I sighed. “You’ll probably hear this when you wake up,” I began, refusing to accept that he might not wake up, “and I wish there was another way to say this, but...the Order has been destroyed, Tristan. Martin has been trying to contact anyone from St. George all morning, and no one is answering. The other chapterhouses have gone dark, and the council isn’t responding at all. We might...be the only ones left.”

I paused as the gravity of that statement hit home. I knew it was too soon to really tell. Others might have survived the assault. There might be more of us left than I thought. But with every passing hour and no word from anyone in St. George, it was becoming more and more apparent that the Order had been decimated. That Talon had won this battle, perhaps even the war, and the Night of Fang and Fire had succeeded in striking the final blow against their ancient enemies.

That left us. Myself, a few rogue dragons and a handful of soldiers. The few remaining survivors. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I admitted, mostly to myself. “I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from this, but if we do, the Order has to change. We can’t remain alone and isolated any longer, not with the power Talon now commands. I think Martin is realizing that we need all the allies we can get, if any of us are going to survive whatever is coming.”

“There you are.” There was a hiss of cloth as someone came through the curtains, and a moment later Ember slipped her arms around my neck from behind. I put my hand on her arm as she leaned in, her body warm against my back. “How are you holding up, soldier boy?”

“I’m all right.” I wasn’t. My best friend was at death’s door, the chapterhouse was in shambles and the Order I’d known all my life was gone. I was enough of a soldier to realize that things looked pretty bleak. We had survived the battle, but the war was far from over. And we didn’t stand much of a chance against Talon and their army of dragon clones.

I could feel Ember’s worried gaze on the back of my head and knew she saw right through my lie. “Are the others settling in okay?” I asked to distract her. Martin had given the surviving hatchlings the officers’ housing for temporary quarters. The few families who lived there had already fled, and more important, the building was isolated from the rest of the soldiers. Most of them were here, in the infirmary, but Martin was taking no chances.

“Yeah.” Ember nodded. “Everyone is shaken up, and there are a few who took some nasty injuries, but they’re recovering. Riley has organized things pretty well.”

“And Jade? How is she?”