Page 120 of Feralheart

They wouldn’t like that I was proving them wrong and making them watch.

An official stepped forward with another scroll. “Team assignments.”

Nine elite teams were called, each announcement punctuated with horns, house banners unfurling, and cheers from their sections. I’d heard many of the names whispered in the aerie stables, those from bloodlines that went back centuries. Riders who’d been flying almost from the moment they could walk.

I stopped listening after the third team. The pattern was clear. Five members each, their gear worth more than my home.

The loudest cheers came for Fenian’s team. Lady Severine smiled demurely and shot a glance his way through her lashes. The other team members congratulated each other.

Fenian’s expression didn’t change. He sat on Aristus, his hands steady on reins he held too carefully.

Lady Severine said something from beside him that made him nod. Playing the gracious teammate while her dragon still had its hackles raised from Selira’s arrival.

He didn’t look at her when he answered. His gaze cut to me instead, quick enough I almost missed it. Checking. Making sure I was still upright. Still breathing.

Still here.

The attention made my stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

After all the elite teams had been announced, the official turned to us.

“Commons team: Eradin, Lyndie, Reece, and Kerrel.” Said without horns or applause.

The four of us had been thrown together as an afterthought, mounted on mismatched dragons that had been broken by the system with mismatched riders the system wanted gone.

The math was simple. We were expendable.

Someone in the upper section shouted, “At least the wild dragon will make it interesting when it kills her.”

Laughter rippled through the stands.

They’d dismissed us already.

Selira huffed. Burn all?

“No,” I whispered. “We can’t.”

She grumbled.

Reece sat on his scarred dragon with his wife’s scarf still wound around his wrist. A bright smile filled Lyndie’s face. Kerrel appeared halfway toward a corpse.

Dragons lined up, handlers making final adjustments to tack gleaming with rune-work and expense.

Our commons dragons shuffled into something resembling a line.

Kerrel’s hands shook so badly a handler had to physically restrain his dragon to keep it from bolting.

The massive wooden door waited ahead, wide enough three dragons could fly through side by side.

A voice boomed across the arena. “The first trial begins at the sound of the horn. There are no rules. Those who complete the trial continue. Rewards will be given for the top three finishers of the first leg of the race.” He paused, and his voice roughened. “Ride hard. The Scorching rewards the swift as much as the worthy. The Oracle waits at the end for those who survive to reach her.”

My gaze found Fenian across the arena and got stuck there.

He looked carved from ice, but his chest rose and fell.

His throat moved when he swallowed, that vulnerable strip of skin I’d found myself watching in the ballroom and the kitchen when I should’ve been paying attention to anything else.

My skin prickled.