"There she is, the king slayer." Ryker tossed a coin into the air and caught it. "Heads, you live through today."

Guinevere’s face went red. It was all too fresh. She racked her brain for something witty to shoot back at him. Something. Anything. Nothing came.

Blair gave her arm a squeeze. "Gwen. Ignore him. He has been insufferable since before you killed anyone."

Two hundred warriors stopped training at the same moment, all watching.

The second in command of Drakencrest did not give first lessons. Ever. The rumor had moved through the Keep in under an hour that the small white-haired woman beside him was the king’s new wife, though no announcement had been made, and the combination of those two facts had every training pair on the field finding a reason to drift closer.

Ryker ignored all of them.

"The dragon is the protector of the rider. That is the universal rule. But dragon riders also protect their dragon at all costs. The first thing any rider must demonstrate is the ability to hit moving targets."

He turned to Guinevere.

"Have you shot a bow and arrow?"

Her lips twitched before she caught it.

"Yes."

Growing up in Lunaris had given her exactly one gift, and this was it. If she had been a man, they would have called her the best archer in the pack. Because she was not, they had called her competent.

Ryker handed her a bow and a quiver.

"Hit those three targets and we will move to the next step."

She nocked. Drew. Loosed.

Bullseye.

Second arrow.

Bullseye.

Third arrow.

Bullseye.

She picked up a fourth arrow for the hell of it. Loosed it. It split the third arrow down the center.

She glanced up at Ryker. His jaw had dropped.

"Your father left that part out during your auction."

She rolled her eyes and gave a resigned laugh, which seemed to surprise him even more than the shooting had.

"Alright, king slayer. Let us see how you do on an actual dragon." He gestured toward her with the bow. "Bring that with you."

The warriors behind them were frozen.

It took new riders months to even go near flight. Most did not touch a dragon in their first year of training. The second in command of the crown was about to put the king’s wife on a dragon on day one, and not one man on that field was pretending to train anymore.

Ryker walked to the center of the field. He shifted.

Ryker: Ready when you are.

Guinevere sighed. There was no way around the question and he had not given her a chance to ask it out loud.

Guinevere: Is there a protocol for mounting a dragon? I would rather not hurt yours or be culturally insensitive.

Probably too much explanation. She caught it a half-second too late.

Ryker: What do your instincts tell you? Show me how a wolf would do this, and I will tell you if you are close.

Guinevere: I will. If you do me a favor and call me Gwen. Not king slayer.

He laughed through the mindlink.

Guinevere approached the large red dragon. She genuinely had no clue. The only frame of reference she had was Maddox jumping onto Ryker’s back without touching anything.

She was pretty sure she could do that. Or close to it. Full strength was not something she used often until lately.

She closed the rest of the distance in a blur of speed, and jumped, landing on his back. There was no way she could do that from a standstill like Maddox did. So if that was the proper way, she’d need a runway each time.

When she glanced over, she noticed every soldiers on the field staring at her. To say she felt out of her element would be an understatement.

Guinevere: Did I do something wrong?

Ryker: No.

He didn’t elaborate. Unbeknownst to her, he instead mindlinked the warriors who all simultaneously started training and conversing.

He vaulted into the air without warning.

Guinevere looked down at the field below her in nothing short of awe. Her brain was telling her that she should be very alarmed, but she felt fine. It felt like she had been doing this her whole life, and she did not question where the instincts were coming from.

Then she saw targets moving around them, weaving in and out of clouds.

A grin spread across her face.

Guinevere: Do I hit those?

Ryker: What do you think?

Guinevere rolled her eyes and almost laughed. Almost. He was not a very patient instructor. Then again, he was the second in command of the Drakencrest crown, and being handed an entry-level lesson had probably not been the highlight of his morning.

She stood. Loaded. Fired.

He began moving through the clouds.

She loaded and fired every time a target showed itself. Ryker picked up the pace. The targets picked up with him. Cloud cover thickened, then thinned, then reshaped around her, and by the end she was full-on grinning because this was the most fun thing she had ever done in her life and she could say that with full confidence.

She kept firing until she ran out of arrows.

Which he somehow knew. He must have been counting.

She forgot to sit back down. When he landed, she jumped off his back in a blur before the thought had finished forming.

She was not sure which metric mattered more, time or accuracy. She would have given herself perfect marks in both. Then again, she had no idea what she was working with in comparison.

He shifted back.

The targets lowered from the clouds.

Every one of them carried a bullseye. Clean. Center mass.

Ryker was silent. He studied her. Looked back at the targets. Then back at her.

Behind them, a warrior dropped a sword against a shield with a loud crash and did not pick it up.

A man approached the field, saluting Ryker.

"How long has she been flying, High General?"

"That was her second flight, Captain."

A buzz of whispers and mindlinks erupted behind them.

Guinevere swallowed. She did not want to interrupt. She was also, with zero shame, trying to gauge her own performance against something.

Ryker turned to her.

"How do you think you did?"

"Accuracy, perfect. Outside of one target on the first loop that I did not see until the second."

"That target was not there on the first loop. You did not miss it."

Guinevere nodded.

"In terms of speed, I am not sure. You sped up as we went."

"I did."

"Which means we started on the easy setting and progressed. I am certain you can fly faster than what we did."

"I can."

Guinevere waited for him to elaborate.

Instead he turned to the captain. "Let us run. Lethal simulation, full speed. First trial."

Gasps moved through the warriors behind them.

She waited for him to explain what that meant.

Shocker. He did not.

The captain’s face emptied of color.

"High General. With respect. Her first trial?"

"Yes, Captain."

Ryker flipped his coin again once, and held it out to her on an open palm.

"Keep it. For luck. You are going to need it, king slayer."

She took the coin.

She did not correct him this time.