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I squint against the whipping wind and struggle to understand what I’m looking at as Gent reaches the coliseum and spins me toward the incoming storm.

Storm is about right, but it’s not a mere cloud that is hurtling toward us, but a writhing mass of winged snakes, glistening wet with a viscous ooze that can only be poison.

It’s as if the creature that I saw in Rihad’s fireplace has transformed into an entirely new monster, this one the size of a mountain.

The whole of it can stretch over top the coliseum, and if those creatures are dripping poison, they’ll become a rain of death on the untrained warriors and Divhs just now getting their feet underneath them. And Caleb is down there too!

Then the snakes are upon us. Gent punches through the first wave of the creatures as I crouch into his carefully closed fist, and a high-pitched screeching noise is all I can register for a moment.

Then they are past us and Gent shifts to the side as Wrath swoops by.

The powerful draft of the griffin’s wings sends the snakes hurtling beyond the edge of the coliseum, and the few that clear the surface are incinerated by Szonja as she emerges from the center of the coliseum, breathing fire.

But the many-headed monster isn’t finished.

The snakes that weren’t destroyed zip up into the sky and regroup, creating a new irregularly shaped blob, this one thick and bulbous.

It darts past Gent’s swinging paw, and instead of attacking the coliseum, it lurches toward Wrath; the mighty lion immediately darts away, so fast it takes my breath away, and whether its mesmerized by Wrath’s eagle-scream or its flashing claws of its scrambling lion’s body, the stream of snakes screams after it, thinning out like a deadly arrow?—

Then I hear a twin howl of rage over my shoulder.

Gent half turns, then hauls me back into his chest as a streak of gold blurs by me, and I catch only the swiftest glimpse of Tennet crouching alongside Ayne’s sinuous head, the two of them riveted on the stream of snakes shooting through the sky.

Ayne breaks off from his scream and the sound is replaced by a fiery woosh as flames race along the surface of the snakes’ oily bodies until it reaches the thick center mass and explodes outward.

A shower of fried carcasses rains down on the coliseum. When I conjure up a clear image of Marsh and Caleb, coupled with a surge of worry, Gent bounds back to the outer walls of the coliseum—and slings me into the center of the field…directly at Marsh.

I collide into the mighty Divh, and he grabs at me, then falls backward, the ungainly Divh rolling to the side to let me slide off him and hit the snake-strewn tournament field.

I don’t fall the final few feet to the ground nearly as gracefully as I probably should, and I lay there, dazed, as the sounds crackle and chatter around me, my sight completely blacked for…

far too long. Gradually, a familiar voice breaks through the thudding chaos in my ears.

“Talia!”

I squint up to see Caleb bounding over to me, then haul myself to my feet.

I sway on wobbly legs as the warriors emerge back out onto the field from beneath the stands.

Their Divhs, at least, had the sense to vacate this plane during the firefight above, and to my intense relief, it doesn’t appear that any of the warriors have been injured.

“What were you thinking? Gent can’t just toss you into the air like that and expect Marsh to be able to catch you.

He’s not that great with his hands, even if he has two of them—and what in the blighted path ?—! ”

Caleb’s words are drowned out as a cheer goes up, and I strain up to see the mighty dragon soar into the coliseum.

Tennet is still astride his Divh, who banks sharply, then arrows down to the field, skimming the carcass-strewn dirt for half a breath before angling up again, then finally landing on the dirt, settling into a seated position on his haunches.

Tennet, appearing like a man frozen into a block of ice, topples off to the side. His Divh disappears.

“Lord Tennet!” Caleb and I surge forward at once, reaching Tennet as another commotion erupts overhead and two more Divhs take the field briefly—Szonja and Wrath, who do little more than release their own riders before taking their leave as well.

By this time, Tennet is convulsing on the ground, his skin as pale as marble and covered with a sheen of sweat.

Nazar and Fortiss reach us moments later, and Fortiss drops to his knees as well.

“Were you connected to his mind while he did that?”

“I…” I blink, scowling down at Tennet. “Not after we got him on Ayne. I wasn’t connected to anyone.” I jerk my gaze back to Fortiss. “Was it hard? To ride like that?”

He shrugs. “Szonja’s neck scales are smaller than the scales on the rest of her body, almost like flaps of skin that adhere to themselves until she doesn’t want them to.

When she settled on the side of the First House, she sort of fluffed those scales.

It wasn’t difficult to climb up and then tuck my legs under completely and just hold on.

But—I wasn’t transferred to my Divh midflight, and I wasn’t trying to hold on during battle.

” He stares down at Tennet. “He did well.”

“More than well,” Nazar agrees. He stands with his feet slightly too wide, his hands out at his side, as if he’s afraid he’ll topple. “I had maybe a dozen years with Wrath before I was unbanded. Never once did I attempt to fly on his shoulders. It never occurred to me to ask.”

“Yeah?” I grin at him. “So how did that go?”

He grimaces. “Not all of Wrath’s screaming was due to battle rage. The villagers of Trilion will be finding far too many fluffy under feathers strewn between here and the town.”

“He’s coming around,” Caleb announces, and though there’s no discernible change in Tennet’s waxy face that I can see, a moment later he groans and shakes again, but this time with greater force. His eyes flicker open, and he stares up at the four of us looking down.

“Blood and… stone ,” he mutters, his words as reedy as the wind. “Where did the second mess of those skrill go? You saw it, right? The knot of them that shot off to the east?”

I jolt and Fortiss leaps up, his feet hardly seeming to hit the ground before he turns toward the entryway. “Szonja!” he roars as we start running. Our ringing ears are useless until we clear the doors of the coliseum, until the world snaps tight again and our Divhs return.

For just a moment, before the roars of our Divhs shake the sky, we can hear another sound all too clearly—the far-off sounds of screaming.