“No one even knew he was out there. The legends claimed he had died, yet now he has bonded with my brother’s second son.”
The healer looked down. “A second son with a power that hasn’t fully manifested yet. That powerful dragon doesn't choose lightly. He must have sensed something. A great triumph for your family to now have two ancient dragons, yours and now Thorne’s. The darkness that has been looming lately will now come.”
“I’ll station guards outside the door and perimeter,” the commander added. “When the realm’s council learns he’s bound to Vornokh, they’ll demand answers and want an emergency plan to battle the dark forces.”
“He’s stable for now,” Magda, the healer, said. “When he wakes, he’ll be in pain. Bonding like that changes a man. Commander, when you bonded your ancient one, it was nothing of this magnitude. Vornokh marked almost his entire upper body. It was such a large mark that it will take weeks to heal. It will deplete most of my healing powers, and I will have to rest afterward to regain them. I may need another healer to continue where I left off.”
Commander Dareth stepped closer to the bed, looking down at Thorne’s bruised face. He reached out, just for a moment, and brushed his knuckles against his nephew’s brow. “Unfortunately for Thorne, he was changed from the moment he was born,” he said in a somber tone. He turned and left without another word, the echo of his boots fading into the corridor.
The healer glanced down at Thorne once more. The dragonmark, or sigil, still glowed faintly. It was alive with fire, etched in fate. Somewhere far above the stone ceiling, over the walls of the Asgar Training Academy, a great shadow wheeled through the sky, keeping watch over its chosen rider.
The world returned slowly. Thorne groaned as sensation bled back into his limbs, pain laced with heat blooming through every nerve. His chest ached with every shallow breath. His back felt like it was burning from the inside out. The stone beneath him was cold, but the air around him was heavy, thick with something alive. Shadows clung to the corners of the room. He turned his head with effort. The lights dimmed. He felt pressure. It was not physical, but deep.Present.Something ancient and massive pressed its brow to his own mind.
You wake at last.
The voice rumbledinsidehim, vast and thunder-laced, scraping through the edges of his thoughts with raw, primal weight. Thorne stiffened, wincing at the movement. He gritted his teeth and blinked toward the darkened rafters. “Vornokh?”
You know my name, good. I would not have you speak it again if you had not earned it, Vornokh said gruffly.
“What’s happening?”
I am yours now, and you are mine.
Thorne’s vision blurred from the overwhelmingpresenceof the creature pressing into his consciousness. He felt massive, scales the size of shields. Molten breath coiling in an enormous chest. Rage. Power. Agony. Beneath it all,recognition.
I watched. I waited. Many have called to me across the centuries. I answer to no one. But you– You did not call. You let go. You gave yourself to the fall. You did not beg. You accepted the fire. That is the heart and sign of a true warrior. Only then did I come.
The memory rushed back: smoke-filled air, the silence after the last dragon had flown off, his ribs broken, lungs collapsed, his vision flickering out, and then the heat. The roar. The light. Vornokh.
“Why me?” Thorne whispered.
Because you are not whole without me, I have not been whole for centuries. We can be whole together again,exclaimed Vornokh.
Emotion surged like a tide he couldn’t control. Thorne clenched his jaw and shut his eyes. “I thought I failed. That I’d dishonored my father and my family.”
Your father is a fool who wants a weapon, not a son. I did not choose you for his bloodline.I chose you.
Something inside Thorne cracked, not painfully, but like a door finally unlocking.
The dragon’s voice quieted for a beat. Then, softer:You are not broken, Thorne. Only untempered. Fire does not fear the forge.
A sharp breath escaped him. “You’re in my head. Can others hear us?”
No, they cannot. Many riders and their dragons have to work for a while at it. You are stronger than most. I will be with you until the day you fall for the last time. We are bound now, rider and dragon. The world will try to tear us apart because of what I am and what you will become. You are not alone and never will be again.
Thorne let his head fall back against the cot. In a moment of vulnerability, he said, “I’ve always felt alone. No matter what I accomplished, he always wanted more.”
Vornokh growled,Not anymore. You are now a dragon rider of the largest and most powerful dragon in the realm. You answer to no one anymore. We are one.
A great wing brushed the edge of his soul. He didn’t know how else to describe it. A flicker of power surged in his veins, unfamiliar but wanting.
Sleep and heal, Thorne Dareth. I will keep watch. The others circle, but none will touch you, growled Vornokh.
Chapter
Three
The cadet dormitory loomed at the western rise of the Asgar Training Academy, its structure carved from the same material as the fortress walls that surrounded the training grounds. Shadows pooled in the archways and between the buttresses. The lanterns that lined the hallways cast a wavering glow across cold walls and worn floors. Each floor of the dormitory held two long corridors; cadets were divided by squad and class, grouped in rooms that faced either the Scorchfield or the cliffs above the dragon field.
