Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3) by Sarah J. Maas

He led them onto a viewing platform in a massive cavern. The sunken floor was at least forty feet below, one end of the chamber wholly open to the cliff face, the other sealed with an iron grate—no, a door.

“This is one of the training pits,” the man explained. “It’s easy to sort out the natural-born killers, but we discover a lot of them show their mettle in the pits. Before you… ladies,” he said, trying to hide his wince at the word, “even lay eyes on them, they’ll be in here, fighting it out.”

“And when,” said Mother Blackbeak, pinning him with a stare, “will we select our mounts?”

The man swallowed. “We trained a brood of gentler ones to teach you the basics.”

A growl from Iskra. Manon might also have snarled at the implied insult, but the Blueblood Matron spoke. “You don’t learn to ride by hopping on a warhorse, do you?”

The man almost sagged with relief. “Once you’re comfortable with the flying—”

“We were born on the back of the wind,” said one of the coven leaders in the back. Some grunts of approval. Manon kept silent, as did her Blackbeak coven leaders. Obedience. Discipline. Brutality. They did not descend to boasting.

The man fidgeted and kept his focus on Cresseida, as if she were the only safe one in the room, even with her barbed crown of stars. Idiot. Manon sometimes thought the Bluebloods were the deadliest of them all.

“Soon as you’re ready,” he said, “we can begin the selection process. Get you on your mounts, and start the training.”

Manon risked taking her eyes off her grandmother to study the pit. There were giant chains anchored in one of the walls, and enormous splotches of dark blood stained the stones, as if one of these beasts had been pushed against it. A giant crack spider-webbed from the center. Whatever hit the wall had been tossed hard.

“What are the chains for?” Manon found herself asking. Her grandmother gave her a warning look, but Manon focused on the man. Predictably, his eyes widened at her beauty—then stayed wide as he beheld the death lurking beneath it.

“Chains are for the bait beasts,” he said. “They’re the wyverns we use to show the others how to fight, to turn their aggression into a weapon. We’re under orders not to put any of ’em down, even the runts and broken ones, so we put the weaklings to good use.”

Just like dog fighting. She looked again to the splotch and the crack in the wall. The bait beast had probably been thrown by one of the bigger ones. And if the wyverns could hurl each other like that, then the damage to humans… Her chest tightened with anticipation, especially as the man said, “Want to see a bull?”

A glimmer of iron nails as Cresseida made an elegant gesture to continue. The man let out a sharp whistle. None of them spoke as chains rattled, a whip cracked, and the iron gate to the pit groaned as it lifted. And then, heralded by men with whips and spears, the wyvern appeared.

A collective intake of breath, even from Manon.

“Titus is one of our best,” the man said, pride gleaming in his voice.

Manon couldn’t tear her eyes away from the gorgeous beast: his mottled gray body covered in a leathery hide; his massive back legs, armed with talons as big as her forearm; and his enormous wings, tipped with a claw and used to propel him forward like a front set of limbs.

The triangular head swiveled this way and that, and his dripping maw revealed yellow, curved fangs. “Tail’s armed with a venomous barb,” the man said as the wyvern emerged fully from the pit, snarling at the men down there with him. The reverberations of the snarl echoed through the stone, into her boots and up her legs, right into her husk of a heart.

A chain was clamped around his back leg, undoubtedly to keep him from flying out of the pit. The tail, as long as his body and tipped with two curved spikes, flicked back and forth like a cat’s.

“They can fly hundreds of miles in a day and still be ready to fight when they arrive,” the man said, and the witches all hissed in a breath. That sort of speed and endurance…

“What do they eat?” asked Petrah, freckled face still calm and grave.

The man rubbed his neck. “They’ll eat anything. But they like it fresh.”

“So do we,” said Iskra with a grin. Had anyone but the Yellowlegs heir said it, Manon would have joined in with the other grins around her.

Titus gave a sudden thrash, lunging for the nearest man while using his magnificent tail to snap the raised spears behind him. A whip cracked, but it was too late.

Blood and screams and the crunch of bone. The man’s legs and head tumbled to the ground. The torso was swallowed down in one bite. The smell of blood filled the air, and every single one of the Iron-teeth witches inhaled deeply. The man in front of them took a too-casual step away.

The bull in the pit was now looking up at them, tail still slashing against the floor.

Magic was gone, and yet this was possible—this creation of magnificent beasts. Magic was gone, and yet Manon felt the sureness of the moment settle along her bones. She was meant to be here. She’d have Titus or no other.

Because she’d suffer no creature to be her mount but the fiercest, the one whose blackness called to her own. As her eyes met with the endless dark of Titus’s, she smiled at the wyvern.

She could have sworn he smiled back.