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I needed to lose her off my trail, but the thought of ending her willed in my thoughts, dangling as the only option to save Naraic.

“He’ll be glad he doesn’t have to protect you anymore,” she hissed, shoving her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Your brother is dead. He shouldn’t carry that burden of ensuring your safety simply because they were friends.”

I curled that leash back. I had never thought so callously about another person’s death, but seeing Naraic in pain did something to me. It ignited not only a flame but rage.

I ripped out the shard from my shoulder with a hiss.

Anger surged—funneled through my boiling veins. I willed that flame to reach her, to wrap around her neck and drag her down.

“Fly!” I screamed, and Naraic took off, ripping Delair off her dragon.

She was bloodied and shaking on the ground, and her flesh peeled over with cindered burns. I had done that—for Naraic. I reached over to his ribs, tugged the serrated metal out with a grunt, and threw it toward the ground.

“I killed her,” I breathed.

“Her shield was weak.”

Riders flew above and away from me, unwilling to risk their lives for the lower hoops I’d set ablaze. We passed through the forests, and two more golden ribbons decorated my wrist. Daylight became the cool breeze of autumn leaves.

Then Naraic cried a howl I had never heard come from him before. It wasn’t a pained noise, but the sound twisted my stomach.

I saw Emerich’s sea-green scales through the clouds. “Damien,” I called .

Moss-flecked peaks lined the horizon. Mist veiled us in midday showers, and I was thankful it wasn’t that beating rain from before. But when Damien didn’t answer back, Naraic chased after Emerich, whose spine was riderless.

Fear gripped my bones as Emerich let out that same howl. A cry of mourning .

“Damien,” I yelled, leaning over the whirl of clouds with each lower of Naraic’s wings.

We followed Emerich through a trail, and I saw a leather jacket caught on a branch. We flew lower, nearly gliding above the lush grass.

A figure was on the grass, lying too still and calm for my liking. Tears clustered under my lids when I saw Damien’s bloody face and how his back was contorted unnaturally. Naraic flew closer.

“Breathe, Blanche,” Naraic barked.

Damien’s chest rose, and I took my first breath.

We got as close as we could without dismounting.

“Damien, look at me!” I screamed. “You’re not dying today.”

His eyes whirled before focusing on mine. “Sev. Leave me. Win.” There was no blood; he must have fallen on his back.

“What happened?”

“Hail. It pelted me, and I slipped.”

“How dare he…”

He strained to shake his head. “Everett… he can wield ice. I’ve never seen a dragon rider wield it before.”

Everett ? “Why would he attack you? He’s our friend. We—we saved him.”

“You saved his life, Sev. I…” he groaned, trying to get to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. You need to go. I need to rest for a moment, maybe a day. This was your race, Sev.”

“You’re disqualified. I’m not leaving you here to get attacked by beasts. ”

He leaned up on his arms, groaning in pain. “I only did this for you—to get close to you. And I’ll never speak to you again if you step one foot on this ground.” He meant it, although I figured Damien had already chosen that silence between us.

I could feel Naraic’s beats getting quicker. We needed to fly. “Can you stand? Try and get back on Emerich.” I looked through the trails, but only thick bushes and winding vines surrounded us. He would never make it out alive. “Please,” I whimpered.

He stood up with a grunt. Emerich dipped as low as he could, and Damien grabbed his neck, shrieking, but managed to mount Emerich. “Ride, Severyn. Now,” he said.

“I’ll meet you at the fields,” I said through tears.

Damien nodded, loosely sprawled atop Emerich. He would survive—and that was enough for me.

We soared out of the forest and into the heart of the canyon.

Towering crystalline formations appeared as colossal daggers thrusted from the sky to the ground, forming a natural stone labyrinth.

Those jagged spires refracted the sunlight of Autumn’s muted sun, splintering dazzling colors that danced across the canyon walls.

The narrowed gorge was a twisted path barely wide enough for a single dragon to navigate through.

Each sphere seemed honed to razor-sharp perfection. Naraic’s wings beat in place as he felt my hesitation. “It’s not worth it, Naraic. It’s not worth your life,” I said.

“There is no other route. I can do it.”

And I believed him because perhaps he had done it before.

Naraic tucked his wings in as tight as he could, weaving through the spheres one by one, striking each hoop and tearing that golden ribbon loosely tied along the metal. Seven. I had seven ribbons laced around my wrist, fluttering through the ripping wind.

Raw amethyst lined the bottom of the canyon. My heart beat with each of Naraic’s wings, and our breaths were in sync. I was his eyes, and I’d die with him if we went down. And I felt that invisible tether between us, as if our veins were connected through our bond—heart and lungs pounding as one.

