Six hours till dawn. Six hours before my cell door would open, and a pair of soldiers would step through, announcing that it was time. I’d be handcuffed, escorted across the training field and taken to the long brick wall facing the rising sun. There would be witnesses, of course. The Perfect Soldier was about to be executed for treason; there would probably be a crowd. Perhaps the entire base would turn out. I wondered if Tristan would be there, and Lieutenant Martin. I didn’t know if they would come; truthfully, I wasn’t certain I wanted them to witness my final moments, as a traitor to the Order. There would be a line of soldiers standing in front of that wall, six of them, all with loaded rifles. I would be taken before them, offered a blindfold, which I would refuse, and then I’d be left standing there alone, facing them all. The countdown would begin.

Ready…

Aim…

Fire!

I shivered, unable to stop myself. I wasn’t afraid to die; I’d prepared myself for death many times before. In the field, before a strike on a nest, or facing down a single dragon—we all knew that, at any moment, we could be killed. Soldiers died; it was a fact of life, one you couldn’t predict or avoid. There was no tactical reason the soldier standing just inches away would take a bullet to the temple and I would be spared. I was alive because I was good at what I did, but sometimes I’d just gotten lucky.

But there was a distinction between cheating death and knowing the exact time it would come for you, down to the last second. And there was a difference between dying in battle and standing there with your hands behind your back, waiting for your former brothers in arms—the very soldiers you had fought with, bled with—to kill you.

Five and a half hours till dawn.

I didn’t regret my choice. I’d meant every word I said in the courtroom. And if it came down to it again, and I stood on that beach with the dragon I was sent to kill, knowing that if I let her go I would die instead… I would still choose to save her.

But I had betrayed my Order, and everything I knew, to side with the enemy. I’d seen fellow soldiers die in front of me, torn apart by claws or blasted with dragonfire. I’d watched squad mates throw themselves in front of bullets or charge into the fray alone, just to give the rest of us an advantage. I knew I deserved death. I’d turned my back on the Order that raised me, the brothers who had died for the cause, to save our greatest foes. I knew I should feel remorse, crushing guilt, for family I’d betrayed.