Threshing Day (The Empyrean, #3.5) — Chapter no 7

632 AU Glane—Orange Daggertail (Female) Descended from the Fhaicorain Line

Estimated Age: 19 Recorded Riders: 0

—THE COMPENDIUM OF DRAGONKIND, LAST UPDATED BY COLONEL VALIN KAORI

IMOGEN

Leaves crunch under my boots as I walk into the forest, having been dismissed after Bodhi’s less-than-rousing motivational speech that did nothing to improve my perpetually foul disposition. I sincerely hope some Navarrian asshole tries to exact revenge on me out here, because I’m in the mood to kill some people.

Fuck this day.

Fuck this kingdom.

Fuck everyone who put us in this godsforsaken torture chamber disguised as a war college.

I flinch. I can’t say that about Riorson. He made the only choice he could to save our lives after Navarre took those of our parents. He’s the only reason we’re still breathing, and I owe him my unflinching loyalty until one of us meets Malek.

Fuck General Sorrengail for making the deal.

Yeah. That’s better.

I stride between trees with zero trepidation, more than ready to meet my fate like my mother and sister did, or at least what I thought would be my fate until Kaori projected a certain Orange Daggertail in the middle of our classroom a few weeks ago.

An Orange Daggertail that should be dead.

“Where the hell are you?” I whisper, knowing damn well she can hear me. She’s hovered close enough to my mind since Presentation that I could even switch to a mental pathway for communication at this point if I didn’t feel like I deserve some answers first. Which I do.

Especially since I went to bed after Presentation with a shimmering new relic of an Orange Daggertail winding around my left hip, a fact I’m keeping to myself. It’s a claiming mark, the place where magic enters our body once channeled from our dragon, but surely there’s a way to reject it if she turns out to be the giant pain in the ass I think she might be. How did I not notice her in the line of dragons? How did she put it there so painlessly?

The only other relic I’ve been given hurt like hell.

“Have you always been this disagreeable?” she asks, invading my head with a voice so sweet it borders on sugar. If sugar were poisonous.

Like you’re not? She might be the most ill-tempered, impetuous dragon

on the Continent.

“I heard that.”

Stop listening unless you’re ready to show yourself.

She scoffs, the sound tickling my brain, but she’s nowhere to be seen under the canopy of brilliant fall colors.

“Katrina, please watch over Quinn,” I whisper into the ether at my deceased sister.

I need to hurry. Bodhi threw off the plan I made with Quinn to tackle

this day together, and I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to the annoyingly perky blonde before I get to the meeting place we hurriedly designated.

“End your friendship with the Navarrian and perhaps I’ll let you fly out of this valley.”

She’s not like the others. And you don’t determine my friends. My

stomach tenses.

“We’ll see about that.”

A high-pitched shriek sounds from somewhere to the east, and I wince.

By Dunne, if I have to die, I won’t squeal like a pig when Malek comes for me.

Something flutters down in front of me, and I whip my hand out to catch a deep-magenta leaf with five points. “Look at that. It’s your favorite color, Mom.” I hold it out so she can see it from wherever she’s watching.

My mom and sister may have been executed in Calldyr, but they never feel far from me.

Gods, I’ve missed falls like this. Trees in Tyrrendor are predominantly coniferous; at least they were where I was fostered near Lewellen. But at home, in Deaconshire Province, we have trees like some of these that drop their leaves when autumn calls. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed or how much I used to love Aretia, I always think of Hardincourt as home.

“Remind you of the trees at Hardincourt?”

My head snaps up as Garrick Tavis, two swords strapped to his back, steps out from behind a tree and plants his gigantic feet in the middle of the path. I narrow my eyes and remind my heart to settle the fuck down. He might look good enough to devour with one bite, but I’m not going there.

Not now. Not ever.

There are plenty of other men to have a few flings with at Basgiath.

Everyone who gets close to me winds up dead. Dad. Mom. My sister, Katrina. Elyse—the only friend I made that first year being fostered at Ivyndelle. It doesn’t matter how mad I am at him, I’ll be damned if Garrick winds up on that list.

With his enormous build, agonizingly beautiful face, square chin, and unbeatable skills on the mat, it’s not like he’s having any trouble finding women to warm his bed. Unfortunately—but good for Garrick—I’m not the only one who gets incredibly turned on by performances of lethal prowess

around here. There’s definitely something wrong with everyone who crosses the parapet.

