, although I would take drowning in his eyes any day.
I've taken the first step.
There's no turning back now.
The wind hits me like a slap—sharp, cold, and greedy. It claws at my sides, howling between the towers like it's starving for blood. For mine.
The Parapet stretches before me, a strip of death carved in stone. Two feet wide. No railing. No forgiveness.
This is the moment everyone remembers.
And I'm not supposed to be here.
Violet walks ahead of me—slow, steady, each step deliberate. Her braid swings like a pendulum. I watch the way her shoulders stay square, her spine rigid. She's walking into a nightmare, and still she moves like it's just another exam.
I used to admire her for that.
Now I want to scream.
Because I've read this scene. I know this scene.
And in the book, the girl behind Violet doesn't make it.
I freeze.
My stomach sinks like a stone as I twist—just enough to see who's behind me.
Jack Barlowe.
Of course.
Broad shoulders. Sharp smile. That cocky, slow swagger like the wind itself parts for him.
He's already too close.
I remember this moment. I remember the unnamed cadet that stepped on the parapet after Violet. The one who didn't even get a line. Just a death. A smear of red across stone and wind.
That was me.
That was my place.
That's who I replaced.
My palms go slick.
This is real. This is happening. I'm here.
And I'm in the wrong place in the story.
My vision narrows. The roar of the wind is louder now, clawing at my ears, ripping at my braid. My legs go soft. Fear gnaws at my ribs like a rat chewing through wires.
I try to breathe.
Nothing works.
You're going to die. Again.
No. No, not like this.
Not for him.
I force a breath down, then another. My fingers twitch at my sides.
Do something.
So I do the only thing I've ever done when the fear gets too loud.
I start to sing.
"Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time... "
My voice cracks. But it's there—real. Mine.
It echoes across the stone like a challenge.
Jack snorts behind me. "Seriously?"
"I feel alive... and the world... I'll turn it inside out, yeah— "
"Bet that'll sound great on the way down," he drawls.
I keep walking. I don't look back. Not yet.
"So don't stop me now... "
The next step is harder. The wind grabs me sideways. My arms pinwheel for balance. My boots scrape stone.
Jack laughs again. "You're walking like a baby deer. One little nudge, and you're toast."
He's getting closer.
I can feel it.
I speed up—small steps, faster pace. Don't run. Don't wobble. Just move.
Violet's almost at the other side. I wish she'd turn around. I wish someone would.
"I'm having such a good time... I'm having a ball— "
And that's when I see it.
A flicker of motion. A slither of darkness on the stone beside me.
Not mine. Not Jack's.
Something else.
A shadow.
Long. Wrong. Moving like it's alive.
I don't need to guess.
Xaden.
His shadow. Watching.
Why me?
I don't know. And I can't stop to wonder.
Not now.
Three steps left.
Two.
Jack is right there, a presence on my spine, tension like a pulled wire.
I feel his weight shift. His stride change.
He's going to do it.
He's going to shove me.
Not today.
My last step hits hard stone. The platform. The other side.
I'm across.
My knees buckle.
I drop to a crouch, breath tearing out of me in ragged gasps.
I did it. I made it.
But Jack—
He's not done.
His boots land behind me. Too close. A predator's step.
I move without thinking, choosing to take a page out of Violets book.
Twist.
Draw.
And drive my dagger straight up between his legs—close enough that he feels the edge.
He stops. Dead still.
The smugness drains from his face like someone pulled the plug.
I look up at him, my eyes wide, my smile sharp and breathless.
And I say:
"Careful, Barlowe. I might just slip."
A beat of silence.
Then whispers ripple around us.
Someone mutters, "Holy shit."
"Name?" the rider next to me drawls, as if we're the least interesting thing she's seen today. I glance in her direction for a millisecond. She pushes the chin-length, fire-red strands of her hair behind her ear with one hand and holds the roll with the other, watching the scene play out. The three silver four-point stars embroidered on the shoulder of her cloak tell me she's a third-year. "You're pretty small for a rider, but it looks like you made it."
"Nova Ashryn," I answer, but a hundred per cent of my focus is on Jack again. The rain drips off the lowered ridge of his brow.
"And what's your name?" she asks again. Pretty sure she's asking Jack, but I'm too busy studying my opponent to glance her way.
"Jack. Barlowe." There's no sinister little smile on his lips or playful taunts about how he'll enjoy killing me now. There's nothing but pure malice in his features, promising retribution.
A chill of apprehension lifts the hairs on my neck.
