*＊✿❀Tacenda❀✿＊* DISCONTINUED

10

"Coralee Ryle. Nicholai Panya," a newly pinned Major Devera calls out over the frost-covered courtyard, reading from what's become the new death roll. For the first time since entering the quadrant, the names called every morning for the last week haven't been cadets, but active riders—and fliers—on the front lines, fighting to fortify the villages along the Stonewater River. Trying to divert the venin's attention from our valley, where four new dragons have hatched.

Don't say Mira. Don't say Mira. Don't say Mira. It's become my personal prayer to whatever god will listen while standing in formation.

I feel so fucking useless. Unlike the last two weeks, there's no luminary to fetch, no wards to fail at. There's a real war down there, and we're up here learning history and physics.

"We lost two yesterday?" Aaric tenses in the row ahead.

Lana glances back over her shoulder at me, sorrow haunting her eyes for a heartbeat before she composes herself with a grace I can never seem to manage and straightens her shoulders at Sawyer's side. Two riders in one day is unfathomable in active service. The entirety of the Aretian Quadrant will be dead in less than two months at this rate.

"I think that's Isar's brother," Ridoc says from beside me. "Second Wing."

We both glance left, past Third Wing. Isar Panya bows her head from the middle of her squad in Tail Section.

I blink back the burning in my eyes, and my fingers squeeze tight around the conduit in my left hand.

"He was a lieutenant," Imogen says quietly.

"Two years ahead of us," Quinn adds. "Great sense of humor."

"This is cruel," I whisper. "Telling us that our siblings, our friends are dead this way is fucking cruel." It's harsher than anything we've been put through at Basgiath.

"It's no different than morning formation," Visia says over her shoulder.

"Yes, it is," Sloane argues. "Hearing someone from a different wing died, or hell, even our squad, isn't the same as being told your brother's gone." Her voice cracks.

A lump swells painfully in my throat. Brennan is inside, no doubt arguing with the Assembly about where to find game for the tsunami of predators we've brought here over the last month or coordinating shipments from the now-functioning forge. He's safe.

Every commissioned rider that isn't here teaching has been sent in shifts to man the outposts along the Cliffs of Dralor, like Xaden, Garrick, Heaton, and Emery...or to hold the front, like Mira.

Devera clears her throat and exchanges the roll for the one Jesinia holds.

My shoulders dip, a breath of relief clouding the freezing air. Mira's alive. Or at least she was last night when the rotational rider brought the news in. Morning formation doesn't scare me when it comes to Xaden—I'd know instantly if he...

Gods, I can't even think it.

"Chrissa Verlin," Devera begins reading from the commissioned fliers' roll. "Mika Renfrew—"

"Mika!" A low, guttural scream erupts from our right, and every head turns to a drift near the center of the fliers' formation as a guy falls to his knees. The rest of his drift turns, covering him with comforting arms.

"I'm never going to get used to hearing them do that," Aaric mutters, shifting his weight.

"Hearing them what?" Sloane counters. "Have emotions?"

"Sorrengail knows what I mean. You've been out there—" Aaric says to me.

"And I cried like an infant while Liam died. Turn around." Shit, isn't that at odds with everything I told Lana when we fought beside the Gauntlet? The deaths are supposed to harden us, so why do I agree with Sloane on this one? There's something infinitely more...human about the way the fliers react.