Kerrigan’s jaw dropped. Dropout rate? She’d never heard of anyone dropping out of the program. It must have been the most humiliating experience of a person’s life to win the tournament and not survive the next year. She wanted to ask what happened to the dragons. Bonding was for a lifetime.

“Look to the person on your right and left.” Kerrigan looked to Fordham and then Noda. “One of you won’t make it.”

Kerrigan gulped. That wouldn’t be her. It couldn’t be. She didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“I say this as someone who went through this training alone for the first time in Society history: we will not go easy on you.” She bared her teeth at them. “We are preparing you for the most important job in all of Alandria. You cannot just be good. You must be the best. Because the moment you put those robes on, you are more than yourself. You represent all of us. You are the Society.”

Kerrigan shivered at the words. Wasn’t it exactly what she’d thought that day in the tavern when she was in a fight? She couldn’t do that anymore. Even provoked, it would look wrong. She had to be better. Which begged the question, which Society member had turned traitor to kill Basem Nix?

“As I was the last person to go through training, I am set to manage your training.”

Roake groaned. Alura’s eyes snapped to him.

“Do you have a problem with that, Brevard?”

“No, sir,” he chirped.

“I thought not,” Alura snarled. “Everything that I endured over my year of training will be carefully honed to make you five representatives of the Society.” She curled her lip. Her eyes going flat. “I have my work cut out for me.”

Audria’s hand shot up in the air.

Alura glared at her. “I didn’t open for questions, Ather. Keep your hand to yourself.”

Audria slowly pulled her hand back down. Her cheeks were pink. She looked like she’d never been spoken to like that by anyone before. Likely she hadn’t.

“I’ve structured training thus. You’ll begin with a thirty-day bootcamp that includes morning workouts with me,” she said, pacing back and forth in front of them. “And weapons training with masters who have graciously offered their assistance. You’ll have an hour for lunch and then magic training each afternoon. Each day will feature a separate element—air, water, earth, and fire. Friday afternoons will be open for self-guided training.”

Which meant working on the things that they were the worst at. Kerrigan had learned that in the House of Dragons, nothing was really free time.