Everyone’s gaze, including Rune’s, landed on me.
Gavin’s gaze flicked over to me for half a second then back to the group.
I should’ve torn my gaze away from Rune, but I couldn’t. Her nostrils flared as she held my gaze.
My heart hammered against my ribs harder as we maintained eye contact.
Fates, help me.
“Agent Wyvernheart,” Gavin announced, “will play the antagonist in your mission. He’ll be shifted in a densely populated neutral city within Fate Hollow.” His hands clasped behind his back. “Your squad must locate, subdue, and extract the target, Agent Wyvernheart, without triggering civilian panic or causing mass supernatural collateral.”
Rune lifted a perfect green brow at me.
I swallowed hard.
He let that sink in for a moment before continuing, “Complications you should expect will include civilian interference and the usual teamwork frictions. Scoring criteria will be subdual efficiency, civilian safety, and team coordination.”
I cleared my throat and forced myself to look at Gavin rather than his daughter. My hands laced behind my back, and my suit-clad feet aligned on the simulation floor’s faint pulsing runes.
“Questions?” Gavin asked.
The squad shook their heads.
His eyes went back to Eleanor with concern. “Eleanor, you will be removed if your condition worsens.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, Pops,” Rune assured her dad with a thumbs up. “I gave her some purgegut venom so she won’t get any worse.”
My eyebrow raised.
What the Fates was purgegut venom?
“Rune.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. Good luck, Squad One.”
The lights of the simulator bled away as Fate Hollow’s largest city rose around us. Simulated civilians flowed throughthe streets as they went about their day. They would be the collateral.
The final had begun.
Magic curled down my spine just before the familiar change spread through my body. I didn’t fight it. I let the shift roll through me. Green scales skittered over me. The city shrank as my bones lengthened and locked. My wings unfurled with a wet crackle. My joints popped, spine arched, and then my dragon form was fully out.
I beat my wings and took flight, my talons scraping the cobblestone roads as I pushed off the ground and landed hard on the roof of one of the tallest buildings in the city. Tiles broke under my weight.
Screams shrieked instantly as Squad One scrambled. I launched again, flying two streets over, then punched back down on a shorter building’s rooftop in a flicker of speed.
I should have been watching the entire squad, and Iwas, but the moment I found Rune, I forgot to focus. She was a precise line of motion as she climbed, not to my roof but to the arched bridge that spanned the canal below. Her hands clutched the stone, and she performed a fluid vault, landing in a crouch that looked more agent than student.
Pride uncoiled in my chest the longer I watched her.
Slater was the first to strike against me. He was the chaos demon with red hair who was constantly smelling of Rune and Rune of him.
Oddly enough, that didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.
He flung a chaos manifestation up the wall toward me. It was a large black serpent made of crackling chaos magic. If I focused on it, the outline of it fuzzed.
I let it crest the edge, then snapped my tail across the rooftop, hitting it.
Slater’s conjuration hit the populated street with a sound like thunder.