Ugh. Remembering Sharla Gunter crawling all over him in the dormitory hallway last night makes me want to vomit.

“What are you doing here?” I snap, discarding my pretty magenta leaf.

Fuck. I swore to myself I wasn’t going to say a single word to him for the two years we’d have to cohabitate in this place, and I’ve just blown

seventy-eight days of restraint.

“Observing like a good squad leader.”

He grins and, fuck me, that dimple pops in his left cheek. Navarrians might be the bane of my existence, but that dimple is going to end me.

“So you do know how to speak to me. I was starting to wonder.”

I blatantly ignore his comment. “You’re not my squad leader, so fuck off to wherever else you can watch over a first-year who might appreciate your presence.” I give him a good glare. “I’m just fine on my own.”

“Being nicer to the object of your desire might give you a better outcome.”

Fuck all the way off or show up. I double down on my glare and tug a strand of pink hair out of my eyes when it gets in the way.

“You appreciate my presence,” he says, completely unfazed as usual.

Then he picks up the magenta leaf and twirls it by the stem as he walks beside me. Hard to believe the man handles giant swords with the same hands, that he could handle me— Nope. That’s a thought I’m not indulging.

I have never let Garrick Tavis put his hands on me, and I’m not about to start.

“And this reminds you of home. Admit it.” He looks my way, and I studiously avoid his gaze. He knows me with frightening depth, and I don’t have the energy for him today.

I glance sideways at the leaf, then shrug a single shoulder. “Maybe.” It’s easier to admit to one of his statements than the other.

“It’s all right to miss it.”

“Thank you for your permission.” I pick up the pace, and he easily keeps up with those long legs of his.

He laughs. “Swear to the gods, you have the patience of a saint for every marked one but me. Why is that, Imogen?”

The sound of my name on his lips threatens to turn my stomach gooey,

so I shut that down immediately. “Because I don’t like you.”

“Now, now. There’s no reason to lie.” He grins, and that dimple pops again.

“Is it that hard to believe a woman is immune to your charms?” I keep my gaze forward, scanning the forest around us for the fire-breathing dragons that are supposed to be wandering about.

“You think I’m charming?” His grin widens, and I roll my eyes. He’s had a masochistic tolerance for my unreasonable level of bullshit since the day I clocked him in the face when I was eight, which I’ve yet to understand.

Katrina tried her damnedest to force me to apologize.

I never did—because fuck him, trying to tell me which of my own horses I should ride when he was a guest at my house. Little did we know our parents’ friendship would draw my family into a rebellion seven years later.

“I didn’t say that.” I spot the sprawling oak Mom described about a hundred yards away and send up a prayer to Dunne that Quinn found it. It’s the only one in the forest that was split in half by a lightning strike ages ago, back when we’d had an actual lightning wielder in our ranks.

“You haven’t said anything to me since you crossed the parapet.” His smile fades as he tucks the leaf into his uniform pocket.

“Yes, why haven’t you spoken to him? Such a nice Tyrrish boy.”

I mentally push at the pumpkin-orange threads of a bond forming at the edge of my mind, hoping the gossamer filaments will disperse. You don’t get to bond me until you explain some things.

“I will do as I please,” she snaps. “I am a proven slayer, with a kill count in the thousands—”

Blah. Blah. I push at the bond again, trying to picture a mental wall going up. Gods, Mom and Katrina spent so much time trying to teach me, to prepare me, and I’d only listened to a fraction of what they were saying, certain that I wasn’t going to volunteer for the quadrant.

“Imogen.” Garrick knows better than to touch me, so he pivots, putting himself directly in my path, forcing me to stop. “Why aren’t you talking to me?”

“What do you call this?” I gesture between us, then step left.

He matches the move. “I call this begging Riorson—”

I step right, and he’s already there.

“—to assign me to you so I have an excuse to talk to you.”

He’s involved Riorson? Fucking great. That’s not embarrassing or anything. I go left again, and he does the same.

“Look, if you want to dance with me, just ask.” He smiles, and I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes. I have to arch my neck with how much he’s grown, but the second I do, I’m wholly, completely fucked.

Garrick has too many outstanding qualities to list, but his eyes? Those are in a category all of their own. The hazel depths stare down at me, holding me prisoner without setting a single finger to my skin. The black of his uniform and hair somehow accentuate the copper that rings his pupils, but the rest of his irises vary between green and blue in a pattern I’ve never been able to decipher. And worse, I know from experience that they change with whatever he wears, constantly drawing my attention to see what they might look like on any given day.

