Page 129 of Feralheart

And he hadn’t reported me.

Get us out of here, I shouted to Selira in my mind.

If she could navigate the shifting safe zones, I could lead my team through. Give them a chance when the alternative was death.

“Dead water left,” I shouted, pointing. “Three lengths. Bank right at the stalagmite!”

Lyndie’s dragon shot in that direction.

The rest of us followed.

Halfway across, she met my gaze.

Selira’s wings beat smoothy. She knew where to go the way I knew how to breathe.

Exhaustion bled through the bond, hers and mine tangled together. Cold bit through my damp leathers, settling in my spine and every place where warmth was supposed to live. Her muscles strained under my thighs, each wingbeat taking more effort than the last.

The red glow faded from my palms.

Reece flew behind me, and I kept looking back, making sure he was with me. His dragon flew rough, the damaged wing making his course crooked. The creature’s breathing stuttered on every third beat.

Reaching the distant shore, we flew through a narrow tunnel, emerging at another long stretch of dark beach. Selira’s talons crunched on sand when we landed. My legs shook when I slid off her back, and I barely caught myself before my knees gave out.

Around us, elites rested.

Fenian stood among them. Seeing me, he started in my direction, only to have Lady Severine grab his arm and drag him around to face her. She waved her arms in the air and spoke, though she was too far away to hear.

Selira’s exhaustion crashed through the bond, deeper than muscle-tired. Bone-tired. Soul-tired. But underneath it, fierce pride.

We flew. We led. We lived.

“Yes.” I leaned my forehead against her neck, breathing in her cinnamon-smoke scent. “You were perfect.”

Alive. Her amusement flickered. Better than perfect.

Lyndie had landed her dragon nearby, and her face was pale but composed. Her dragon’s sides heaved, foam flecking its mouth.

Reece dismounted and stood beside his dragon, staring at his hands like they belonged to someone else. Then he ripped off the harness and threw it away.

Yes.

A cavern opened ahead of us, wider than the one we’d left. Faelights floated across the ceiling, illuminating what waited.

Another lake.

It didn’t register at first. My brain saw the silver expanse stretching ahead and tried to tell me we’d somehow circled back, that this was the same lake. We’d failed without knowing it. But the shore behind us was gone. The tunnel had sealed closed the moment we’d passed through.

Only forward existed now.

This lake appeared larger. Wider. The silver surface held the same delayed reflection, shapes moving beneath that were too big to be anything but the bringers of death.

Elite teams clustered near the shore, their dragons pawing at the black sand, riders arguing in tight clusters. One team had already tried to retreat. Their dragons’ claw marks scarred the sand leading back the way we’d come, ending at a solid stone wall.

No way out but across.

Fenian snarled at Vella Severine and left her sputtering, going to Aristus, though not before glancing at me. He stroked Aristus’s snout. The black dragon’s sides bellowed, his wings trembling with exhaustion.

Lady Severine followed him, her lifted voice carrying across the shore. “You removed your dragon’s tack in front of everyone. Do you understand what you’ve done? Your mother will⁠—”