Page 234 of Feralheart

As far as I knew, they’d never met. I’d bonded with Aristus when I was seven, and my father had flown into the Scorching that same season and never come back. Yet my dragon knew that name.

Why would my dragon flinch at a dead man’s name?

“Hold on. Please.” I pressed my forehead to his neck, my shoulder shrieking at the angle.

The thread connecting his collar to the nearest structure flickered. The white light dimmed.

For the first time since we’d entered this trial, he pushed back.

Eradin’s terror for us and our dragons shot through the bond, pulling taut with her need to fix this.

The higher we climbed, the worse it got.

A voice erupted from everywhere and nowhere. Ancient. It echoed off the canyon walls until I couldn’t tell which direction it came from.

Only the strongest may pass. Only the worthy shall ascend. Push forward. Prove your devotion.

The words settled into the canyon like a command.

Vella kicked Heartsbrim in the sides.

The dragon shrieked and scrambled forward, bolting up the slope. The beast’s collar blazed white-hot. The thread connecting Heartsbrim to the nearest structure flared so bright I had to look away.

Eradin’s horror crashed into mine.

Heartsbrim groaned and fell to the jagged surface.

He started sliding backward.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

FEN

Heartsbrim’s body tumbled past us, the ruby dragon’s wings spiked out, his collar still blazing white as he fell.

Lady Severine didn’t look back. She’d flung herself off him the moment he froze and was already climbing hand over hand up the rock face, her focus locked on the summit. Her dragon’s death was just another obstacle she’d cleared.

Eradin’s horror spiked so sharp through the pack bond my teeth ached.

I’d grown up in Vella’s world. She’d eaten at our royal table. We were friends at one time. But I’d been trained by men who thought exactly as she did, that the bond was a resource, not a relationship. That a dragon’s death was a calculation.

Other elite riders reeled away from the carnage and kept climbing. Bellowing. Kicking. Whips cracked across scaled hides. Rune-magic flared as riders forced their dragons higher, faster, proving their devotion through pain.

Everything climbing toward the summit had been turned into fuel, and the columns were the mechanism that converted it.

The structures sang louder.

Dragons froze mid-climb, their collars flaring white, threads of light connecting them to the pillars like puppet strings. One by one, they fell.

I’d been trained to assess casualties in battle. Calculate losses. My tutors had drilled it into me until I could watch people die and hold myself steady.

These weren’t soldiers who’d chosen to fight. They were creatures whose only crime was trusting the humans who’d collared them.

And the elite were climbing over their bodies.

“Stop.” The word ripped from my throat, but they didn’t hear or didn’t care.

Lord Cedric’s dragon seized, his wings locking. They plummeted twenty feet before the dragon caught himself, though barely. Cedric clung to the saddle, his face gray.