STILL REELING FROM GAVRIEL WARWICK’S THREATS, FARON PRACTICED her magic alone, without Gael to watch her.
She ran through the drills on the beach, using her fire and the exercise as a way of keeping warm. The invisible line between Harvest and Solstice had snapped, releasing a cold front the likes of which she had never experienced in San Irie. There was talk of snow, and Faron hoped to be long gone by then.
It didn’t help that Lightbringer was there, his body blocking the weak sunlight that escaped from between the pallid clouds. The dragon eggs had been moved, last time Faron had dared to check, and Lightbringer watched over her as an unwanted guardian. At the moment, however, his gaze was directed toward the bay.
Ignatz and Cruz were having some kind of aquatic fight that involved disappearing beneath the surface and then breaching in a wave taller than her head. Ignatz—who, as an ultramarine, had a particular affinity for water—cut through the whitecaps as though they were as insubstantial as air, swimming circles around Cruz. But every so often, Cruz would use his superior size to slam into Ignatz, both purring as they sank in a blur of blue and gold scales.
Lightbringer held himself apart as always. Faron was uncomfortably reminded of her schoolyard days, walking the open corridors alone while her classmates played cricket or ran races or bought snacks at the cart just beyond the gate. They had always seemed so young to her, their laughter uncomplicated, their lives untouched by bloody battlefields strewn with burning flesh.
She wondered if Lightbringer felt the same disconnect when he watched the younger dragons play. The thought made her uncomfortable.
“You’re staring,” said Lightbringer blandly. “What do you want now?”
“You know what I want,” Faron replied, summoning another wall of fire and attempting to split it into different columns.
“Ah, yes.” Now he sounded amused. “My swift and total defeat. You know, you remind me so much of him.”
“Of who?” Faron asked, though she already knew.
“The boy who faced me in what is now known as the Cinder Circle was just as stubborn. Just as arrogant.” Lightbringer adjusted his weight, sending a cloud of sand flying into the air. “You will learn.”
Faron clenched her fist, smothering one column of fire and the next and the next. She still had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping out a retort.
“In the stories they tell about us, they say we went mad,” Lightbringer continued. “That I drove their precious hero mad. But I bore no grudge against humanity when I entered this realm. I was thinking only of my freedom, and Gael Soto was the first creature to show me true kindness.” The dragon tipped up his head, squinting at the sky. “But when I carried him home, he was praised for taming me. He became the Gray Saint, and I became a monster turned mount. I had escaped one cage only to enter another, worshipped only for what I could do, not for what I was. A footnote in an insignificant human’s story. If I went mad, it is because they drove me there.”
Faron’s hands fell to her side as she studied Lightbringer. He wasn’t looking at her, but his jaw was clenched. Maybe he wasn’t squinting at the sky. Maybe he was staring down the sun—and the goddess who ruled it.
Gael had made his disdain for Lightbringer clear while manipulating her into opening the Empty. “That dragon… is a dangerous creature,” he had said to her once. “No one can control that beast.” But this was the only time Faron had heard Lightbringer hate him in turn. Theirs was the first bond ever forged between dragon and human, and she had personally witnessed that it was volatile. A chaotic swirl of warring consciousness, with Lightbringer mostly in control. But this was even worse than she’d thought. This wasn’t just unstable. This was a schism.
She could use that.
Lightbringer finally turned to her, green eyes glittering like acid. “I tell you this as a cautionary tale, Faron Vincent. The very world you long to save will drain you, betray you, and forget you once your usefulness has expired. You are a martyr without a cause. A traitor without a home. A villain masquerading as a hero. And one day you will exhaust yourself. Or”—and Faron imagined if the dragon could smile, then he would have—“you can give up on your inane schemes now and know true power and belonging. The choice is always yours.”
With that, Lightbringer’s wings fanned out behind him and carried him into the air. Faron threw an arm over her eyes to protect them from the cyclone he left in his wake, but it was sand, so it buried itself in places she would never be able to reach. Her flash of irritation took her back to another time and another beach. A bowl of guinep and a boy with loose suspenders. The rising sun and the whispering waves.
Grief pierced her heart like a blade. She missed Reeve. Gods, she missed him.
Would he hate her, too? Would he regret their kiss? Would he look at her and see Iya—someone just as irredeemable?
She thought of Jesper Soto and Zephyra. The Hestan Archipelago. The Emerald Highlands. Maybe his contempt was exactly what she deserved.
“Are you crying?” Gael Soto was somehow in front of her, a furrow between his brows. “Did something happen?” His eyes darkened. “Did someone—”
Faron swiped at the dampness on her burning cheeks. “It’s fine. I’m fine. When did you get here?”
“I called your name,” Gael said. “Several times.”
“I’m busy.”
“Well, now you’re busy doing something else.”
Once her face was dry, he took a step back to reveal they weren’t alone. Estella Ballard and Briar Noble stood behind him in their riding leathers, with matching blue shirts and belligerent expressions. Faron scowled back, daring them to say something to provoke her. Anger was preferable to grief. Anger was her armor. Anger was her weapon.
But they did nothing but stare.
“Stella and Briar have kindly volunteered to help you with your summoning,” Gael said. Both looked as if they wanted to argue against the concept of being any help to her but didn’t dare disagree with their saint. “They’re very sure that they can keep you out of their minds.”
Noble cracked his knuckles. “I’m looking forward to this.”
“Ooh, scary.” Faron snorted. “I could beat you with my pinky finger.”
“Let’s have it on, then,” Ballard said. Though not as performative as her co-Rider, her ire bled tension into the cold air. “I’ve got better things to be doing.”
