Iri’s voice crackled. “I can’t believe we’re actually patrolling unsupervised. First years out on a real run. Feels illegal.”
Feyra laughed. “Illegal, but freeing, exhilarating, and it feels sexy.”
“Don’t jinx it, Solen,” Orion muttered. “The last time you two got cocky, we nearly dive-bombed a rookery.”
“Still worth it,” Feyra muttered, a grin audible in her tone.
Thaelyn smiled faintly, her gaze sharpening as she swept the ridgeline again. Nyxariel’s presence filled her mind: calm, alert, andwatchful. They had flown together long enough now to speak without words. When something felt wrong, Nyxariel always knew before she did.
“It is quiet,”the dragon finally spoke, her voice a reverberation of mist and old sky. “Too quiet.”
“I know,” Thaelyn whispered, tucking a curl of hair under her helmet. “I feel it too.”
The sky had changed. It wasn't the color that made her take note, still vast pale blue rimmed in soft clouds, but something deeper. Something underneath. The way it trembled around them as Nyxariel carved wide arcs through the wind, the way the air itself seemed to whisper warnings Thaelyn couldn't quite understand.
She flew high with her patrol, the first years gliding wide in formation, wings spread in practiced symmetry. Brynnek led them, sharp-eyed and vigilant. They swept the northern edge of the mountain ridge, near the perimeter posts that flickered faintly with warding runes. Rhys and Feyra flew to her left, Orion and Iri slightly ahead.
"Anyone else feel like the air’s heavier today?" Feyra called across the bond, her brow furrowed as wind tossed silver-blond hair around her face.
"It’s the pressure change," Rhys offered. "Storm front rolling from the east. Typical for this time of month."
"Doesn’t feel like just storm pressure, it’s something else," Thaelyn murmured.
Brynnak’s voice came through next, firm and clipped. "Eyes sharp. Stay alert. We’ll sweep this ridge, then circle back to the southern cliffs near the Hollow. If you see anything, call it."
They fanned out slightly, dragons cutting trails across the firmament. Nyxariel rumbled beneath Thaelyn as if speaking through her bones. “Something stirs. Old and cold. I do not like this wind.”
"I don’t either," Thaelyn whispered.
Far below, Asgar’s flying field echoed with distant horn calls. A new sound joined it, the heavy wingbeats of an arriving fleet. It was Prince Kaen. His arrival had been expected, but the timingunsettled her. Thorne hadn’t spoken of it, and Nyxariel’s silence whenever his name was mentioned only deepened her unease.
Moments later, in the sky, Thaelyn’s squad was scattered. Dark forces started their attack. The wind screamed across the ridge. Thaelyn leaned low over Nyxariel’s neck, the dragon’s muscles rippling beneath her palms as they banked through the storm. Below them, the valley burned green with corruption, acidic fire clawing up from the trees.
“Brynnek!” she shouted. “Pull back to the northern line!”
“Too many!” his voice crackled, strained. “We’re boxed in!”
He wasn’t wrong. Riftwraiths filled the sky now, their bone-spined wings blotting out the moonlight. Every shriek pierced her skull, every flicker of their necrotic fire splintered the darkness into chaos.
Nyxariel rolled sharply, dodging a blast that scorched the air where they’d just been. “The rot spreads fast,”the dragon growled. “These are not scouts. They were waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
The answer came as the clouds above split.
A shape descended, vast and impossible. Its wings unfurled like sails stitched from shadow, its body nothing but ribcage and void. Lightning flared inside its bones, and the sky went black around it.
Nyxariel hissed. “That is no beast. That is a command.”
Thaelyn’s pulse spiked. Through the shroud, she saw him, Maelor,the Arch-Necromancer, standing astride the skeletal drake’s spine, robes snapping in the wind. A crimson sigil burned over his heart, and when he lifted his staff, the Rift itself seemed to whisper.
“Watch your six!” Brynnek shouted, hurling a ball of earth toward one of the dark riders.
Feyra screamed. “They’re flanking, what the hell are these things?”
One of the creatures latched onto Rhys’s dragon, clawing with its talons. Orion peeled to the right, trying to aid him, but another shadowy figure struck from above, forcing him into evasive maneuvers. Iri hurled a shower of ice spears toward them. Feyra launched multiple fireball blasts.
Nyxariel dove and whirled, flames of violet-blue Aether cutting clean through two attackers. She sent one careening into the mountainside, another incinerated midair.
