The wooden limbs lashed my face and arms, and my shoulder burned with every step, but we didn’t stop.
Not until we felt them. Our dragons. Their presence pressing against our minds like a promise of salvation.
Zander slowed only enough to glance back at me, his face thunderous with rage and something darker, something more dangerous.
“This is how they plan to break us,” he said, his voice hoarse as we stumbled into a clearing, the distant beat of wings finally reaching our ears. “Bit by bit.”
“Someone falsified the intelligence,” I panted, clutching my bleeding shoulder. “They used the missing supplies to lure us here. Or they arranged the theft.”
Zander’s jaw clenched so tight I thought it might break.
“The leader of the guards,” I said, dragging in a shuddering breath, “he works for the Crimson Sigil. But the others…”
I shook my head, my vision swimming.
“I’m not sure.”
Above us, Kaelith and Hein broke through the clouds, diving toward the clearing with rage burning in their roars.
Kaelith dropped into the clearing like a thunderclap, wings slicing the air as she landed hard enough to shake the earth. Hein landed just behind her, Zander already running to meet him.
My heart thudded painfully as I reached for the rope slung across my chest. No saddle as mine was still in the courtyard, abandoned when everything fell apart, but I always carried my rope.
Kaelith lowered her head as I tossed it over her shoulders, bracing herself as I looped it around the base of her neck and pulled myself up.
It took effort. My shoulder screamed, blood slick under my fingers, but I gritted my teeth and hauled myself onto her back.
I wrapped the rope twice around my wrist and locked my knees tight behind her neck ridges.
Zander didn’t need a rope.
He swung up onto Hein like he was part of him. One fluid motion, no hesitation.
Kaelith launched into the air, and I clenched the rope tight as my legs gripped her sides.
The wind screamed past, slicing through my tunic and armor, biting deep into the open wound on my shoulder.
But as Kaelith soared higher, the pain dulled.
She was feeding me her magic, trickling it in like thread through a torn cloth.
It wouldn’t heal fast, this was deep damage, torn muscle, not just skin, but the bleeding slowed. The burning began to ease.
The others joined us in the air, and I was relieved they had not been targets.
We climbed into formation, all of us riding the wind in silence.
The dragons flew fast, wings cutting through the sky in perfect rhythm, the steady beat a comfort against the chaos of what we’d just escaped.
And then, sooner than I expected, the towers of Warriath broke the horizon.
Sharp. Regal. Waiting.
We were home, but we had a new enemy.
Kaelith’s wings stirred up a gale as she landed hard in the courtyard, stone and dust lifting around her massive form. I didn’t even have time to dismount properly before a court courier, slim, dark-haired, and sweating, rushed toward me.
Kaelith rumbled low as I slid off her back, still clutching my rope. My boots hit the stone just as she lifted off again, her wings sending the courier stumbling a step back.
