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Everyone's signet appears as the time bores by. Rhiannon continues to work at her summoning, Sawyer grows his metallurgy ability, Liam can see any object from miles away. Violet and I simply struggle with the lesser magics.

The pressure of gaining a signet weighs down on us like a pin waiting to fall, and Saoghal is frustrating as ever when it comes to her power. I have a day off today, and Liam is bugging Violet as usual. Ever the bodyguard. We've had hardly any time together since Xaden had assigned him into our wing, but I know it's not his fault. I just try not to let it get to me.

I walk out to the flight field, Saoghal already waiting for me. The field is empty, and I tie my cloak to my form with a wide leather belt, holding the fabric to me tightly to avoid it catching too much in the howling wind. Saoghal watches me with her ice blue eyes as I haul myself up onto her back. The movement has gotten easier as I've done it more and more, my muscles burning less with each time I clamber up her slippery white scales.

"You've been awfully quiet recently," Saoghal mutters as she launches into the sky. I grip the spike in front of me with one hand, the other shielding my face from the biting wind as we rise into the gathering clouds above.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I say back bluntly.

"I hope you realize that it's not all because of me that your signet hasn't appeared yet," my dragon says, leveling out and flying easily despite the battering wind threatening to knock me out of place. "It will show itself when you're ready."

"Well, who decides if I'm ready!" I exclaim, my voice whipping away immediately, but Saoghal still hears. She always does. "I've been practicing the lesser magics as hard as I can. I've won every challenge since Parapet, aside from Xaden, but he doesn't count. I was one of the fastest up the Gauntlet. I survived your channeling, which I think counts for something." I sigh, disappointment filling me to the brim.

"No one decides but you," Saoghal says, her voice surprisingly soft, lacking the sharp edge it usually has. "You're so impatient for a signet that you're not putting all of yourself into your training. You must relax, child. Listen to your gods, however puny they may be, if it makes you feel better."

I sigh again, reaching down and placing my palm on Saoghal's scales, feeling the way her muscles rippled with every sharp flap of her wings. "Do you ever feel...out of place?" I ask through the bond. "With the other dragons, during flight training? Do you ever feel like you're just not...good enough?"

Saoghal lets out what could be described as a scoff. "I'm too old to be thinking about frivolous stuff like that, child. I hear all the time what the other dragons think about me, and I have found that it only affects me if I let it. So I don't." There's a moment of hesitation before she continues. "Tairn hated me as well, for a while. When I finally showed myself twenty years ago, after nearly a century of living in the cave system beneath the Vale, he resented me. Our mother had raised him to hate me when she found out that our father hadn't killed me after all. She raised him to hate me because she hated herself for what she did to me—or rather, she blamed herself for getting my father banished." I listen in silence, the wind the only noise when her voice fades from my head. "We fought. Tairn and I, then and there at Threshing. Codagh had eventually broken us apart, and we were scolded thoroughly for our childish behavior. And we went our separate ways—me, with my rider, and Tairn with his."

"Naolin," I realize. The one who died trying to save Brennan, Violet's brother. "Who was your rider? What was...the incident?" I recall the rollkeeper's words at Threshing, how everyone recalled "the incident". But Saoghal had always avoided the subject whenever I had brought it up.

Saoghal lets out a low, rumbling sigh. "She was a young woman, like you, with far too much fire in her heart. She nearly died when I began channeling to her as well. But she didn't. She lived, and she gained her signet." There was a pause as we landed, on a cliff high above Basgiath. I dismount, the wind howling even worse up here. The cold that I had felt however, was gone as I move to the edge of the cliff, staring down at the college through the foggy evening air, mage lights glinting far below me. I lower myself to the ground next to Saoghal's giant claws, my legs dangling over the edge.

"We made it to third year," the dragon says quietly down the bond. "Tension with Tyrrendor was high at the time, and the third year's in our squad were sent to Draithus to defend the outpost from a particularly relentless group of gryphon riders. They didn't want to send us. Thought it would be too dangerous, with the anomaly and all. But she insisted."

"So we went. And they had been right." Saoghal pauses for a long moment, and I can feel her sorrow down the bond, the grief and guilt she had never allowed herself to feel. "Something went wrong, between us, between our bond. I'm still not sure what it was, but she lost control of her signet, and I couldn't maintain my power. She lost control of her signet as my power flowed into her too strongly, and she burned out. Right there on the battlefield in front of me. I lost consciousness, and if it hadn't been for Tairn dragging me away, I would have been attacked and overpowered by the gryphons there."

We're silent for what seems like ages, until I murmur hoarsely, "and how did you get back?"

"I woke up eventually," Saoghal mutters bitterly. "I flew back to the Vale, where I was once again banished to the caves. I've spent the last seven years wondering where it all went wrong. And here we are."

"I'm guessing you never figured it out?" I say in my head, looking down at my hands, the prospect of a signet suddenly seeming so much more terrifying.

"No," Saoghal says simply.

"So it could happen again," I reply quietly.