If they’d stay the same, I’d have a prayer of conquering the addiction.

“Would you like me to fly over and slice that sexual tension for you?”

Ugh. I snap my eyes closed. Get out of my head.

“No. You are mine. Get used to it.”

“I’ll be happy to oblige,” Garrick says with a wicked grin.

I blink. What were we discussing?

“Dancing,” she reminds me, and the bond strengthens.

“No thank you.” I lift both my brows so he knows I’m serious. “From what I’ve seen the last few months, you have all the dance partners you can handle.”

“Is that why you won’t talk to me?” His eyes flare and his grin deepens.

“Because you’re jealous?”

Jealous? Fuck that nonsense.

Wait. Is that seriously…hope shining in his eyes?

“Hardly.” I fold my arms across my chest. “I couldn’t care less where you put your dick. I’m not the one riding it.”

He leans into my space, and his gaze drops to my mouth. “Say the word, Imogen.”

Gods, that gooey sensation invades my stomach again, and I find myself staring at the perfectly carved curves he calls lips.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The lie rolls off my tongue easily. I take a single step backward, then curse at myself for revealing how to make me retreat. I’ve spent the majority of my life proving to him that I

have no weaknesses, and if he knew he’s the only cause of such a flaw, I’d

be screwed.

And somehow, he’d wind up dead.

Not sure what I did to piss off Malek, but I have no doubt he’d take Garrick, too.

“Say the word and I won’t so much as look at another woman.” His gaze meets mine, and I’m trapped again. “Ever.”

He’s too close. Smells too good. And I’d rather see him bed a thousand women than be responsible for burying him.

“Don’t swear yourself to celibacy for my sake.” I tilt my head and pout.

“It would be a really lonely life.” I let the sweet sarcasm drip from my tone.

He scoffs. “Gods, you really are pissed at me.”

“I’m starting to think this qualifies as interference and not observation.”

I put my hands on my hips.

His sigh could blow half the leaves out of this forest. “You’re looking

for Glane. Orange Daggertail.”

I blink. “I’m not.”

“You are.” He shrugs. “Chradh told me. Sgaeyl told Riorson. I’d consider the two of them fairly reliable sources, considering they rarely agree on anything.”

“I’m growing bored. Let’s move things along.”

Energy zips down my spine, and I roll my shoulders to shake off the odd sensation.

What the fuck was that? My frustration reaches a boiling point with everything about this day, and I take another step backward. He hasn’t moved, and yet he’s still consuming all the breathable oxygen in my vicinity. When did he get so gigantic? He’d bordered on gangly the last time I saw him. “Did you start eating full cows when you crossed the parapet or something? You were never this big, and now you’re…” I wave my hand toward his torso. “Everywhere. Are you as tall as Riorson now?”

“So you noticed. Interesting.” A corner of his mouth rises. “I have about an inch on him, but don’t bring it up. It’s a sore subject.”

“Boys are so weird.” I move to the left, and this time he lets me pass.

“You can run away from me all you want. I’m used to you denying this.

But Glane is the dragon coming for you. I doubt she’ll let you outrun her,” he says, walking after me as I head toward the dead oak.

“He’s right.”

Shut up. I’ll deal with you in a minute.

“Me run away from you?” I whirl around and throw up a finger, effectively stopping the biggest guy in the quadrant from taking another step. “You’re the one who didn’t bother to say goodbye.”

Fuck me, I should not have said that.

His eyes widen. “Is that why you’re giving me the silent treatment?”

“How is any of this silent?” I take a full breath and will my temper to cool, for the interminable rage that lives within me to ease off just a little.

“I couldn’t get to Ivyndelle those last months before Parapet.” His shoulders fall.

“It’s an hour’s ride from Lewellen.” Heat flushes up my back and spreads through my limbs like my anger is a living, breathing thing determined to take over my nervous system.

“You think I didn’t want to?” His hands flex in front of him like he’s struggling not to reach for me. “Your foster family were loyalists, and they started to quietly accuse the Duke of Lewellen of being disloyal to Navarre when he’s the one who represents Tyrrendor in the Senarium. They wouldn’t allow him to bring me with him for a quarterly well-being check.

They said marked ones shouldn’t congregate.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I shout as the heat within me starts to burn. “Do you know how many of us were fostered alone?”

