They were friends once. Allies in a war I hadn’t been there to see. And Remy didn’t want me with Zander. That much, he’d made clear.
Theron’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.
“Leave.Now.”
Remy’s jaw ticked as he turned away from Theron without bowing.
He didn’t speak. Just muttered to me through clenched teeth, “Call your dragon.”
I reached for Kaelith.
She didn’t answer.
But less than three minutes later, she came, crashing down from the sky like a silent storm, her wings furling with a low thump of air. Katama landed beside her, graceful and poised, the two dragons mirroring each other in a way that made the silence around us shift again.
Kaelith’s golden eyes met mine, unreadable.
“The falls are only a couple of hours away,” Remy said, not looking at me. “You okay without a saddle?”
I gave a single nod, already climbing onto Kaelith’s broad back.
Remy mounted Katama beside me. We looped the ropes, securing ourselves, hands finding grooves in the smooth scale we both knew by heart.
I didn’t speak as Kaelith launched into the sky, the wind ripping at my braids.
Because the question still burned in my mind.
Whose order was Remy really following?
The wind tore at my skin as Kaelith soared high above the silver canopy, the horizon blurring into mist-draped cliffs and the wide shimmer of Elmwell Falls in the distance. We didn’t speak.
Or rather,shedidn’t.
Kaelith’s silence pressed against me like stone, heavier than any scolding.
I’m sorry, I tried, reaching through the thread of our bond.I didn’t mean to stir the hatchlings. I didn’t mean to scare you.
Still nothing.
My heart cracked a little more with every beat.
Everything felt like it was falling apart, Zander, the prophecy, Kaelith’s trust, and now this forced flight with a rider who may or may not be helping the very prince trying to erase me from the court.
I pressed my cheek against Kaelith’s scales, and that was when I felt it, like a strand of breath threading through the smoke.
Hello, my little storm cloud.
I gasped aloud, nearly slipping my grip on the rope.
Siergen.
Still alive, despite the odds, he said with a teasing lilt.Were you worried?
Of course I was!I bit back.I can’t imagine this world without you in it.
Ah, he drawled,it is nice to be admired by one so beautiful.
You are so strange for a dragon, I whispered, but my pulse betrayed me.But I feared for you.
