This book is so bad so far that if I had to rate it now I would give it a 2 star. I keep reading thinking its going to get better. Yes I've been introduced to dragons now. And still. Lets put aside the off putting kink she has for tall men with hard chests. I'm sure I'm going to be running into this a lot in supernatural smut. Lets put aside the weak writing, I've enjoyed far worse written books.

At this point, I can't tolerate the fact that she continues to choose to stay in the Rider wing. The author doesn't just not give us a good reason, she barley gives us any reasons and those are dissolved this far into the book. She is being given every out, including a way around her mother. Its very very clear that you will probably die even if you are amazing. Over and over we are told that the rider program is a death sentence for almost all of the people, either in the program or on the front. She is good at what she does as a scribe. We know the whole success of the war depends on scribes.

And yet over and over again she chooses to be in the place where she's probably going to die, and with the exception of plot armor, she will be less helpful than as a scribe, no matter how good she is.

The only reason to do that is if you're suicidal, and. Pride is not enough. You have to be into the idea of dying. And. What I mean by that is you have to not care about your sibling who already lost a sibling and what it would do to them. You have to not care about your child hood best friend and the literal emotional torture the whole thing will put him through. You have to not care about the scribe professors who love you like a daughter, or the healers who have put their time, and sometimes literal powers, into you to help you survive even before the academy. You have to not even give two fucks about the country and anyone living in some small village thats going to get scorched and murdered by Gryphons, because if you did, you'd go where you know guaranteed, that you can save many many lives.

Pride isn't enough. Fear of her mother isn't enough. Being immature and selfish is not enough. Hot dick is just not enough. The only reason that makes sense at this point is that you just wanna watch the world burn, yourself included.

So I keep reading because surely later the author is going to make this make sense. Is our heroine really a minor villain? Did this book even have an editor or beta readers or is there something coming down the pike thats going to make it all make sense.