Alex shook her head as the panic began to rev itself back up. “No, no! I can’t do this, I can’t do this again.”
Myrddin grabbed Roy and said, “Take Alex. I have to figure out what’s going on.”
Roy nodded gruffly as Myrddin vanished. He grabbed Alex gently by the arm and led her out of the room as quarantine scientists rushed in. The glass wall went back up, and Roy told the scientists to keep a watch on Vardis.
Alex wasn’t as panicked as she had been minutes ago, but she still wasn’t certain where she was. She knew Roy was taking her someplace, but she felt as if she were floating along in a dream. Hadn’t Vardis been talking to her about dreaming? Maybe that was all this was—a dream.
But dreams weren’t like this. Dreams didn’t make sense, and they weren’t nearly this horrifying. This was a nightmare. It had to be. There was no way this could be happening again.
The world froze. Alex could have counted the hairs on Roy’s neck, and reality became more focused and clearer.
At the end of the hall was a young boy. He was as white as fresh snow and wore the mask of a buck deer with spreading antlers. He turned to face Alex but said nothing.
Then the world reeled back into motion, and the boy was gone.
Roy led Alex into a room no larger than a broom closet and flipped on the lights. He sat Alex down and took a seat beside her. “Are you holding up okay?”
Alex shook her head as her body trembled. “I don’t know what’s happening. I-I can’t stop shaking. I can’t—”
Roy took Alex’s hand and held it tightly. “Breathe. You need to breathe,” he said. “Concentrate on your breathing. Nothing else matters. Just focus on breathing.”
Alex tried to follow his advice as best as she could. She thought of inhaling and then exhaling, over and over. Slowly, her heart slowed its incessant hammering.
Roy let go of Alex’s hand and leaned forward, his face covered by shadows as he spoke. “It gets easier. Doesn’t feel like it, but it does—the stress.”
“I can’t do this. There’s no way—”
Roy cut Alex off. “You can do this because you have to. If you don’t, no one else will. It’s that simple.”
Roy stood up and offered his hand to Alex. “We all have to. Together. Are you with us?”
Alex pushed down the vomit threatening to creep up her throat. Roy was right. This was why she was here. Someone had to defend the realms from the Dark One. She’d done it before. She could do it again.
Alex took Roy’s hand and stood. “Yeah. I’m a dragonrider. I’m with you.”
Chapter Five
The main hall of the Nest was filled with cadets and recruits. There were more than Alex remembered; Myrddin must have stepped up his recruitment game. There was nearly three times the number of certified dragonriders than there had been during the last invasion. The mech rider corps had grown as well.
Alex wasn’t staying in the main hall, though. She was only passing through with Roy. The two were heading to the war room for an officer briefing since she was no longer a cadet or a recruit. She led Team Boundless and would be needed for the planning stages of the assault.
As Alex walked past the recruits, she could see how young most of them were—only a little older than she was. There were still no other humans besides the mech riders, who were housed in a different facility. Alex wondered how they had arrived at the Nest so fast. Maybe Myrddin had known the attack was coming.
The two made their way to the war room, where Myrddin and the rest of the faculty were gathered. A round holoprojector in the middle of the room displayed a large scale map of the Nest and the surrounding area.
Toppinir was talking with Myrddin and politely nodded at Alex when she walked in. “Good to see you are out of quarantine. I was worried Myrddin was going to keep you there indefinitely.”
Alex chuckled nervously. She was still uncomfortable with the attitude change that happened with teachers when she was in a combat situation and not in class. It was as if they forgot she was a student or preferred to remember that when it came to a fight, she was their equal in many ways.
There were faces in the room Alex was unfamiliar with. Many of them were older students, cadets who had recently become certified dragonriders. The age gap was noticeable since the other captains looked like they were in their early twenties. She hadn’t seen any of them in classes before and wondered just how large the Nest was if it could house people she’d never seen.
Alex already knew that Boundless was the youngest certified team of dragonriders. She hadn’t realized how young she was compared to the rest. Most of the older cadets were only a year or two older than her. It was hard to tell with elves, though. She still didn’t have a good handle on what constituted adolescence for an elf.
The older captains were standing in a line near the projector. Alex looked around the room, hoping someone would tell her what to do or where to go until it became obvious that no one was going to hold her hand. She lined up with the rest of the captains and tried to look professional.
Myrddin finished talking to one of the teachers and turned to address the room. “The shocks we’re feeling are long-range attacks,” Myrddin explained. “We still have some time before the bulk of the Dark One’s forces arrive. At the moment, we’re waiting for an update from our recon dragons.”
The display on the projector changed, showing the terrain around the Nest more closely. “Based on the