“Three,” he answers quietly.

“Three.” I nod as the burn starts to consume me. “Me. Sloane. Julianne.

The rest of you were all paired up. Liam and Xaden. Bodhi and Merielle.

You and—”

“Tyce,” Garrick finishes for me. “I know.”

“And sure, he’s seven years younger than you are, but at least you had someone. Maybe we weren’t friends, but you were the only marked one I saw for three years, and you just…left.” Why the hell am I even saying any of this? My mouth snaps shut, and I would give anything to take it all back, to reach into his head and remove the last thirty seconds—hell, the last ten minutes from his mind.

He can’t know that anyone has the power to hurt me, let alone him.

“Imogen, I’m so sorry.” He reaches for me, and I retreat with a quickness. “It wasn’t by choice. I would never consciously do anything that would hurt you.”

He doesn’t even have to try. The result is the same.

“Enough of this. Are you willing to bond me?”

Absolutely, if it gets me out of this situation.

“Excellent choice.” Her voice is edged with menacing glee.

The first ripple of boiling energy hits, and I fall to my knees, gasping for air. Then it overpowers me again and again in waves so close, I can’t feel my own heartbeat through the pain. Heat burns me alive from the inside out without sign of respite, and there is no end to the fire. It’s going to kill me.

There’s no way to survive the pressure trying to pop my head open or the

flames devouring me one bone at a time.

“Imogen?” Garrick crouches beside me.

“Don’t touch me!” He’ll catch fire as surely as I am. An indescribable force fills my ribs, then expands, rearranging everything within me as it consumes the fibers of my being. Molten power incinerates whatever I used to be and forges something entirely new. Every breath feels hotter than the last, as if I’m inhaling pure, unfettered energy— Glane.

“She’s channeling,” I manage to say between sharp, heaving breaths, my fingernails cutting into my palms.

“Not possible.” Garrick shakes his head, putting his face right in front of mine. At least he’ll be the last thing I see. “You haven’t flown yet.”

“She is!” I scream, becoming just another bellowing voice in a forest full of death.

“Breathe,” he orders in a booming voice I’ve only heard him use on his squad. “It’s going to pass, I promise, but you have to breathe.”

I focus on his eyes and pull in one scorching breath after another, trying to remember what Mom and Katrina told me about this.

Ground.

“I have to ground.” I close my eyes and focus on the foyer of my childhood home at Hardincourt. The paintings on the wall. The flight jackets hanging by the door. The sun-bleached hardwood floor. I picture it all so vividly in my mind that I can almost smell bread baking in the kitchen. Then I turn toward the front door, where orange, smelted power flows into my sanctuary, and mentally kick the thing closed.

Power rushes by the windows, filling the panes, but it doesn’t bust through.

I take my first painless breath and open my eyes to find Garrick watching me, his eyes wide and mouth agape. Rage boils over anew. “I’m

going to kill her.”

“How in Malek’s name did you know how to ground?” His hands hover near my face, but he doesn’t make contact.

I slowly rise to my feet, testing to make sure I didn’t lose any limbs in that excruciating little ritual. My body is no worse for wear if I don’t count the tiny, bloody cut on my palm from my own fingernail. “Because unlike the vast majority of marked ones, I’m a third-generation legacy rider.”

“Your mom taught you.” He nods solemnly and stands.

“And Katrina.” I turn away from him and stalk toward the giant dead oak and the field just beyond it. Power hums in my veins, roams under my skin, simultaneously discombobulating and yet the most natural thing in the world. “You delivered your message. Now go.”

I am as I was always meant to be.

“I’m not walking off after you just went through that,” Garrick argues, following behind me.

“You are mine.” She sounds awfully pleased with herself.

“I am pissed.” I use the mental pathway that links us.

“You’ll get over it.”

Once I’m about ten feet away, I catch sight of Quinn hanging from the lowest branch, her blue-streaked blond curls blowing in the breeze, and my shoulders immediately sag with relief. I never wanted to care about my bubbly little year-mate, but she has a way of wearing down even the most surly person. That being me.

Plus, she declared that we’d be friends immediately after seeing my rebellion relic and never once questioned her decision. Now I just have to make sure the trend of dying once close to me never catches up to her.

“Gen! You made it!” Quinn drops from the branch, her labrys axe strapped to her back. Her face falls as I approach. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” I nod.

