fourth wing xadens pov

chapter 12

Chapter 12:Threshing

Across the wings, we lose twenty-nine first-years on Presentation Day, the majority of those to the parade of dragons. Somehow those deaths are always easier to swallow; at least these cadets have been weeded out by something other than dumb luck.

There’s no deciphering the choices of dragons. Even Sgaeyl stays unusually silent on the topic, bound by whatever mysterious ties all dragons have to the Vale. The roll of names of the dead feels as random and unpredictable as on parapet day, some of the most skilled and promising cadets spoken alongside ones we knew were struggling. But something prompts the dragons to let some cadets keep walking, while incinerating others until there’s just a scorch mark left where they once stood.

All I see is hollow eyes among the first-years at the first formation two days later, even the most arrogant riders coming to terms with their own mortality. Today is Threshing, where they’ll be forced to fight through each other to have a chance at bonding with a dragon. And with less than one hundred dragons and almost one hundred and fifty cadets, this year’s Threshing is bound to become a bloodbath. Septon has been taking wagers with his squad leaders all morning on how many cadets in his wing will make it out alive.

I clock eyes with Liam in the lines, giving him the tiniest hint of a nod which I hope he can interpret as my utter conviction that he will be bonded by nightfall. He has the fastest time up the gauntlet and already feels a pull towards a certain Red Daggertail, that he’s determined to find in the forest. He’ll make it.

My eyes scan the crowd searching for Violet, but she’s not looking in my direction, her gaze trained on the ground. Garrick told me Aetos’s squad suffered worse than most during Presentation, losing two to the dragons. I wonder if she’s thinking about her squad mates, or if her mind is filled with an insistent pull from the green dragon who approached her during the parade. For her sake, I really hope it’s the latter.

I stare at her, willing her to look up at me so I can give her the same little bit of silent support I gave to Liam, but she’s doesn’t. When Panchek dismisses us, she turns to her squad mates on either side, unguarded nervousness clear on her face.

I motion to the section leaders, and stride past them towards the forest, even as my shadows stretch back towards formation like they’re not ready to leave just yet.

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The forest where Threshing takes place every year is too beautiful a backdrop for the amount of death that occurs within it. The trees burn bright with red and orange foliage as the season shifts, the first of the leaves starting to float towards the ground.

The section and squad leaders are dotted throughout the forested valley at random, on the pretence of observation. But there’s no rules to enforce today; any cadet can kill another among the trees without punishment. Command send us out here to watch, a brutal and unsubtle reminder that even with authority and position, you’re just as powerless as anyone else.

The only rule that exists in this forest today is for us: intervene, and you die.

As wingleaders, we’re given the aerial posting, the only dragons flying in the sky above the forest except for those here to bond with the new intake of cadets. From this vantage point, we can see the dragons launch up from the ground, their chosen rider clinging precariously between their wings. It took under two hours for Liam to bond with his dragon, a huge Red Daggertail that Sgaeyl tells me is called Deigh. I watch him leave the field with a huge grin on my face, feeling like my heart is soaring through the skies right next to him.