I clung tight to his scales, feeling every twitch of his muscles as we glided through the maze, veering right, left, down… Pain ripped through my lungs as Naraic’s wing tore into one of the spheres.

He growled twice, tremoring a roll down his spiked spine. “Do you anger people when I am not around, North?” Naraic hissed. “Not even ten minutes have passed, and another rider is trying to end your life.”

A dagger swept past my cheek.

I turned to face two dragons. Alaric’s teeth barred as he stared at a third-year Autumn student, the same one who’d mocked me for standing in the dragon fields weeks before.

“Brantlyn,” Alaric hissed low, dodging another dagger. “This is a race, remember.”

“I know those scales,” he hissed at me. “You’re a freak, pigeon . What kind of black magic did you do on that beast you ride? Tell me, or I’ll consult the Malvoria guards, and I know the commander isn’t afraid to rip forbidden quells from the students here.”

I didn’t know his name until now, yet he wanted to kill me. I should have listened to Archer. Fuck, I couldn’t think of him right now.

Brantlyn aimed that next dagger at my heart, and Naraic’s wings were already pressed against the stone with nowhere to fly.

“He’s not a freak,” I said as Naraic smashed against the rocks as the dagger flew past us, nearly grazing his entire left wing to the bone. “He is mine, and I am his.”

“Leave her and race,” demanded Alaric. “Severyn has done no harm to you. ”

“I think I’d rather kill her before she burns the academy down,” he said, thrusting another dagger at us. “I watched that dragon die two years ago.”

“No!” yelled Alaric as he lunged through the air, taking the strike in the stomach.

He met my swollen gaze as he crashed into the sharp abyss below. Seconds seemed like minutes as he gripped the bloody handle. He stared up at seemingly nothing and then shifted his silver gaze at me.

“Toni’s going to kill me… if I survive.” He tried to lean up, but a sphere was punctured through his shoulder.

“Alaric, I’ll save you!” I cried. “Don’t move.”

“Tell Toni… I love her. That I’d choose her if I could go back,” he said. “Please, Severyn. I need you to tell her that.”

Then, a sound that mimicked death itself sounded through the crisp air.

Brantlyn’s dragon was caught between the barbed crystals, screeching as its talons tore into stone and spheres.

“Naraic, we need to help Alaric!”

“Your humanity is not greater than your life. You do not carry his burdens. Nor his sacrifice.”

Alaric screamed at his silver wyvern. “Let me die! Release the bond so you can survive. I won’t be your last rider.”

I always thought an enigma bond was for life, but I wondered if Klaus had demanded Naraic release the bond before he drowned. If those were his last words.

Naraic roared a breath of deadly ash, cindering Brantlyn until only charred bones clung to the dragon’s spine. “That redhead was rather annoying, don’t you think?”

And Malachi had warned me three deaths were normal during Skyfall. And I had witnessed each one .

Alaric’s wyvern tore through the spheres, shredding its scales along the path before taking off into the sky. I felt the punch in my throat, the stillness as we glided out of the labyrinth.

“Does that happen often?” I cried. “He released his bond!”

“You will never see that again in your lifetime.”

“Klaus never—”

“I had no choice.”

“It nearly killed Ciaran,” I said out loud.

“I did it to save Ciaran. This is more than a promise to protect. Ciaran is my other half. She is my sister, hatched in the same egg. We are one. Our bond is unbreakable. I ensured Ciaran and that rider of hers would live. I released the bond to find you. Dragons can only bond to the blood of our fallen riders. You were chosen the moment Klaus took his last breath. Klaus knew you were coming. Most dragons prefer to break the bond once a rider naturally passes. Our blood has been synced since before you were born, North.”

A shadow swallowed us whole. Above, a crack of moonlight fractured the darkness, its pale glow the only source of light.

Naraic’s scales shimmered faintly, a constellation of silver beneath the scattered stars.

Below, a restless grey sea battered jagged rocks, the crash and hiss echoing like a mournful hymn.

Shrieks rose from the forest ahead—sharp, hollow, like whispers torn from a nightmare. The overgrown path twisted into the black.

My stomach churned, a queasy knot tightening with every wing beat.

Naraic moved with quiet purpose, his snout brushing something I hadn’t noticed before—a golden ribbon, swaying gently in the cold breeze.

Flying through the Night realm forced my thoughts to whirl on him as I soared through his mimicked land. “Why didn’t Archer tell me on the first day?” I asked .