“Tavry, go!” Cyrene shrieked.

She didn’t even think about it. About losing her place in the tournament. About coming in last. Or not even making it back to the arena within two hours.

None of that mattered.

Alura wasn’t her friend.

She was much closer to her enemy.

But Cyrene wouldn’t let her die.

She couldn’t let her die.

Tavry dive-bombed straight down. Cyrene clung to her back, gripping her as tight as she could with her thighs. She’d bruise later, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was flinging herself down, down, down. Trying to get to Alura before she reached the ground.

They were gaining on her.

But it wasn’t enough.

No matter how fast they went, they weren’t going to get to Alura before she hit. They had to do something more. Something else. Cyrene couldn’t let this happen. She’d never be okay with cheating to get ahead. She’d never be okay with killing the competition.

Reach, Cyrene.

Cyrene took a deep breath and then reached down deep. She grasped her air magic and flung it like a blanket over the ground and then pulled it upward. Her magic collided with Alura in a sickening crunch. She screamed again. Something was definitely broken.

To Cyrene’s horror, her magic had slowed Alura’s descent but hadn’t stopped it. She was still moving fast. Too fast.

Slide down my leg. I’ll catch you, and you’ll catch her.

Cyrene felt sick at the thought. Tavry was a security blanket. But what else could she do?

She steeled her nerves and then slid down Tavry’s leg mid-flight. Tavry caught her between her talons before she fell just like Alura had. Then, she adjusted Cyrene, so she was holding her feet and let the rest of her dangle upside down from her claw.

Cyrene reached out as far as she could.

Twenty feet.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Five.

Cyrene stretched, stretched, stretched.

Then, her hand closed around Alura’s wrist.

Tavry leveled out.

Something popped in Alura’s shoulder at the sudden shift in movement. She screamed bloody murder as she dangled helplessly from her dislocated shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” Cyrene reassured her. “I’ve got you. Give me your other hand.”

Alura tossed her other hand up, and Cyrene grabbed that wrist, relieving pressure from the injured arm. Alura’s dark eyes were filled with unshed tears. But she looked like she was going to kill the first person she saw…which happened to be Cyrene.

I will put you both on my back now, Tavry said to them both.

She pulled her foot up and released Cyrene to her shoulder. Cyrene held fast to Alura’s wrist and tugged her up behind her on Tavry’s back. Alura lay there, panting and still rightfully terrified.

Cyrene’s own heart rate hadn’t gone down yet. She was still terrified that Alura had almost splat on the ground before she reached her. She couldn’t shake the knots in her stomach.

“Let’s get back, Tavry.”

As you wish.

Tavry started off again, and Cyrene helped Alura to sit up on Tavry’s back. She held her useless arm across her chest. Her jaw was set firmly in a strained frown.

“My dragon?” Alura asked.

We will meet Cavanah ahead.

And that was the end of it.

Alura didn’t say another word as they raced the rest of the way back to the arena. Not one word. Not a, Thank you. Not a, Go to hell. Just seething silence.

Cyrene didn’t really blame her. Not after what Maxon and his dragon had done. She’d have been angry, too. In fact, she was angry now, and it hadn’t even been her plummeting to the ground.

Cheers assaulted them as they flew fast into the arena space. Tavry circled once high above, giving them a view of who had already come in. Walston, Caelyn, and Dean. He must have snuck past them when she was saving Alura. But no Maxon. She didn’t know what had happened to keep him from coming in ahead of them. But, at the moment, she couldn’t care.

Tavry landed in all her glory. Cyrene immediately jumped off her back.

“Healer!” she cried. “We need a healer.”

A pair of healers rushed toward them, and Helly herself appeared then.

“A healer?” she asked in question. “You seem fine.”

“It’s not for me.”

They both looked up at Alura, who seemed to be trying to figure out how to navigate getting off of Tavry’s back with a dislocated shoulder and who knew what else was broken.

“Help her down!” Helly demanded, pointing toward a few dragon handlers. She turned to Cyrene. “What happened?”

Cyrene quickly told her the story about Maxon kicking Alura off of her dragon. By the time she was finished, Maxon appeared then. He flew in low and then nearly collapsed off of his dragon. He looked…badly beaten. Cyrene grinned. Whoever had done that to him was definitely in the right as far as she was concerned.

“I’ll take care of it,” Helly said, striding toward Maxon.

Alura stood with the healers and kept trying to brush them off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. We’re going to need to reset this,” the one healer said about her shoulder.

“Fine. Then, do it.”

She stared them down with fiery passion until they relented to do it in plain sight. She didn’t even flinch as they rocked the bones back into place. No one would ever know the screams she’d emitted in that mountain pass. Or the tears that had glimmered in her eyes.

Once that was finished, she brushed them off and hobbled away without a word.

“You’re welcome,” Cyrene muttered under her breath.

I fear that she broke something beyond her wrist. Pride is a much more painful injury.

Cyrene nodded. That was too true.