"Well, Jack," the male rider on my right says slowly, scratching the trim
lines of his dark goatee. He's not wearing a cloak, and the rain soaks into the bevy of patches stitched into a worn leather jacket. "Cadet Ashryn has you by the actual balls here, in more ways than one. Regs state that there's nothing but respect among riders at formation. You want to kill her, you'll have to do it in the sparring ring or on your own time. That is, if she decides to let you off the parapet. Because technically, you're not on the grounds yet, so you are not a cadet. She is."
"And if I decide to snap her neck the second I step down?" Jack growls, and the look in his eyes says he'll do it.
"Then you get to meet the dragons early," the redhead answers, her tone bland. "We don't wait for trials around here. We just execute."
"What's it going to be, Ashryn?" the male rider asks. "You going to have Jack here start as a eunuch?"
I lean in, eyes narrow, dagger steady.
And for one, singular, vibrating second—I actually consider it.
Killing him.
Ending this entire Barlowe problem before it starts. Before he starts hurting people like he does in the books. Before he breaks bones and throws cadets to their deaths for fun. Before he tries to kill Violet in sparring. Before Liam—
No. Don't think about that yet.
It would be so easy.
One sharp thrust upward and I'd gut the future straight out of him.
And gods, wouldn't it be poetic? Killed by the one person who really would be a liability to the wings, someone who is not even supposed to be there.
A nobody.
A ghost.
Jack doesn't move. He doesn't blink.
I could press the blade in. Just a hair.
But I don't.
I step back, slow and smooth, and sheath the dagger at my thigh with a calm I don't feel.
My knees still shake.
But my voice?
Steady as hell.
"Stay the fuck away from me, Barlow, otherwise next time I will slip, then wear your balls on a chain around my neck."
His jaw clenches. For a second, he might go for me anyway. But then—
"You're dead, Ashrin, and I'm going to be the one to kill you."
If looks could kill, I would be six feet under. I smile sweetly,
"Looking forward to it, Barlow."
»»————-⚔️————-««
I don't remember walking into the courtyard.
I must have—my boots are here, planted on the uneven stones of the Riders Quadrant, and my body is still humming with the aftermath of whatever the hell just happened on the parapet. But I don't remember how I got from there to here. It's like my brain has been skipping frames, running on fumes and disbelief.
The air tastes like smoke. Like sweat and blood and iron and burning stone. Around me, other cadets—first-years like me—stand in loose, stunned clusters, many of us still bleeding from minor wounds, all of us soaked from the drizzle that's still clinging to the mountain air.
My fingers twitch, the adrenaline that got me across the parapet is gone now, drained out of my system like water through a cracked basin, and what's left is raw and shaking.
This isn't a dream.
It isn't a hallucination.
Terminal lucidity. That's what I'd told myself. The final burst of clarity before the brain shuts down completely. One last gasp of story logic from a half-dead brain desperate for meaning.
But my muscles ache from the climb. My heart is still beating hard and real in my chest.
I glance at the crowd, half-expecting to see Violet or Dain, but I stay on the opposite side of the formation. I don't want to get drawn into that mess. I don't want to watch them playing out the roles I know they're meant to play.
I'm not part of that story.
I'm not supposed to be here.
Right?
I don't know how much time has passed by the time Commandant Panchek steps onto the dais at the head of the courtyard, flanked by a cluster of officers and wingleaders. His uniform is spotless, his expression tight with practised pride.
"Three hundred and one of you have survived the parapet to become cadets today," he announces, his voice cutting through the haze like a blade. "Sixty-seven did not."
A collective shudder runs through the ranks.
Sixty-seven.
I knew the number. I remembered it from the book. But hearing it aloud—standing here in the same courtyard where those bodies should be—it's different. It lands harder. Sinks deeper.
My stomach knots. A girl near me lets out a sharp, quiet sob before biting it back. No one comforts her. There's no room for kindness here. Only survival.
"As the Codex says, now you begin the true crucible," Panchek continues. "You will be tested by your superiors, hunted by your peers, and guided by your instincts. If you survive to Threshing, and if you are chosen, you will be riders. Then we'll see how many of you live to graduate."
A quarter of us, I think. That's the number. One in four makes it. The rest die trying.
And yet, here we are, packed shoulder to shoulder, eyes forward, hearts still pounding.
"Discipline falls to your squads and wingleaders. If I have to get involved," Panchek adds, that polished smile hardening into something colder, "you don't want me involved."
