I blinked against the sting in my eyes. “Can he connect with the ones from the lost horde?”
No.
“Why not?”
A long pause.
We don’t know. Something has changed them. Their essence… it’s different. They follow another now, but they will not say who it is.
The implication wrapped icy fingers around my spine. Another dragon powerful enough to lead the lost horde? One who could rival Siergen?
We soared toward the Dragon Isle, Kaelith cutting through the skies like an arrow. The others peeled away, Zander guiding Hein and the rest of Thrall Squad back to the Ascension Grounds. Only I remained. Only Kaelith and I would bear witness to what came next.
We landed in the heart of the Dragon Isle, the clearing already thick with bodies, massive and small, wings tucked, heads raised. Hundreds of dragons, and more arriving by the minute.
I slid from Kaelith’s back and stepped forward only as far as I was allowed. No farther.
The dragons were arranged by flight and region. The unbound formed their own loose rings, most of them wearing the dull gray hue of the lost horde. Norven stood at the center, his bearing proud but unreadable. His eyes flicked once to me, then back to the empty sky.
Then the air shifted.
A low tremor rolled across the earth just as Siergen descended from the clouds in a slow, deliberate spiral. His wingspan cast a shadow that stole the breath from my lungs. The dragons below bowed their heads, even Norven, as the red-scaled beast landed with a thud that shook the island’s roots.
His voice filled my mind—ours—all of us bound by the power in his call.
I call this summit to order,Siergen said, and the sky itself seemed to still.
Kaelith stepped forward, her violet scales glinting under the overcast sky as the dragons gathered closer around the clearing. Her voice slipped into the minds of those present like silk drawn across sharpened stone.
We encountered a magical smoke created by the Blood King himself. It was not a weapon of fire or fang, but of soul. It twisted Narvea’s mind, tried to sever her bond, to shatter her will. Had she fallen… had she not remembered Ferrula’s heart…she paused, her wings flexing,we would’ve lost her.
A ripple of unease swept through the dragons, shoulders tensing, tails thumping the earth in warning. Even Norven’s unreadable expression cracked into something pained.
How could the Blood King cast such magic across such a distance?one dragon asked, her voice sharp and tinged with disbelief.
Because he has always had that power,Siergen answered.But the wards once held him back. They shielded our lands, prevented invasive magic from crossing into Earendall’s sky. That protection is gone now—reduced to a flickering veil that barely covers Warriath and the isle. The rest of the continent is open… exposed… under siege.
There was silence. The kind that ached. The kind that screamed louder than any roar.
Then what of the young?came a voice, low and hoarse. An older Clubtail, scaled in bronze and green, stepped forward.If this is the kind of magic he will use… then no hatchling is safe. No unbound will survive long.
All eyes turned to Siergen.
He looked at them—at all of them—as if every scale had settled on his shoulders. Then he spoke, and his voice surged through our minds like thunder beneath a storm-swollen sky.
For too long, we have lingered in the shadow of peace, growing soft on the dream that treaties would shield us from war. That oaths alone could hold back monsters. But war is here. Not because we invited it… but because we dared to exist.
He turned, sweeping his gaze over the gray-hued dragons of the lost horde, the vibrance of the bonded flights, and finally to me.
The Blood King comes not for land, but for obedience. For domination. He seeks to control the soul of the dragon kind. To reduce us to pawns and beasts of burden.
He stepped forward.
We were born of storm and flame. Not for chains. Not for silence. The hatchlings will be protected. The unbound will be guarded. We will not let Veralin poison our skies without blood in return.
The dragons rumbled, deep and echoing, as wings spread and heads lifted.
We rise together,Siergen said.Or we fall in fire.
