“If dragons always call to their riders,” I say slowly, “why didn’t she call to me sooner?”
Valen says nothing. But his silence is loud. Deafening.
His jaw tightens, eyes flickering with the weight of a truth that’s only now beginning to break through. A reckoning.
Everything he’s built his life around—his research, his teachings, his understanding of magics and dragons—it’s all being questioned at this moment.
And I’m the reason why.
Finally, he speaks. “Maybe . . . because you weren’t meant to be a rider in the way we understand it.”
The air in the room thickens. Like the very space around us can feel the shift.
His gaze drifts past me, unfocused, lost in thought. “It’s possible that the bond between dragons and riders was never meant to be thebeginningof something—but rather a continuation. Maybe . . . once upon a time, people could channel magics on their own. Freely. Maybe the dragon bond wasn’t whatgavepower, but whatmagnifiedit.”
I draw in a shaky breath, trying to hold onto something steady—but the only thing I’m sure of is this: something is changing. And it’s already begun.
I meet his gaze. “You think the history we know is . . . wrong.”
Valen doesn’t answer right away. When he finally does, his voice is heavy with truth.
“I think,” he says, “that history has never accounted for someone like you.”
Something flickers across his face then—a slow-forming realization that unsettles him enough to make his throat work.
“Amara,” he says, voice suddenly hesitant. “Your existence challenges something ancient. Something no one recorded—or something no onewantedrecorded.” He pauses, tilts his head, like he’s seeing me differently now. “Or maybe . . . you’re something completely new. Something the world hasn’t seen before.”
His voice drops, quiet but certain. “This changes everything.”
The weight of it should have made me falter. But it doesn’t.
“I have to go to her,” I say, the conviction already taking root in my chest.
Valen exhales sharply. His hands press flat against the desk, as if he needs something to ground himself. “I know.”
Our eyes meet, and for the first time since I entered the room, I see it—flickering beneath the surface of his measured calm.
Awe.
He nods slowly, then presses his fingers to his temples, like he’s wrangling too many thoughts into a single answer.
“We have to prepare you,” he says at last.
I frown. “Prepare me for what?”
“For what comes next.” His gaze sharpens, all hesitation gone now. “For completing the bond.”
Something in his tone punches the air from my lungs.I don’t want to wait.Every part of me is screaming to go—now.
“You didn’t think to prepare me?”
“I didn’t know this would happen,” Valen admits, his voice tight. He leans forward, bracing his weight on his forearms. “I didn’tthinkit could happen. You were already channeling magics before Calryx ever called to you. That has never happened before.”
A chill ripples down my spine.
“But now that ithas—” He shakes his head, almost to himself. “We don’t have the luxury of uncertainty anymore. The bond between rider and dragon isn’t just emotional. It’s a merging. A fusing of magics.”
His eyes find mine again, steady and grave. “And for you . . . we don’t know what that’s going to look like.”
