“I’m ready.”
The wind rose to answer, carrying her words over the cliffs and into the waiting sky.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Astairwell spiraled deep beneath the academy, far below the training halls and echoing corridors, cadets knew. The air grew colder with each step, scented faintly of dust and stone that hadn’t been touched in decades.
Commander Dareth waited at the base, torch in hand. The violet flame licked the walls, painting fragments of faded murals, dragons half-worn from time, runes dim with age. He heard her before he saw her.
“Kieran?”
Her voice was soft, melodic, yet it carried command. Queen Elyria descended the last few steps, her hood falling back to reveal silver hair bound in a braid. The light caught the glyphs at her temple, making them glint like distant lightning.
“I wasn’t followed,” she said quietly. “They think I’m still in meditation.”
He nodded and stepped aside. “Then we’d best not waste it.”
They crossed into the small circular chamber carved from the rock’s heart. No windows, no door but the one they’d come through. The air thrummed faintly with wards.
Elyria pressed her hand to an inlaid sigil, and the room went still, as if sound itself had bowed to her will.
“No one can hear us now,” she murmured.
Commander Dareth set the torch in its sconce. Shadows bent and stilled.
“It’s begun,” he said.
Her gaze lifted. “You’re certain?”
“The dragons felt it first. Vornokh hasn’t left Thorne’s side. Nyxariel came for the girl herself.”
“Thaelyn,” Elyria said, tasting the name as if it might break.
He gave a slow nod. “They’re bound now. The surge nearly killed Thorne, but the bond held. Grew stronger.”
For a long moment, the Queen said nothing. Her fingers brushed over the cracked surface of an old map, its edges blackened from fire long past.
“Thaelyn doesn’t know what she carries,” Elyria whispered.
“She knows enough to wake a dragon older than the world,” Kieran said. “That’s more than any of us expected.”
“And Thorne?”
“He’s made a strong stance.” His tone was quiet steel. “He’d burn the council before he’d leave her.”
Elyria’s eyes, luminous and shadowed, held his. “The bond between their dragons was never meant to return, it was severed.”
“Maybe it never truly left,” he said.
That silence again, thick as the stone surrounding them.
Finally, she spoke. “If this is the rebond, if the old names stir again, the balance is breaking.”
Kieran’s jaw flexed. “You thought this could happen.”
“I warned you it would cost them everything.”
