Their voices are soft, but sure. And without thinking, I find myself echoing them.
“Me too.”
Because it’s true. Oh, to be bonded to a dragon. To feel that connection—ancient and unbreakable. To fly like that, to wield your magics not alone, but with a creature born from the elements themselves. To bechosen.
It’s more than power. It’s purpose. Belonging. Destiny.
“What’s that thing Thane did with his hand before they took off?” I ask, still staring at the sky. “Some kind of signal?”
Fenric looks up at me from Darius’s lap, that twinkle of mischief returning to his eyes like a spark reigniting.
I narrow mine immediately. “Don’t.”
He grins like a cat who’s just found a new mouse to toy with. “Oh, that? That’s the‘brace yourself’gesture,” he says, entirelytoo pleased with himself. “He probably saves it for special rides—on dragons and otherwise.”
Lyra makes a strangled sound beside me. Taila bursts out laughing. Darius sighs like this happens far too often.
My face goes up in flames. Of course I know what he’s referencing. “Fenric!”
He shrugs, utterly unapologetic. “What? I’m merely interpreting ancient Fire Clan communication methods. It’s practically scholarly work.”
“You are the worst,” I say, shaking my head—though I can’t stop the laugh that escapes.
He grins, smug. “I’m a national treasure, sweetheart.”
“That you are,” I reply, rolling my eyes—but smiling all the same.
Darius gently cuffs the side of Fenric’s head, not hard—just enough to make a point. “You’re awful.”
Fenric grins up at him entirely unrepentant, then blows him a kiss.
Darius shakes his head, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he turns to me.
“Itwasa signal,” he says, his voice settling into that steady, grounding tone of his. “All riders have to learn how to communicate with their hands. When you’re flying, unless the dragons are flying close enough for a rider to shout, you can’t hear anything over the wind. Especially not in formation. And in battle? It’s chaos.”
He glances back out toward the empty field where the dragons had launched. “Each rider learns to read hand signals—some universal, others unique to their flight group. Once the general gives the command—usually Thane, in this case—it passes from one rider to the next down the line. Like ripples across the sky.”
“That’s kind of amazing,” I say, brow furrowing as I imagineit. “Like a silent language.”
Darius nods. “Exactly. Fast, efficient. And in the air, sometimes a single gesture means the difference between a clean strike and a fatal mistake.”
Lyra whistles low. “So basically . . . don’t miss the signal, or you’re dragon food.”
Darius nods his head, picking up where he left off. “It’s calledSkysigning,officially. Every rider is trained in it—it’s one of the first things they drill into you before you’re ever allowed to fly in formation.”
“Skysigning,” I repeat, testing the word. It feels right—efficient, sharp, but somehow elegant too.
“Think of it like a language made of motion,” he says. “Each signal has to be clear and fast. There’s no time for confusion when you’re dodging an attack or flanking an enemy line. One rider passes it to the next, all the way down the formation, like a spark catching through dry grass.”
Taila nods. “It’s kind of beautiful, actually. Watching a whole unit move like one body, just from a single hand signal.”
“It’s like choreography,” Lyra adds. “Only if you mess it up, people die.”
Fenric stretches lazily, hands behind his head. “No pressure, then.”
One morning, as the first light spills through the tall windows of Valen’s study, I sit across from him, inking notes onto parchment, trying to hold onto my thoughts through the fog of exhaustion.
Today’s lesson isn’t about battle tactics or magics control. It’s about blood. The Clans, their people, and how the world has changed.
