Page 230 of Feralheart

I grabbed onto his tunic, crushing the fabric. “You’re going to see tomorrow. We both are.”

“Promise me.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Do it anyway.”

“We’ll both see tomorrow,” I said with everything I felt in my soul.

“I saw what you did, but you died instead of me. The bond was showing us something in a dream.”

“The next trial. Death, then.”

“Or a choice.” His hands found mine, and he squeezed.

This alternate realm was either preparing us or taunting us.

He led me over to his bedroll, and we lay down, his arms wrapping around me tight.

Reece cried out. Was he dreaming of the same thing we had? Lyndie’s breathing went ragged.

Time stretched. Hours passed. Or minutes that felt like hours.

Until light exploded around us.

Fen stood over me, blades in his hands.

Reece stumbled from his tent, as did Lyndie, both rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

As I rushed to my feet and shoved the hair out of my eyes, a herald materialized in the center of the meadow, her robes catching light. “The fifth trial begins now.”

The ground bucked beneath my feet. The air fractured with the sound of breaking glass. I had one second to register that the trial wasn’t giving us time to mount before the meadow shattered completely.

I fell through into nothing.

Fen’s terror crashed into mine through the bond.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

FEN

Aristus materialized beneath me, his body solidifying out of nothing as I started to fall. I slammed onto his back with enough force to drive the air from my lungs, scrambling for his neck spike. Without a saddle, nothing would catch me if I slipped.

Through the pack bond, I felt Eradin’s relief that Selira had swooped in beneath her and Reece on his own dragon, terror still clawing up his throat. Lyndie’s dragon had caught her by the ankle, flipping her upright at the last second.

We’d agreed on no tack, but even if we hadn’t, the trial had made the decision for us. To make this harder? Probably.

As the meadow disappeared around us, a gaping hole appeared and sucked us inside.

We flew through darkness with no light or ending in sight, the sound of multiple dragon wings beating the air.

Only my thighs clamped around Aristus’s sides kept me on his back. The stitches in my shoulder pulled with every flap of his wings, a steady burn I did my best to ignore.

Every instinct I had was screaming at me to find purchase, to grip something solid, and there was nothing. No saddle or stirrups. Just Aristus’s spine beneath me and the dark dropping away on every side.

My friends’ fear bled through the bond, meshing with mine. We were drowning in it.

Until the world reformed.