No one breathes.
"With that said..." He steps back. "I'll leave you to your wingleaders. My best advice? Don't die."
The commandant departs the dais with brisk efficiency, and a new figure takes his place—broad-shouldered, scarred, all menace and metal. Wingleader Nyra.
"I'm Nyra, head of the First Wing," she says, voice sharper than steel. "Section leaders, squad leaders—take your positions."
The older cadets move like a living machine, spreading across the courtyard in formation. Around me, first-years shift, glance, whisper, and fall silent again.
One by one, names are called.
"Jack Barlowe, First Wing, Flame Section, Squad Two."
A few cadets glance his way as he saunters off with that smug, hollow grin. He's already been claimed by the bloodthirsty corner of this quadrant. Of course.
"Liam Mairi, Fourth Wing, Flame Section, Squad three."
A flicker of relief slides through me. Liam. Good. Someone who'll keep their head down and get through this. I liked him in canon. Hope I like him in person.
"Nova Ashryn, Fourth Wing, Flame Section, Squad three."
I blink.
Not what I expected.
But better than ending up in Violets squad.
I move when I'm called, sliding into formation beside Liam and a handful of other cadets I don't recognise yet, or have any sort of information on from the books. Our squad leader—Rell Cadigan, a third-year with long dark hair tied back in a brutal braid and a scar over her left eyebrow that makes her resting expression look like permanent disapproval.
I avoid her eyes.
Keep breathing.
Keep my mouth shut.
I've just found my place.
And then I hear it.
"Second Wing, Squad Two."
Dain Aetos.
Violet Sorrengail.
Canon, unfolding exactly as it should.
Just on cue—
A pause.
A murmur from the dais.
Xaden.
He leans in, says something low to Nyra. She listens. Turns her head toward the other wingleaders. A brief exchange of glances. A nod.
Nyra steps forward again, voice rising.
"Dain Aetos, you and your squad will switch with Aura Beinhaven's,"
The shift in the crowd is immediate. Eyes dart. Whispers ripple like water across stone. A few cadets mutter under their breath.
But no one objects.
Dain doesn't move for a long moment, and when he does, his shoulders are stiff, jaw locked. Violet follows behind him, visibly pale.
I glance toward Xaden—farther across the courtyard now, flanked by upperclassmen—and find him already watching them like they're an unwanted delivery that just arrived a day early.
Then his eyes shift.
And land on me.
Just for a moment.
I cant place what flashes there. A crease in his brow. The same look he gave me back on the parapet when I insulted Violet.
I look away first.
"You're all cadets now." Xaden's voice carries out over the courtyard, stronger than the others. "Take a look at your squad. These are the only people guaranteed by Codex not to kill you. But just because they can't end your life doesn't mean others won't. You want a dragon? Earn one."
The courtyard erupts in cheers, I keep my mouth shut.
Xaden's eyes find mine again, and my stomach clenches before he looks away. "And I bet you feel pretty badass right now, don't you, first-years?"
More cheers.
"You feel invincible after the parapet, don't you?" Xaden shouts. "You think you're untouchable! You're on the way to becoming the elite! The few! The chosen!"
Another round of cheers goes up with each declaration, louder and louder.
The wind changes before the sound does.
One second, it's mountain air—thin, cold, sharp with wet stone and blood and the quiet tremble of fear running through our ranks.
The next, it thickens.
The sky darkens.
And then I feel it: the vibration.
It hums in my bones first. Then the courtyard stones beneath my boots begin to shudder, as if something ancient is waking beneath us. Heads lift. Conversations die mid-syllable. Even the second-years standing smug along the edge of formation go still.
The sound hits second.
A low, distant drumbeat, not like thunder — more alive. Heavier. Rhythmic. Wings. Not flapping. Beating. A coordinated percussion of something massive and inescapable.
Someone gasps.
Then they arrive.
A riot of dragons break through the clouds like death on fire.
They descend in a tight, terrifying spiral, formation so sharp it looks choreographed by gods. Wings stretched wide — each the size of a building — blotting out the sun in flashing sweeps of scale and shadow. No saddles. No chains. No leashes.
They don't land.
They strike the stone.
The courtyard explodes in dust and wind. Talons the length of spears crash into the outer wall like they're driving stakes into the heart of the keep. Massive bodies shift, lean, roar. Heat floods the air, and every single cadet stumbles—whether from fear or awe, I don't know.
A boy ahead of me breaks rank and runs.
