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Finn’s mouth opens in a silent gasp. It’s Raine who responds first, cursing under his breath. The dragon dips and swoops beneath Finn and Kai to catch them as the tendrils of Finn’s Shadow return to his veins.
Kai lands awkwardly on the spinal bones and coughs violently. Finn uses momentum and lands perfectly on his toes, crouching to absorb the shock from the fall.
“Who the fuck attacked us?” Kai hisses behind us.
Raine grits his teeth and says in a lethal tone, “I’d bet a thousand coin it was Frederick.” His grasp around me tightens and I scream as his dragon head dives straight toward the ground.
The wind throws my hair back violently and the approaching trees make my blood turn to ice. “Raine!” I shout but he doesn’t let up.
Finn calls out from behind him, “There!”
I frantically search the approaching ground, eyes locking on five racing Shadows, one much larger than the rest, riding a snake similar to Edgar’s but significantly smaller.
“That asshole can’t go one day without trying to kill someone,” Kai grumbles as the dragon spreads its wings and stops the descent. My entire body feels like jelly and my stomach curls. I’m never letting him convince me to do this again.
Kai hurls off the side of Raine’s Shadow, and a few seconds later, we hear the men below shouting.
“Did you seriously vomit on them?” Finn laughs and Kai only groans with distress.
“Oh, we’ll do more than that. If they want to fight, we’ll give them a fight,” Raine says in a low tone that makes me happy to be up here and not down there. I’d hate to find out what this Shadow can do to its opponents.
Kai protests, “Oh gods, please don’t make it nosedive again.”
The only reply is the dragon’s immense screech piercing the sky. It’s so loud that my hands abandon the safety of the bone and shield my ears. Then comes the blinding light. It’s bright blue, like ice on a frozen lake. A ball of pure power begins to form in the skull’s gaping jaw, growing bigger and increasingly daunting until all the sound in the world vanishes in an instant. A thin line of blue splits the sky and then the mass of power blasts from the dragon’s mouth, wicked and horrible, scorching the trees. The pine needles shrivel and vanish like they’ve been hit with a bomb.
“You’ll kill them!” I shriek, hardly able to hear my own voice over the roar of power crashing into the earth.
I turn to look back at the three men; their faces are shocked, horrified, and nervous. I don’t think Raine knew the extent of his own strength, based on the sweat that rolls down his temples.
We don’t speak, mainly because none of us can fucking hear, until the lake is back in view. The sun is already dipping behind the west mountain.
Finn and Kai are back on his phoenix—it’s bright in the sky like a beacon. For some reason, even though our lives are filled with nothing but bleak and morbid things, I feel hope when I look at him.
Finn must feel my eyes on him because he turns and looks back at me, his black strands of hair blowing in the wind and amber glinting in his flashing eyes.
“There’s Edgar.” Raine points to the lake. I narrow my eyes at the depths of the blue water. Every inch of it is filled with the enormous snake, coiled tightly beneath the water’s surface. Edgar stands on the shore with Arthur—the first to finish. Corvus’s raven is just landing; he waves at us.
We land in unison and await the arrival of the remaining students. They come trickling in slowly. Still no sign of Frederick and his goons.
The longer we wait, the more dreadful the air becomes. I elbow Raine and he gives me a knowing look. “I think you killed them,” I whisper.
Finn and Kai’s faces visibly pale but Raine only smirks. “If I did, then they wouldn’t have lasted in the second exam anyway.”
We fall back into silence.
I keep eyeing the lake, knowing what lies beneath the tepid surface. It’s disturbing because, from land, you wouldn’t be able to tell his Shadow is there, coiling and festering beneath the dark water.
Finally, the remaining portion of our class arrives, Frederick and his comrades included. Their eyes are locked on Edgar and distrust dances behind their gazes. Frederick shoots Raine a glare but my companion only stands straighter.
Arthur waits a few more minutes, his arms crossed and eyes expectant. Elias is still out there. Did students actually try to escape? My heart sinks at the thought of Elias hunting them down.
“Do you think students tried to leave Alkrose?” I whisper to Finn. He looks at me thoughtfully and eventually nods.
“Yeah, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind,” he replies and Arthur glances back at us.
“I’m glad you didn’t. He might’ve been lax with Terra, but Finn, you’d have lost your head,” the professor says indifferently. He looks at me for a moment too long before returning to watching for Elias. The urge to brush my hand against his and feel that longing between us is almost impossible to resist. I clench my fists at my sides to keep control.
Finn frowns and Raine nudges his side. “See? Aren’t you glad I talked you out of it?” I level them both with a stern look.
