Thaelyn smirked, but her heart was a taut wire. She reached inward, brushing the bond. Nyxariel shimmered in her thoughts like a storm coiled beneath silk.
“We do not strike first without purpose,”the ancient dragon whispered. “But if they bring fire, we will answer with thunder.”
Brynnek's voice came through the communicator rune. "Team Alpha, hold until signal. Interference is thick over the ridge. We push only on the Queen's beacon."
"Copy," Thaelyn replied. She tapped the rune etched into her bracer, locking the connection.
From above, shadows stirred, Sorren's dragon, Mirra, circling high and cloaked. Sorren himself was already somewhere beyond, scouting the perimeter like a ghost through dusk. The tension was mounting. They were close.
Then it broke. A howl split the dusk, followed by the flash of a crimson bolt from the western flank. A twisted beast, half-winged, half-charred sinew, burst from the trees with an unnatural shriek. It lunged for Feyra.
"Move!" Thaelyn shouted.
Feyra ducked and sent a blast of lightning straight into the creature's face. It screamed, flailed, but another took its place.
Rhys hurled a wall of wind upward, scattering debris and forcing a second scout to veer. Iri summoned a wave of mist that shrouded their position. Thaelyn reached deeper for her Aether. It answered like a lover.
The air turned cold. Silent. Time seemed to suspend. Her palm rose, and with it, a tremor of silvery-blue force pulsed outward. The nearest beast twisted in midair, writhing in agony as it was slammed into a boulder with bone-shattering force.
"We don’t have long!" Iri called, daggers flashing. "They’ll know where we are."
Vaeryn tossed a seedpod laced with her magic. It hit the ground and exploded into thorned roots that wrapped around the leg of a third enemy. Screams echoed.
"Retreat to second position!" Brynnek's voice rang again. "Reinforcements en route. Thorne’s team is engaging west."
Thaelyn grabbed Feyra’s arm and ran. The squad moved as one. Behind them, the forest lit with fire, a signal in the sky. Vornokh roared overhead, followed by the answering cry of Nyxariel.
The first battle line had been drawn. And the real storm was coming.
Thaelyn stood on Nyxariel’s back beneath a sky that had forgotten how to breathe. The twin moons hung low and swollen, bleeding red light across the cliffs of Aeromir. The wind was wrong, too heavy, too still. It pressed against her like a held breath, waiting to break. Then it did.
A sound split the night, not thunder, not wind, but something vast and alive, tearing through the fabric of the world. It reverberated through her bones, through the dragon beneath her, through the bond that tethered them both.
The Veil has fallen,Nyxariel whispered inside her mind, voice a tempest given form.He has unbound it.
Thaelyn’s chest constricted. Below, the cliffs glowed faintly violet, the runes carved into their stone centuries ago now bleeding light. The old protections were gone. The Rift had opened its mouth, and from its depths, the dark was coming.
“Thorne,” she breathed.
His voice came faintly through the storm. “I see it.”
Across the sky, Vornokh rose like a shadow of molten night, his scales burning crimson at the edges as fire wove through his wings. Thorne sat astride him, armor scorched and gleaming. He looked up, met her eyes across the swirling chaos, and the bond between them pulsed like a heartbeat shared. Then the first scream cut through the storm.
Shapes spilled from the torn horizon, winged horrors gliding between lightning strikes. The Vraenmaws. Their translucent wings shimmered like oil, bodies flickering in and out of sight as they dove. The air grew cold where they passed. The first struck a flight of students mid-formation; their dragons fell lifeless without wounds, eyes glassy, hearts blackened.
“By the Rift,” Thorne growled. “They’re pulling the breath from them.”
“Not if I stop them.” Thaelyn’s pulse flared, and Aether shimmered beneath her skin like starlight under glass.
Nyxariel twisted upward, her roar shaking the air. The sound sent ripples of magic through the storm, disrupting the nearest Vraenmaw. It solidified mid-air, a creature of glass and smoke, and Thaelyn struck. A pulse of violet light leapt from her palm, burning through its body until it shattered into a rain of black ash.
But for every one that fell, three more came. Then the ground split open below.
From the cracked plains beyond the cliffs, skeletal giants rose, the Korvathi, their skulls etched with glowing runes, dragging whips of vertebrae that screamed through the air. They swung them at the dragons, and where they struck, magic burned like acid.
Nyxariel dodged, wings sweeping wide. “Their marrow holds corruption. Burn them with pure flame.”
“I’m trying!” Thaelyn shouted, gripping the harness as a whip snapped past. She thrust her hand forward, and Aether collided with the air in a burst of light that scorched the nearest Korvath clean through. The giant collapsed, but then its ribs began to crawl, knitting themselves back together.
