Page 123 of Ashborne: Defiance

My breath stopped. Which was just as well, because his voice was the quietest and heaviest of them all.

“I am Voski, your… brother.” He hesitated and my heart flipped in my chest. But then he swallowed and croaked, “Welcome to Seventh Squadron!”

Frozen in his dark gaze, heart pounding, I waited for him to turn away, or drop his head, something to break the connection. But he didn’t. He stared.

Something tall and dark shifted next to me, then a deep, masculine throat cleared. “Introduce yourself, Grace,” Donavyn murmured.

I startled and tore my gaze from Voski’s, babbling apologies to the general, who only smiled and tipped his head toward the men.

I jerked myself back to face them and tried to clasp my skirts—only to find myself without any.

“S-sorry! I meant… I see you, too!” I called, surprised by a sudden wave of emotion tightening my throat. “I’m Grace Barnslow. I look forward to being your sister, and thank you for welcoming me. I can hardly wait!”

A great cheer went up, but even louder, the calls and roars of the dragons raised to the sky. I startled, but couldn’t stop smiling as the men cheered and whooped, and the dragons flapped their wings and screamed.

Then, the men rushed me. For a moment, I thought they would tackle me, or perhaps there was some frightening tradition of a beating? But they only saluted Donavyn, then surrounded me and urged me to run with them to the space behind them where the dragons lined up.

Bren beamed and laughed, running alongside me as we hurried for the space between Kham, and another, green-blue dragon. Both the creatures tossing their heads and flapping their wings.

A strange, massive net, wider than the dragon’s wingspans, had been spread on the grass, and Bren led me to its center, shooting looks back as the men all peeled off and ran to mount.

“Sit here,” Bren whispered, squeezing my hand. “And don’t worry. It’s going to be fine!”

“Wait—what—?” But she ran off to her gray dragon as well. While they all mounted, I looked longingly at Koa on Kham’s other side, wishing I had their skill and strength to run and leap up my dragon’s side like that.

“Grace?” Ronen stood at his dragon’s side at the end of the net, the creature’s scales shining like jewels. It had kind eyes.

“Yes?” I squeaked.

“As your squad captain, Flameborne Barnslow, it’s my honor to give you your first order,” he said with a smile. My heart leaped at those words. “Sit down, right where you stand, but facing up the hill, toward the commander.”

“Oh! Yes. Right.” Instinctively, keeping my knees together as I would in a skirt, I sank to the netting on the grass. “Like this?”

Ronen smiled and looked past me to the others, all taking their seats on their dragon’s backs. “Seventh Squadron, salute!”

“Sir! Commander, sir!”

Donavyn nodded once to acknowledge the salute. Then he looked at me. “Good luck, Flameborne,” he said solemnly.

Then he winked.

I gasped as there was suddenly a fierce wind that seemed to come from every direction at once, and a whomph-whomph-whomph as the dragons either side of me began to flap.

Then the net began to slide. I shrieked, and grabbed for the rough strands. But the earth lurched and I fell backward, bumping and scraping for a moment until my stomach dipped to my toes as I was lifted from the ground in a grand swoop, and the net drew up around me, turning, twisting, caging me, as the two dragons climbed into the sky.

43. Attention!

~ GRACE ~

The whole world spun. Overhead, Kham and Ronen’s dragon flew, wing-tip to wing-tip, but because the net had closed over my head and twisted into a tight mass, I couldn’t see Voski or Ronen clearly, above and in front of me.

My stomach dipped and flipped as I turned in my net cage, one moment staring at blue sky, the next at the ground. And in between, gut churning glimpses of sky, trees, or dragons flying nearby, whirling past as I rolled in the net.

At some point, I realized I was screaming. I shut my mouth with a snap, but curled my fingers into the netting so tightly my knuckles turned white. No matter how I moved, the net gave, and my body screamed alarm that I was about to be dropped. But after a few, panting seconds, my heart thudding in my ears, I was able to calm and think. The turning of the net slowed, but didn’t stop, while the squad’s dragons screamed and called.

There was the occasional shout from the men as well, but I could barely hear them over the pulsing in my ears—and then an ever-increasing boom… rush… boom.

Suddenly, the earth underneath us fell away to reveal blackened cliffs, white spray of water over dark spires of rock, and churning gray water in between.