“The rules are simple.” Gael moved far enough away that he had to shout to be heard. He waited until Faron was looking at him to smile, wide and proud. Faron had made Reeve smile so rarely that her breath caught to see it even now.
Then the sun caught the green flecks in Gael’s hazel eyes and snapped her back to the present.
“Faron,” he continued, “make them bow.”
Trouble called to Faron, as much a part of her as her heartbeat. It drove out the grief, the anger, the distractions. It made her feel powerful in a way few things did. Faron was a creature who thrived in chaos—and Gael had brought it to her.
Her smile was a warning. One they ignored.
Ballard and Noble attacked, all red fire and wild swings, and Faron danced out of the way. They were trained, but she was experienced. Gods, at this point, Faron was probably the top expert on Langlish fighting styles. Her vision split between the furious Riders in front of her and the battlefield that had forged her. Aveline and the soldiers—enlisted and conscripted—had done their best to insulate Faron and Elara from the worst of the war. They had failed, but they had tried. Faron was brought out as a last resort, a decisive end to an overdrawn battle. Even when she’d actually listened, even when she’d actually stayed where she’d been told, she could still hear everything. Buildings collapsing into splinters, revealing scorched stone. Dragons roaring loud enough to shake the world. Soldiers weeping through their death throes.
But death was never the ending. Not for those who witnessed it. It was the beginning of a new life for a new person, a fragmented person, whose future was a thousand disparate pieces fused back together because or in spite of what they’d seen. Faron would never know who she could have been if she’d never been touched by death. If she’d never learned how to cause it. Life, for her, was defined by tragedy and pain that ricocheted further than she could even imagine.
The heat of a punch blocked by her fireproof armguard brought her back to the present. Make them bow.
Ballard’s and Noble’s movements were coordinated, a push and pull of offense to the other’s defense, and Faron caught the rhythm of it within a few minutes. Sweat slicked her skin, but she fought off the chill, and adrenaline pounded through her blood. When they adjusted their strategy, she adjusted hers, skipping backward, jumping over fiery ankle sweeps, and narrowly avoiding a blade to the ribs.
It was impossible to concentrate long enough to reach for their souls. Which, she realized, was the lesson.
Faron clenched her eyes shut and kicked up sand at her attackers. When she’d put some distance between them, she reached out for their souls. Despite them charging her from opposite sides, it was easier this time. Last time, they’d been focused, their souls buried beyond the barrier of a deep and bitter anger against her. They were still angry, but they were weakened from the fight, and their anger was more active, frenzied. It was easy for Faron’s influence to dip through the cracks. To wrap around their pliant souls and squeeze until they froze, inches away from tackling her to the ground.
Bow, she commanded.
They fell to their knees. Noble’s forehead hit the ground first, followed seconds later by Ballard’s. His black hair was loose today, falling ruler straight across his shoulder blades, and there was something satisfying about seeing him get sand in it. She hoped granules rained from his head for the rest of the day. No, the rest of the week.
Faron reached up and wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. It came away bloody. “Still looking forward to this?” she spat.
They didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect them to. All their energy was going toward looking for weaknesses in her control, weaknesses they wouldn’t find. She fed another surge of power into their bodies, making them press themselves flat against the sand. She could make them eat it. She could make them bark like dogs. She could make them—
“Faron,” Gael said from right beside her. “You’re killing them.”
Faron, she’s drowning!
The sand beneath their heads was dark and wet. Red stained the ground. Everything smelled of salt water and bile. Noble and Ballard coughed violently, their bodies trembling from the effort of staying still. From the force of her power. Faron blinked, and they had gone still, paralyzed as if they were in the water. Faron blinked, and Elara was lying in Reeve’s arms, her face pale as he extracted the water from her lungs with his dragon relic. Faron blinked, and Ballard was wheezing, every broken breath a silent cry for help.
Whatever you’re doing to the dragon, you have to stop. It’s happening to Elara, too!
Faron blinked, and Gael was touching her shoulder. “Are you going to kill them?”
He didn’t sound as if he would be upset if she did, and that more than anything dropped her back into her body. She released her hold on their souls with a gasp. Her eyes burned. Her cheeks were damp. At some point, she’d started crying. Exhaustion brought her to her knees. Exhaustion and guilt.
Behind her, she heard a dragon—Ignatz—surging above the water’s surface. Everything she’d been doing to his Riders had happened to him in the bay, and when he had started drowning, so had they. Another minute and…
Ballard and Noble scrambled onto their sides, coughing up water and sucking in air. Blood was smeared across their chins and beneath their noses. Sand littered their skin along with lingering sick. Exhausted, Noble wiped a hand across his mouth, doing little to clean the mess, and then he passed out. Ballard struggled into a sitting position, swaying dangerously. Faron twitched forward to help her, but she threw up a hand.
“Stay away from me,” she snarled. “You act like you’re so much better than us, but you’re worse. You lie about it. You lie to yourself. You—” She leaned over and vomited onto the ground again, her hair clinging to her sweaty face.
Faron tried to take a step back, but Gael was still holding on to her. Her skin felt cold. Her chest felt cold. What had she almost done?
“I’ll take them both to the infirmary,” Gael murmured. “Lightbringer will be back soon, and you can update him on your progress.”
Faron was shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself, but she still didn’t feel warm. Her brain latched on to the only thing it could, in the wake of the horror she’d almost caused. “Back from where?”
Gael’s hand slid from her shoulder, brushing needlessly over her arm. She didn’t, couldn’t, look at him. She could only imagine what Reeve would think of what she had done. She couldn’t bear to see his face right now, or she would fall apart.
“Beacon’s two weeks are up,” Gael said. “He’s gone recruiting.”