The worldbelow us was wrong.
From Hoshiko’s back, I could see the large dragons’ bodies scattered like broken scales across the ground on Vistos. It wasn’t like the sickly rise and fall of shallow breath that had taken the dragas. But stillness. Silence. Death.
Dragons and their riders were on the ground, lifeless, probably killed or severely injured from the impact after falling from the sky.How?
Finley sat rigid against me. I wrapped my arms tighter around her, as if I could hold her together by sheer force of will. She felt fragile in my grasp, breakable in a way I’d never witnessed before.
But just before the sky went white, I’d felt something.
A surge. As fierce and defiant as Finley.
It had wrapped around me, around Hoshiko, like a pulse of iron beneath silk.
Instinctive. Protective. Claiming.
I hadn’t understood it then. There hadn’t been time to. Only the crushing finality that swept through the air when the maledragons had fallen. An ending so absolute it reverberated in my hollow chest.
I had braced for Hoshiko to fall. Failing to find a way to carry the impact for Finley.
Instead, he’d remained steady beneath me, his wings cutting through the sky.
Finley. She’d been in agony. Lost in a storm only she felt.
And still . . .
Somehow . . .
She had reached for us. For him.
I tilted my face to the wind, searching for the scent of her tears. None came. Instead, I heard the rasp of her breath, rough and ragged as if each inhale cut her from the inside.
My chest tightened to the point I could barely draw a breath. These weren’t hatchlings or younglings or even dragas. These were full-grown males. Some Elders. All of them dead, fallen in an instant.
Something low and mournful sounded from Hoshiko’s throat as we descended, the sound reverberating from his body to mine. I pressed a hand to his side.
“I feel it too,”I told him.“You’re not alone in this.”
The bond between us tightened, our grief threading us as one.
Hoshiko dipped lower, wings angling toward the cavern mouth where a small group of dragons stood. Their silence struck as the ground rushed us, and Hoshiko landed. Kassidy’s scream split the stillness. Raw and manic.
“Do something!” Kassidy shouted before either Finley or me could swing down. She fell to her knees beside a motionless body. Her hands slapped the scales as if she could force a dragon twice her size back to life. Blood streaked her arms. Her voice cracked. “Don’t just stand there.” She peered up at us, her eyes wide and wild. “Help me. Bring them back.”
Quietly, I urged Finley off Hoshiko, helping her when her knees buckled from the impact.
Solana lay curled protectively around the dead male, her massive body pressed against his, and her head across his unmoving chest. Her wings trembled while her eyes looked hollow. Her sounds were soft while Kassidy frantically shoved against the male’s chest, willing his lungs to rise.
Willow knelt beside her sister, her face pale and palms against the dragon. A thread of magic spread from the dragon behind her and toward the large male on the ground. Long beats passed. Nothing. The faint shimmer of her binding flickered before she dropped it away.
Her shoulders sagged. “Kass . . .” Her name broke across Willow’s lips. “There is nothing I can do. Nothing Finley can do. We can mend wounds and heal the sick, but once life is gone . . .” She swallowed hard before looking back at Finley. “We cannot call it back.”
Kassidy’s head snapped up, her grief shaping into something hotter, crueler. Her hardened gaze, wild and rimmed in red, fixed on Finley.
“You said you’d go to the dragons. You said you’d help. Instead, you wasted timetraining.” Her voice cracked into a sob that hardened further into fury. “Because of you, hundreds are dead.”
I waited for Finley to reply so I wouldn’t overstep as I’d done this morning. But she stood rigid, her silence heavier than the grief surrounding us.
My jaw tightened, and I stepped forward. “That’s enough, Kassidy. Don’t lay their death on?—”
