“The Veil is torn. Soon, the sky will split.”
Nearby, Thorne tightened the buckles of his flight leathers, silent, brooding. Vornokh stood behind him, his tail sweeping arcs into the dust. The flames that once slept beneath his obsidian scales now glimmered like rivers of lava. Thorne did not speak to anyone. His eyes never left Thaelyn.
Commander Dareth strode through the chaos, shouting orders as war banners unfurled. "Second battalion, take position on the southern ridge! Squad,coordinate the sky lancers with Razarok! Get those catapults tethered and ready. The eastern cliff must hold."
At the field, squads gathered. Brynnek stood with his helmet under one arm, eyes set in grim determination. He caught Thaelyn’s gaze and nodded. "You stay alive, Taranveil. You’re the storm we need. Wait until the exact time, or we will all perish."
Thaelyn smirked faintly, despite the weight in her chest. "Only if you don’t hog all the dramatic speeches."
Garric moved past, his green dragon Vaelion already armored. "We’re paired with the eastern ridge defenses. Ice lines are laid. If they breach the walls, we freeze the pass. No exceptions."
Iri and Skael circled above the field, sweeping low. She grinned as she passed Thaelyn, shouting, "We will be there with you, every step of the way. Besides, I need you to teach me that triple spiral dive!"
Feyra approached on foot, blades sheathed across her back, her bond with Razarok thrumming like wildfire. "Are you ready for this, Storm girl?"
Thaelyn turned, scanning her friends. So many lives gathered beneath a breaking sky. So many stories that may end today. She squared her shoulders. "Ready as I’ll ever be."
A short distance away, Sorren Vex stood with Mirra, the red dragon’s scales glowing like molten stone. Beside him, Vaeryn Malet murmured a strategy. Neither appeared nervous, yet beneath their calm, tension coiled tight, a string ready to snap.
Darian stood at Thorne’s side, Kaeroth already in the air, looping slow, watchful circles. Darian’s armor gleamed like a dying ember. He slapped Thorne on the shoulder. “You gonna give some great speech, Lieutenant, or do we all just follow your brooding?"
Thorne didn’t flinch. "You follow your orders."
"Touching."
Thorne finally looked up, eyes locking with Thaelyn’s. Something passed between them, silent and fierce.
Then his voice cut through the rising winds. "We are the lastshield before the Rift. We hold this line not just for Aeromir, but for every piece of sky that hasn’t burned. Mount up."
Dragons lifted. Wings beat storms into the wind. The earth shuddered beneath them as the first legions took formation. High above, the crimson moons stared down, merciless and ancient.
From the mouth of the eastern pass, horns sounded, a signal from the Watchers.
They were out of time. Kaen was somewhere beyond the horizon, and he was already flying.
Chapter
Sixty-Two
The world held its breath beneath twin moons dripping red. Kaen landed and stood upon the ridge overlooking the ancient cliffs of Aeromir. Where once only ruin whispered in silence, now war drums thundered in his chest. The flames of his conjured torch licked the sky, black at the core, red along the edges, like the breath of the Deepblood dragons he kept chained beneath his bastion of bone and fire.
Behind Kaen, the world moved. A thousand dark-armored feet pounded the ground in rhythm with his heart. Necromancers in shrouded robes dragged chains of screaming souls behind them. The Darkblade Warriorsmarched in formation, their weapons still wet with the blood of the southern cities. Beast-tamers led their warped creations on iron leashes, beasts bred in the depths of Witherhold, stitched together from claw and shadow, muscle and nightmare. The ground wept where they passed, veins of the world pulsing with a corrupted heartbeat.
Kaen raised a gauntleted fist, the circlet of flame around his brow flaring in answer, its light searing across the ridge like a wound reopening. When he spoke, his voice thundered through a dead cathedral. “We do not strike for power. We strike for destiny.”
From the shadows behind him emerged Lyssara, her bone-skirt whispering across the stone. Her body was wrapped in tattered crimson silks, and over her face she wore a mask carved fromdragon bone, the fossilized skull of a hatchling she had slain herself. Her voice was soft as smoke. “The Watcher’s Sigil has been marked. The Queen is protected by her seers. The girl’s Aether remains untempered.”
Kaen did not turn. “And the Rift?”
“It shudders beneath the weight of prophecy,” rasped Maelor, the Arch Necromancer, leaning on his runed staff. “The Veil cannot hold much longer. Another moon’s rise, another breath of storm, and it will split like a scar torn open anew.”
Kaen’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his torch, its flame black at the core, red along the edges, like the breath of the Deepblood dragons chained beneath his bastion of bone and fire. He had kept them caged for years, binding them with rune and pain, teaching them obedience. They were his children now, and his weapons.
For a long time, he said nothing. Then he lifted his face to the bleeding moons.
Crimson light spilled across his armor, painting his pale skin with the hue of sacrifice. “Let the sky burn with the betrayal of kings,” he murmured. His tone was not rage, but mourning, the quiet conviction of a man who had already buried the last of his mercy.
He descended the slope, the black folds of his cloak dragging over scorched stone. At his signal, the banners of his warbands unfurled, sigils of ash, bone, and shattered flame. The largest among them, Morcarion, the Shadow Sovereign, stepped forward. His curved blade gleamed with starlight stolen from dying suns, and when he roared, the sound was not entirely his own; it was the voice of every forgotten God crying out from the void. The ranks answered in kind, a thunderous chorus that shattered the stillness of the night.