"I know now how to recognize when I'm losing control," She says, though it's not much of a comfort. "I know what it feels like. I will do whatever I can to keep you alive, Wisteria. You are my rider."

"Why did you bond me, Saoghal?" I ask aloud, looking up at her.

"It was right," she says, a subtle air of surprise in her voice. "I would never bond anyone with the intent of getting them killed."

"But you knew the risk," I say, looking back down at Basgiath beneath us.

"As did you, when you joined the Rider's Quadrant," she says, and my dragon's regular sharpness is back in her voice once again. "Would you rather I had let you bond Lasair, the dragon who now belongs to the woman who tried to kill you? You would be more than dead with him, child. He is fickle and dangerous. You deserve much more than that."

"Touched, truly," I mutter, but I know she's right. Maize and the Red Swordtail and perfect for eachother. "It's getting late. We should get back to the flight field."

. . .

A few months later, I'm watching Liam wrestle a rider from Second Wing on the mat, securing him in an impossibly tight headlock. Our squad cheers him on loudly, and my heart is beating fast with adrenaline.

We're currently in seventh place on the leaderboard for Squad Battle, and if Liam can win this fight, we'll be bumped up to third.

"Tap out!" Rhiannon yells to the boy whom Liam still has in a headlock.

"C'mon, Mikael, tap out!" Sawyer calls as well. Mikael continues to struggle against Liam's tight grip, his face reddening from the strain. Liam's mouth is pressed into a firm line, solid against the other boy's struggling.

"Fuck me, that looks like it hurts," Violet mutters from beside me, gesturing to the way Mikael's spin is arching in an impossible direction from Liam's headlock.

"Nothing he can't just tap out of," I say back, before shouting, "Just tap out, you're not getting out of that!"

"He's probably not walking for a while," Ridoc says, watching the fight intently. Well, it's more of a showdown now than a fight.

Finally, Mikael slams his palm into the mat three times and Liam immediately releases him. "Fuck yes!" I shout, my voice lost among the cheering of our squad.

"We won!" Liam runs off the mat and we rush to greet him, grins splitting our faces. We make eye contact briefly, before Liam is swept away into the arms of two other squad mates.

Emetterio interrupts our celebration with a wave of his hand. "Your winner!" he shouts loudly, quieting the cheering of our squad and the chatter of the other cadets throughout the room. "Liam Mairi from Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing!"

More cheering. I turn around to look at Liam, smiling widely, and he returns it gladly. He unentangles himself from the mass of arms reaching to pat him on the back and comes to stand next to me, slinging a sweaty arm over my shoulder. I huff in mock annoyance before murmuring to him, "you stink."

"I just won that bit of Squad Battle for us didn't I?" He says back just as quietly. I roll my eyes as I look up at him, his mess of blond hair drenched and beads of sweat running down his face. He has a split lip from where Mikael had landed a punch. Gods, he's perfect. "You're staring, Wisteria," Liam whispers teasingly, tipping his head toward me slightly.

I blink at him, my cheeks flushing red as I turn back to look at Professor Emetterio as he talks about the next and final stage of Squad Battle. Liam merely chuckles, reaching the hand slung over my shoulder up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear. I resist the urge to collapse then and there.

I try to focus on Panchek instead, who had taken Emeterrio's place on the mat.

"...your squad leaders and their executive officers have been...shall we say, sequestered with your section leaders and wingleaders, and no, before someone asks, your task is not to find them. You are to break into your squads and accomplish a unique mission this evening without the instruction and leadership of your squad leaders." There's a momentary pause in which murmurs and whispers spread throughout the training room like a wildfire.

I look around and realize that neither Dain, Cianna, nor Xaden are here with us. Guess we're moving fast then.

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having squad leaders?" someone asks incredulously from somewhere to my right.

"The purpose of a squad leader is to form a tightly knit unit that can carry on with a mission after their demise," Panchek corrects with a shrug. "You're on your own, riders. Your mission is simple; find and acquire, by any means necessary—" My eyebrows raise slightly and a small smirk forms on my lips. Dangerous territory, Panchek. "—the one thing that would be most advantageous to our enemies regarding the war effort. Leadership will serve as unbiased judges, and the winning squad will be awarded sixty points."

"That's enough to put us into first!" Rhiannon whispers. "We could win the glory of going to the front!"

"And finally getting out of here for a while," I whisper back, leaning in front of Liams chest so she can hear me better. Rhiannon simply scoffs and mutters, "tell me about it."

"What are the boundaries?" a cadet asks from across the room.

"Anything within the walls of Basgiath," Panchek says in response. "And don't you dare let me see you trying to drag a dragon back here. They'll incinerate you out of sheer annoyance." I have to chuckle a little at that.

"You wouldn't incinerate me, right?" I call in a singsong voice down the bond.

Saoghal's only response is an annoyed, "Don't test me, child."

"You'll have three hours, at which time we'll expect you to present your stolen treasures in the Battle Brief room." For a moment we all stand there, staring at the Commander in stunned silence. I don't know what I had been expecting for the final challenge, but it certainly wasn't this. "What are you waiting for? Go!" Queue absolute chaos.