Her eyes narrow over my shoulder. “What did you do?”

“Me?” Garrick throws his hands up. “I didn’t touch her.”

“Oh, I can tell.” Quinn glowers at him. “I’m so glad I’m into girls. You men are all drama.”

“Unbelievable.” Garrick gawks at her and leans back against the tree.

Movement in the field catches my eye, and my focus jumps to the pumpkin-orange daggertail prowling our way. Those horns, that sneer, the pattern of her chest scales…it’s most definitely her.

“We’re about to have words!” I shout at her, lifting my finger.

“Oh gods, Gen, you can’t just yell at a dragon,” Quinn mutters, lowering her eyes like Kaori taught us. “Let alone an orange one.”

“Navarrian!” she bellows, and that’s the only warning before she peels her lips off her teeth and hisses out a narrow stream of fire between her fangs, aimed straight at Quinn.

My stomach drops straight out of my body.

“No!” I lunge for Quinn and hurl us both behind the massive tree trunk.

Power erupts through me in a torrent of heat, and I throw my mental front door shut again. The last thing we need is for me to burn out while being burned alive.

Fire streams past as the three of us huddle behind the oak.

It ends as suddenly as it began, but my anger is just getting started.

“Good thing this tree was petrified,” Garrick says, knocking on the trunk.

“You better have known that!” I yell at Glane, leaving Garrick and Quinn behind the oak as I surge into the field.

“Did you die? No. Cease whining.”

“She is my best friend. My only friend!”

“Her kind killed your mother. Your sister.” She lowers her head into a battle position, slithering it like a snake.

“She had nothing to do with it! Just like I had nothing to do with the rebellion!” I charge straight up to her nose, pointing my finger at her. “And so help me Dunne, if you touch one hair on her head, I’ll tell everyone who you really are.”

She lifts her orange head and narrows her eyes. “I am Glane.”

I snort. “You think I don’t remember you? It’s hard to forget the first dragon your grandmother introduced you to, even if you were five.”

“I am only twenty.” Steam billows from her nostrils. “Perhaps you remember incorrectly.”

“Perhaps you’re full of shit.” I fold my arms. “You bonded me, even knowing it’s forbidden. Kaori will know.”

“I am recorded as Glane to all.” She tilts her head down at me, making me feel like I’m five all over again. “Including you.”

How the hell did she pull that off? Kaori’s predecessor must have kept shitty records.

“You want me to call you Glane?” I drum my fingers on my arm.

“You must.” She breathes steam over me, but I don’t so much as flinch.

“You are lucky to be mine. My kill count—”

“Is zero, Glane.” I arch an eyebrow at her.

She growls low in her throat.

I bare my teeth at her.

“Mature.” She huffs.

“You’re one to speak.” I glance over my shoulder to be sure Quinn hasn’t spontaneously burst into flames or anything.

She gives me an encouraging wave and giant grin.

“I suppose you are my elder,” Glane says, flexing her talons.

I scoff. “You leave her alone and I’ll keep your secret.”

“I’ll do one better.” Her head swivels southward, and a Green Scorpiontail walks out of the forest.

“Cruth!” Quinn shouts, then takes off running across the field with her arms open like some kind of fictional heroine who’s about to be reunited with a long-lost love.

My mouth curves into a smile as I shake my head. Of course it’s just

that easy for her. I’m glad it is.

“Let’s go.”

“Imogen,” Garrick calls out. “We’ll talk at the flight field. Our conversation isn’t over.”

I cringe. “Oh, but it is!” I take off at a run, mounting with ease. The motions are second nature, the product of having been trained since childhood. Her scales shine in the sunlight as I find the seat and settle into position. “I should warn you, I have every intention of dying in combat.”

“As do I.” Glane takes three steps and launches us skyward with great beats of her translucent wings. “In that, we are matched.”

Wind rushes through my hair as I look down at the field, leaving Garrick behind. “I bet I’ll kill more of the enemy than you will.”

“Challenge accepted.”

I throw out my arms and let my head fall back to embrace the sun as we climb, headed for the flight field. “I made it,” I tell Katrina and Mom. “Just like you said I would.” A smile curves my mouth. “Tell Grandma I took her dragon.” More accurately, her dragon took me.

My body curves over Glane’s spine, and we head toward the flight field, sharing a secret that would destroy Kaori’s faith in the Empyrean.

But it restores mine.

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