As time wound down for the end of their two hours, Cyrene started to sweat. Fallon still wasn’t back. They hadn’t seen anything from Svatava, Beric, or Kros either. She kept looking up at the timer over the boxes as she waited anxiously. Ten minutes left. If none of them made it back in time, they’d all be eliminated.

“Come on, Fallon.”

Cyrene paced back and forth before Tavry in worry. Why did someone like Maxon get to come back on time when Fallon wasn’t even here? Maxon had even been left on the field after a scolding from Helly. Cyrene thought Maxon should be disqualified after that behavior, but there weren’t rules against fighting during tournament matches. His dragon and its owner had gotten into trouble for collusion with Maxon, who had been thrown off the pitch. Though he never confessed to how he’d shown up so bruised and battered and covered in his own blood.

But the mystery would have to occupy her thoughts another time.

A gasp rose up from the crowd, and Cyrene’s head lifted to the sky. That was when she saw a small blue dragon coming in quickly. Her heart soared.

“Fallon!”

The dragon landed gracefully, but Fallon all but fell off of his dragon’s back. He held a book pressed hard to his chest and was breathing uneasily.

Cyrene dashed across the arena and pulled him to her. “You made it!”

“I made it,” he gasped out. “Am I last?”

“No, we’re still waiting for Svatava, Beric, and Kros.” She glanced at the timer again. “There’s only seven minutes left.”

“Blessed be,” he said, touching his heart.

Only a minute later, Svatava dropped in. She held the amulet tight in her grasp and looked shaken. It seemed that the race hadn’t just been a race for many people.

Eyes all lifted to the timer as it slowly ticked down to zero. The horizon remained empty as the crowd cheered the final countdown.

“Game over!” Ephriam called.

Boos echoed as closely as cheers. Beric and Kros hadn’t returned. They’d been favorites, too. They’d had the head start that Alura had had. They should have been back already.

Ephriam stepped forward again. “Due to Beric of Concha and Kros of Genoa not returning, both competitors have been eliminated from the competition.”

Jerond pointed to a few people, and more dragons were immediately in the sky, searching for the missing competitors. Helly looked stricken. Lorian seemed as haughty as ever. She didn’t know how he could look like that after Alura’s fall. After her dragon had returned empty-handed. He was lucky enough that Alura even came back with Cyrene. Otherwise, she would have been disqualified.

“Points are awarded as such. Every competitor who completed the objective gets five points. Ten points are awarded to the first competitor to return—Walston of Bryonica. Nine points to the second—Caelyn of Ibarra. And so on and so forth.”

Points began to be tallied on the board.

“Each object has been issued a point value. The sword and chest are each worth one point. The potion and tiara are each worth two points. The amulet and rose are worth three points.” Cyrene sighed with relief that Tavry had convinced her not to get the amulet. “The book and candelabra are worth five points. And, finally, the chalice and Tendrille disc are worth seven points.”

Cyrene stared down at the disc she held in shock. The disc was made out of Tendrille, just like her dagger. Just like the mountaintop. No wonder she had been so drawn to it despite it looking utterly useless.

Final points were tallied for that competition, and to Cyrene’s shock, she’d come in second. Despite rescuing Alura and losing time. The disc had really worked in her favor.

But it was Walston who would be given the head start. And, when the final points were tallied with the previous round, Dean got the head start once more.

“The third round of the competition will take place in three weeks,” Ephriam announced. “Until then.”

It was my pleasure working with you, Cyrene of Doma.

“Thank you for a great race, Tavry.” She curtsied low out of respect, and then Tavry was gone.

And in her place was Alura.

She was stone-faced. “Don’t think I owe you anything.”

Cyrene’s eyebrows rose high. “What?”

“I don’t owe you for anything. I could have gotten myself out of that mess.”

“You almost died. And, if I had left you there without a dragon and you somehow managed to survive, you would have been eliminated for being late. You might not owe me anything Alura, but I saved your life and kept you in the competition.”

Alura glanced once over Cyrene’s shoulder. Cyrene could almost feel Lorian glaring daggers into Cyrene’s back.

“But…if that’s what you need to tell your father, then do it.”

“Don’t try to do me any favors,” Alura growled.

“Trust me, I won’t.”

“Good,” Alura said and then brushed past her.

Cyrene sighed heavily as Alura left before speaking quickly to her father. Dean’s presence appeared at her shoulder. She glanced once at him.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“I saw what you did for her.”

“It was nothing.”

His clear eyes bored down into hers. “You nearly sacrificed yourself for your enemy.”

“What Maxon did was wrong. It wasn’t fair play.”

Dean slid his hands into fists, and she could see that his right knuckles were broken and bleeding. “I know.”

“Did you…” she whispered.

He arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t do anything.”

Cyrene tilted her head up to look at him fully in the face. He’d beaten Maxon to a bloody pulp for what he’d done to Alura. He wouldn’t admit it, and Maxon certainly wasn’t talking, but she could read Dean.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked with a smirk on his lips. “He had it coming.”

Cyrene grinned at him as he walked away. Maybe her Dean was still in there somewhere, down deep. Just maybe.