“Follow me,” Arrik whispered. “Don’t talk and keep your head down.”
Dragons covered the entire outer rim of the Dome, their claws digging into the thick onyx perch surrounding the balconies.
Arrik was already walking up the steps.
The Dome was eerily quiet today as I followed him up. I swore my feet pounding against the dark marble was deafening.
I kept my eyes on Arrik’s back, watching the muscles flex beneath his leathers. He was covered in weapons, his large sword hanging between his shoulder blades.
My hands ached to hold something. I had nothing to protect myself with and with each step up toward the balcony, we were getting closer and closer to the dragons surrounding it.
Arrik stopped at a split between the levels, turning abruptly to face me. He closed the distance between us with a single step. “Go up to the balcony,” his voice lowered. “And whatever you do, do not look a dragon in the eye.”
“Why?” I whispered back. I had looked into his dragon’s eyes before and nothing happened.
“I don’t have time for all your questions. Just trust me for once in your Gods-damned life if you don’t want to get killed.” He ran his fingers through his hair, and my stupid gaze followed the movement. First, I roamed over his eyes, because they were like molten flames I couldn’t tear my gaze from, then I landed on his mouth. I kept staring at the small scar he had cut into his upper lip, leaving a chunk of skin missing. I wanted to run my fingers over it, to see if it would be smooth or rough.
His thicker scar started under his chin, opposite of the one on his lip. I hadn’t noticed that it went under his jaw before. It made a ragged line down before it disappeared underneath his uniform. I knew without ever touching it that it would be coarse. Whatever cut into him was deep, leaving his skin puckered around the edges.
He was in his drakin leathers, just like he’d been all week, only this was the first time I saw him in everything. The onyx‘E’was embroidered into the chest, along with all the other riders, but today he wore patches. My eyes scanned each one, like the longer I looked, the meaning might suddenly come to me, but I had no idea what any of them meant.
Arrikwas engraved in a horizontal patch that sat above the others.
Their uniforms had their freaking names on them.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. This was it. If drakins had to be in formal attire today, all I had to do was scan their chests and I’d find Hael’s name.
Finally.
“Nollie,” Arrik was waiting for me, and I realized I’d been staring at him. “Go to the balcony.”
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, instead he left me standing alone in the middle of the stands with dragons completely surrounding me.
I kept my eyes down as I made my way up the stairs to the balcony.
It was hot today, but I swore the closer to the top I got, the thickerthe air became. Like the dragons were emanating steam from their mouths and entrapping us in their heat.
Cash was already on the balcony by the time I made it up the steps, and for once he wasn’t drinking.
The lounges were still there from yesterday, but the food tables had been cleared.
I made my way toward the railing where Cash was standing when my eyes snagged on something green. I went to turn around when he stopped me. “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t make eye contact or they’ll burn our balcony.”
“Right,” I said, forcing my gaze back toward the projection, which illuminated an empty pit.
Out of the two-hundred-and-fifty initiates that started the Vargothi, only ninety were still alive after yesterday’s fighting, and apparently Cash said it was normal to lose another third of that today. Not that I could see any of them now. The pit was still empty…
“How many dragons are there?” I whispered because it didn’t look like nearly enough.
“Sixty,” Cash said.
Sixty… that meant thirty initiates wouldn’t get a dragon.
“But it doesn’t mean all sixty will form a Vinculum today,” Cash added. “Some decide to wait another century to find their rider.”
I was trying to keep calm as Cash answered my questions, but honestly, it was hard. All sixty dragons were perched on top of the Dome, waiting for things to start and I was utterly aware of their presence.
