“Oh yes.” Maelor’s lips curved. “Your dragons will come for you. The boy can’t help himself. They will tear through the Rift’s edge to reach you.”
Kors’s laugh rumbled like an avalanche. “And when they do, we claim them all. Their magic. Their flesh. Their bond.”
Vaelgor tilted his head, a serene smile. “Imagine it, Aether and shadow united under us. Dragons bound in chains of decay. Even the heavens would kneel.”
Thaelyn’s heart pounded. She tried to summon her power, but the chains and Maelor’s anti-magic siphoning drank it, swallowing the light before it could rise. She struggled anyway, fury and fear clawing inside her chest.
“You won’t touch them,” she rasped. “You’ll die before you do.”
Morcarion’s smoke constricted, forcing her head back. “You’ll give us what we want, willingly or not.”
Maelor raised his staff high. The rift pulsed in answer, and the chamber trembled. “Prepare the circle,” he commanded. “Drop the wards when I say.”
The others moved into position. Vaelgor drew runes into the air that glowed red-black. Kors began muttering a death-chant, and the air grew heavy, the scent of old graves filling the room.
Thaelyn’s heart crashed against her ribs. She felt it then, the faintest flicker of something through the void. A thread of light. Nyxariel. Still searching and still reaching for her. She became unconscious again.
Lyssara’s voice slithered through Thaelyn’s mind. "You're awake again. I wondered how long you'd keep fighting the trance and the poison we gave you. You’ve endured more than expected," she went on. "Even now, you're trying to shield your thoughts. Clever little heir."
Thaelyn turned her head slowly. "You will not get away with this," she rasped, her voice raw from thirst.
Lyssara smiled behind the stitched veil. “We already have. Your greatest loves are on their way. Now give over your powers, or I will continue to break you slowly, and then when they arrive.”
“I will not break. You will be the one that I break,” she said. “You just haven’t felt it yet.”
Her expression twitched, just once. Then she stepped back, gesturing with two fingers to the door. Another figure entered, cloaked entirely in deep crimson robes. This one did not speak. She, or he, set down a bowl of metallic fluid beside the warded circle, and the scent of iron hit Thaelyn like a wave. They were preparing another ritual.
“No. Not again.”
The last time they’d tried this, they’d forced her to drink from the bowl. It had seared her tongue and stolen the memory of her mother’s face for days, but she couldn’t be sure because time was lost in this place. She wouldn’t drink it again.
“You cannot escape, child,” the robed being said. “The wards here were woven before your bloodline even held breath. This place was a sanctum for the Sealed. Aether does not rule here. The longer you resist, the more the bond, along with your dragon, frays.”
Thaelyn’s fingers clenched despite the chains. Her voice was soft, shaking, but furious. “You don’t know what you're doing. She will find me.”
“Oh?” The dark being cocked its head. “You meanNyxariel?”
The being said her name like a curse, like something filthy.
“She’s a relic. An echo. As are you.” It forced her head back and poured more liquid down her throat.
Thaelyn hissed. Her skin burned, and she began to convulse. The green-blue flames flared in response. One of the warded lines sparked, then went dead for a single breath. Just a breath. The being froze. So did Thaelyn; she was unable to move.
The being turned to the other robed figure. “Reinforce the binding. Now! She’s stronger than we knew, good.”
Thaelyn had already committed the flare to memory. Aetherwas trying to reach her. Somewhere out there, the bond had pulled too close; someone had gotten near enough to strain the veil. Close enough to shake the spell’s edge. She let her eyes close. Her heart stopped beating.
The sky cracked open in fury. Far above the veil of the outer realm, two shadows cleaved through the cloudbanks, one trailing firelight in its wake, and the other wrapped in storm.
Nyxariel flew like a star loose from its constellation. Her wings were slicing vapor into ribbons. Aether bled from her body in radiant pulses, and stormlight flickered beneath every scale like veins of lightning running molten through armor. Beside her, darker, heavier, and no less furious, flew Vornokh.
His wings beat with a sound like a war drum. His body was flanked in shadows, and his eyes blazed twin golden embers of ruin. It was the way he moved that announced death, a quiet inevitability. He was like a predator of legends returning to the hunt. They did not speak, not aloud. Only dragon to dragon. Their thoughts intertwined like roots in ash.
“You feel her, too?”Nyxariel’s voice was wind-laced with sorrow.
“Now. Faint. But there.”Vornokh’s voice was stone-cracking under pressure. “She called. And we heard.”
“The bond is starting to end,”Nyxariel turned her head, eyes blazing. “We must hurry.”Lightning forked behind her. Thunder galloped across the sky like a thousand hooves. The storm she carried was not natural; it was vengeance that had been given wings.
