Page 132 of Feralheart

My muscles had barely stopped screaming when the official moved through the camp, her face holding a grimness that meant nothing good for us. She marked something on her scroll, counting heads or confirming how many bodies they’d need to look for tomorrow.

Around us, riders were counting too. I could see it in their faces, the same torturous math I was doing myself.

Thirty-eight riders left from the forty-nine who’d started. Eleven dead since the start of the Scorching. In less than a day.

And another lake waited between us and whatever came next.

Lyndie grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in. She pointed to the tendrils rising up from the lake, swaying in our direction. They’d engulf the shore soon. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“They want us to panic,” I said. “Kill each other trying to survive.”

Reece’s face went gray. “They’re not even pretending this is about skill anymore.”

“It never was,” Lyndie said.

I pulled dried meat from my pack, forcing myself to chew. Swallow. Drink water that tasted like metal and fear. Around us, other riders did the same, their movements mechanical.

My team and I ate feverishly. No one spoke. What was there to say?

The second lake wouldn’t wait for us to figure it out.

Packs returned to backs, and riders mounted. Reece, Lyndie, and I shared one look before we raced to do the same.

Some would make it across. Some wouldn’t. But if we joined a rush, we might see it through to the end of the day.

The horn’s blast came without warning. It was time to fly or die.

We urged our dragons into the air. The cavern filled with the beat of wings and the rush of displaced air so violent it knocked me sideways in my seat. Selira’s wings slapped hard, fighting for space in a sky too crowded to hold us all.

An elite dragon slammed into us from the left. Selira screamed, banking hard right to avoid the other beast. I clamped my thighs tighter, clinging to her neck spike.

Dragons and riders clawed for space and the speed that might keep them alive if someone flew between them and the surging death.

As we left the shore behind and raced across open water, tendrils swirled off the lake and lazily danced up to meet us.

Selira’s awareness snapped into focus. Safe paths still existed, channels of dead water, but they were narrower now. Disappearing faster. And with so many dragons trying to occupy the same area, avoidance became survival.

A ruby dragon dove past us, too close, its wingtip grazing Selira’s side. Wild fear blazed across the rider’s face, his hands sawing at the reins. Blue light flared across the tack.

“Let go of the reins,” I yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear.

He flew up higher, maybe hoping to put some of us between him and the mist, but the tendrils found him. They wrapped around limbs. Froze both the rider and dragon solid. Then dragged them down.

His scream cut off when stone reached his throat.

Reece flew behind me. I couldn’t look back to see if he was alive, because doing that meant not seeing what was ahead, and what was ahead could kill me faster than grief.

Lady Severine flew to the right, Heartsbrim moving well. Her face shone with composure, as if crossing a killer lake while surrounded by panicking dragons and riders was just another social event to navigate.

Lyndie kept pace on my left, her dragon responding to weight shifts so subtle I barely caught them. She gave cues that took years to develop. She hadn’t learned this in Shaleside.

“Dead water straight ahead,” she shouted, pointing. “Narrow channel!”

Three dragons tried to squeeze into the area at once.

One made it through.

A second clipped the edge where dead water met living silver. The mist wrapped around its tail, crawling up its body faster than the rider could react.