Elara assessed the situation. Nizsa was another sage dragon, swift and smart, and they had no idea where she was flying to. In a few minutes, she would be outside the boundaries of the continent, which would take her away from civilization but risk the lives of her Riders if Elara and Signey brought her down in the open ocean.
“Fly over them,” she told Signey and Zephyra.“I’ll try to bring the professor around. You make sure Nizsa doesn’t fly out any farther.”
“I’m not sure I care for this plan,” said Zephyra.
“You could get hurt,” Signey added.“They’re not themselves right now, Elara.”
“A little trust would be nice, ladies.”
Zephyra snorted at the echo of her words from the incendio. Signey sighed—so deeply that Elara could feel it through the bond—before she twisted around in Elara’s hold. She detangled her horned hairpiece from her fraying curls and held it out.“At least take this. You might need its magic.”
Elara, who still refused to wear dragon relics in her everyday life, smiled as she affixed the hairpiece around her braids, the horns curving just above her ears.Many of the relics that the Soto siblings wear were created from Skythrall, the commander had said. Now here was Signey, trusting her with a piece of her mother andsister. A part of her ancestors, given for Elara’s protection. Maybe it meant something different in Langley than such a thing would mean in San Irie, but…
“Thank you,” she sent, touched.“I’ll definitely need it.”
Was it her imagination or were Signey’s cheeks pink?“Thank me by being careful.”
Zephyra pulled up into the air over Nizsa as Elara untied herself from the saddle, sending her gratitude to Irie that even without the added security measures, she, as a Wingleader, had perfect balance. Because it was only her clenched thighs and her arms around Signey’s waist that otherwise kept her from tumbling off her dragon’s back.
“Be careful,” Signey said one last time.
“Always am,” Elara replied.
Zephyra arced sideways, aligning directly above Nizsa, and Elara leaped into the air, leaving her stomach behind. Wind rushed around her, a moment of pure stillness. Then the fall began to register and a scream tore from her throat, lost in the frigid air.
Elara hit the saddle, pain shooting up her thighs. Nizsa didn’t so much as dip, but Lewis turned to watch her cling to the edge of the leather. Nizsa’s scales scraped against her clothes, dug into her stomach, and her arms strained to pull herself farther away from the dragon’s spiked tail. She watched Lewis lift a hand, watched a ball of flame spark above his palm. She could almost feel the heat of it, the way it would scorch her skin.
And then Nizsa hissed and drew up short.
Lewis jolted in the saddle. The flame went out. Elara dragged herself up behind him, relieved when she saw straps dangling from either side of Nizsa’s body. They’d succumbed to the Furyso quickly that they hadn’t bothered to tie themselves in, relying solely on their Rider magic to maintain their balance, and that worked for her. She’d barely managed to strap herself in when Nizsa spiraled away from Zephyra. Apparently, perfect balance didn’t apply if she rode any dragon besides her own.
Lewis and Smithers were moving seamlessly with every twitch of Nizsa’s body, but Elara felt as if she were riding a wild horse and only her wits would keep her from ending up in an infirmary. Signey and Zephyra were doing their part, corralling Nizsa back toward the Langlish borders, and now she had to do hers.
Elara reached for the magic in the dragon horns. Once again, it was as easy as a breath, as easy as a thought. The hum of magic replaced the whistle of the wind, waiting for her direction, eager to help. And as Lewis moved again to attempt to dislodge her, Elara aimed the cloud of magic at him and the professor, commanding it to put them to sleep. He raised a hand as if to block or counter, but she was faster. It took seconds for Rupert Lewis to slump against his husband’s bent back. Professor Smithers snored lightly, his forehead almost low enough to touch the saddle.
She held tightly as Nizsa hovered in midair, visibly confused. The Fury was a relentless wave of feral rage, but it also built on the minds consumed by it. Without Lewis and Smithers to add to Nizsa’s viciousness, she was left to tend to the single ember of her own anger. Elara opened her mouth to tell the dragon to fly back to Hearthstone and screamed instead.
Because Nizsa was falling from the sky, fast asleep like her Riders.
Her lithe body dropped so quickly that Elara was partially lifted from the saddle, only the straps keeping her from spinning away. She gripped the back of Lewis’s shirt, still screaming, hereyes burning from the sharp air and the sudden knowledge that she had miscalculated, that she was going to die, that she would never again see her sister or her family or her home or Reeve, that she would never summon again, never return to school, never stop the commander—
She slammed against the saddle like a bird against a window. The faded ache from earlier pulsed through her a second time, in not just her thighs but her ribs and chest, as well. A shadow had blocked out the sun, and Elara looked up to see that it was Zephyra. The talons of her arms were gripping Nizsa’s, keeping the slumbering dragon aloft. Zephyra’s leg talons gripped Nizsa’s as well, carrying her, carryingthem.
“Are you all right?” Signey and Zephyra asked together.
Tears soaked Elara’s cheeks, but this time they weren’t from fear.“I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
She felt their relief, as powerful as her own, and closed her eyes to sink into that wave of affection. Her Firstrider. Her dragon. Once enemies, once punishments, and now her saviors, her protectors. Her friends. Elara still wanted to go home—perhaps even more so now that her final thoughts had been only of the people she’d left behind—but she would miss this, too. She would miss them.
And she didn’t know what to do with that realization.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FARON
IN HINDSIGHT, IT WAS A WONDER THAT IT HAD TAKENFARON THISlong to try sneaking out of Renard Hall.
The longer she stayed in this admittedly grand house, the more restless she got. Gael had visited her every day since her dream, but they had made no further headway on unlocking her power to command dragons. He never seemed impatient or annoyed with her lack of progress, but Faron wanted to scream. Her sister had been trapped among the enemy for almost two months now. Faron couldn’t suffer through a dry text like Reeve could, so the least she could do was use her magic to bring Elara home. Gael was supposed to be the key to that.