He barely makes it three steps before fire takes him.
One instant he's real, the next he's ash. No scream. Just flame and then nothing.
My stomach drops.
Another one bites the dust. Was I listening to queen when I crashed or?
I close my eyes for half a second and reopen them.
And then I see her.
Sgaeyl.
At the far right of the wall, shadowed against the sky, larger than I imagined—even having read her scenes a dozen times. Her scales ripple navy-black, kissed by silver along her ridged spine, and her wings flare once, stretching out like velvet razors before folding back with lethal grace.
She's still. Composed. Watching.
The wind picks up again and carries her scent—clean smoke, lightning, and something colder. Something not meant for human lungs. Her golden eyes scan the courtyard with a depth that makes my heart pound against my ribs like it wants out.
She is not beautiful the way art is beautiful.
She is terrible, and divine.
She is awe carved in bone and scale.
She is majesty that does not care if you bow.
And she is looking at me.
Not across the crowd.
At me.
Direct.
Unflinching.
The weight of her gaze alone is too much. My breath hitches. My legs try to move but can't. My mind scrambles for reasons, logic, canon—but there is no canon for this. No part of the book where Sgaeyl notices someone like me.
Then she moves.
Her huge form leans forward—slow, deliberate. Her neck curves like a question mark above the ridge. One foreleg shifts. The stone beneath her claws cracks audibly. Her massive head lowers through the air like it's parting clouds.
Cadets near me shrink back. One falls. Another chokes on a whimper.
But I don't move.
Because I can't.
She exhales. Her breath washes over me — warm and damp, like mist after a summer storm. It smells like ozone and blood and fire.
And then—
She nudges me.
Gently. Directly. Right in the center of my chest.
Like she's confirming something she already suspects.
The contact is real. So real that it drowns every other sense. I feel it through the leather of my uniform, down to my ribs. Her scales are cool and impossibly smooth, and for a single breathless moment, I feel the hum of power beneath them.
I don't even realize I've reached a hand up to her nose until I feel her pulling back. Head rising. Eyes lingering. I snap my hand behind my back as quickly as I can. I'm pretty sure your not supposed to touch a dragon that you haven't bonded with, especially not this one.
She blinks once.
And turns away.
I stagger a step back, legs weak.
My hands tremble. Not from fear. From reverence.
She touched me.
She saw me.
Why?
How?
What does it mean?
She's not supposed to. Dragons don't just... notice people. Not like this. And not Sgaeyl, the bonded mount of the most dangerous wingleader in Basgiath. Not a dragon who doesn't suffer fools, who incinerates unworthy cadets without hesitation.
Why me?
A sick, buzzing silence hums in my ears.
And then I feel it.
Him.
My gaze flicks to the dais — and Xaden Riorson is staring at me like I just declared war on his entire belief system.
His brows are furrowed, just slightly. His head tilted the way it was on the parapet, when he first noticed me. But this time... he looks closer. He looks like he's watching something wrong take shape.
I lift my chin, even though my legs are shaking.
I hold his gaze.
I can't look away, even if I want to.
And for a second, we just stare.
Then he turns—breaking the connection—and steps forward.
"Anyone else feel like changing their mind?" Xaden shouts, scanning the remaining rows of cadets with the same shrewd gaze of the navy-blue dragon behind him. "No? Excellent. Roughly half of you will be dead by this time next summer." The formation is silent except for a few untimely sobs from my left. "A third of you again the year after that, and the same your last year. No one cares who your mommy or daddy is here. Even King Tauri's second son died during his Threshing. So tell me again: Do you feel invincible now that you've made it into the Riders Quadrant? Untouchable? Elite?"
No one cheers.
Another blast of heat rushes—this time directly at my face—and every muscle in my body clenches, preparing for incineration. But it's not flames...just steam, and it blows back Rhiannon's braids as the dragons finish their simultaneous exhale. The breeches on the first-year ahead of me darken, the color spreading down his legs.
They want us scared. Mission accomplished.
"Because you're not untouchable or special to them." Xaden points toward the navy dragon and leans forward slightly, like he's letting us in on a secret as we lock eyes. "To them, you're just the prey."
My hands still tremble.
Not from fear.
From awe.
From the terrible, beautiful weight of something impossible settling into the bones of reality.
This isn't a hallucination.
This isn't terminal lucidity.
This isn't death.
It's something else.
And for the first time, I'm truly afraid—
Because I think this might be real.
And if it is...
What the fuck am I doing here?
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