Major Kaler was already there, his uniform crisp, expression unreadable. But what set my teeth on edge was who stood beside him.
Major Ledor.
His presence meant this wasn’t just a drill. This was being watched.
“Wonderful,” Tae muttered beside me. “They’ve brought both instructors to smile over our corpses.”
We lined up as ordered, feet scuffing the training stone as Kaler stepped forward and raised his hands.
“Today,” he called out, his voice icy, “is a special trial.”
Already, my pulse began to pick up.
“One in which you must face a creature of dark magic without your dragons.”
A ripple moved through the squads like a drawn breath.
“You may call upon their magic,” Kaler added, “but your mounts will not land on the Ascension Grounds. They will not intervene.”
“How do we fight Blood Fae here?” one of the Iron Fang cadets asked from the middle ranks. His tone was skeptical but not mocking. Just… afraid.
The major didn’t answer with words.
He simply flicked his wrist.
And mist began to rise from the center ring, slow and sinuous, curling like smoke from a burning wound. The mist darkened, twisting into form. Shoulders. Arms. A face half-lost to shadow. Fangs, long and curved, slid down as the creature’s eyes opened, glowing crimson with cold hunger.
Its voice was a hiss.
Its presence was wrong.
It didn’t move like a soldier.
It flowed.
A monster. Formed from magic. From memory. From some ancient summoning, the major had no right to know.
Naia shifted beside me. Ferrula stiffened.
Even Kaelith stirred in my mind. She was watchful, but distant.
I gripped the hilt of my blade and whispered to no one but myself.
“Well. Shit.”
Major Ledor stepped forward, his boots striking the stone like hammer blows. His voice rang out across the grounds.
“Rebec. Rayne. Rowan. Into the ring.”
The words slammed through me like a jolt.
Beside me, Zander’s jaw flexed. Cade lifted his head from where he’d been standing two paces behind Crownwatch, his face paler than usual but set.
“You’re to work as a team,” the major barked as we stepped into the wide, rune-marked ring. “No one person can take down a shadow creature alone. Fight as one… or fall.”
I drew my blades and took my place on the left. Zander shifted to the right, spear already in hand. Cade moved silently between us, his grip on his dual daggers tight, eyes fixed on the beast in the mist.
The creature had coalesced into something solid now.
