Chapter 35
The silver kiss of moon-forged steel against my thighs was almost as perfect as the anticipation crackling through my blood.
Two curved blades, sharp enough to carve through shadow and bone, strapped to my legs like promises of violence waiting to be kept.
Kaelen dozed in the grass nearby, his massive green form sprawled in a patch of sunlight like the world’s most dangerous cat.
“Ready for battle, wildfire?” His voice drifted through my mind, lazy with amusement.
“Always,” I murmured back, adjusting the leather straps that held my daggers secure. The war camp visit with Lincatheron had been postponed twice, first for weather, then for what he had vaguely called “strategic considerations.” But today, finally, we were going.
A whistle echoed from above.
I tilted my head back and nearly choked on my own spit.
Lincatheron circled overhead on the back of a dragon that looked like it had been carved from twilight itself.
Dark violet scales caught the morning light, throwing back flashes of deep purple and midnight blue.
The dragon’s wings were massive, each beat sending ripples through the air that I could feel in my bones.
And astride that magnificent beast, Lincatheron looked like something out of legend.
Every inch the warrior commander, dark hair whipping in the wind, that familiar intensity written across his features even from this distance.
“Now that,” Kaelen rumbled, one amber eye cracking open. “Is a proper entrance.”
Lincatheron raised one hand, a gesture that was part invitation, part command.
“Your chariot awaits, wildfire,” Kaelen purred, rolling to his feet in one fluid motion that defied his massive size. The sunlight caught the emerald depths of his scales as he stretched, wings unfurling like banners of war.
I didn’t need to be asked twice. My hands found their familiar holds along his neck as I swung up, settling into the saddle in a position that had become as natural as breathing.
The leather of my riding gear creaked, daggers shifting against my thighs as Kaelen coiled beneath me like a loaded spring.
Kaelen launched us skyward with a thrust of wings that stole the breath from my lungs. The ground fell away in a rush of green and gold, and then we were soaring. Wind whipped through my hair, the intoxicating freedom of flight sung through my veins.
For long minutes, we flew in companionable silence. Lincatheron’s dragon moved like poetry beside us, those twilight wings cutting through air. I caught glimpses of him in my peripheral vision, the way he sat his mount like he’d been born to it, completely at ease in his element of war and sky.
Then his dragon pulled closer.
“I have something to admit,” he called across the wind between us.
I grinned, letting the wild joy of flight bleed into my answer. “If you’re planning to murder me to keep me quiet about you and Fenric, you probably shouldn’t warn me first.”
Lincatheron’s laugh was carried away by the wind, but I caught his snort of amusement. “Not yet,” he shot back, “I’ll wait ‘til we’re over the ocean. Far easier to dispose of your body.”
I snorted. “Then what?” I called, adjusting my grip as Kaelen shifted beneath me.
“These warriors I’m bringing you to assess—” Lincatheron’s voice carried that familiar edge of controlled intensity. “The other day made it clear there are some gaps in my knowledge. I want your opinion, but—”
“But?” The word was snatched away by wind and wings.
“They’re a dragon squad.” His eyes met mine across the space between our mounts. “And technically, there’s no authorised female dragon squad in our ranks yet. So they don’t officially exist, and I’d need your discretion going forward.”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Done.”
Some secrets were worth keeping, especially ones that involved giving women the power to rain fire from the sky.
Lincatheron’s expression shifted—surprise, maybe, or approval. “Cindrissian must be right about you. Good at keeping secrets.”
I grinned up at Lincatheron, already feeling the edge of mischief creep onto my face. “Oh, Cindrissian’s only scratched the surface of my secret-keeping abilities. I’ve got depths of discretion he can’t even imagine.”
“That’s what worries me,” Lincatheron called back, but there was humour threading through his words now.
I adjusted my grip on the handles. “So tell me, how many other technically non-existent military units are you running? Do you have phantom cavalry? Invisible archers? A secret society of battle-ready bakers?”
His laugh was caught by the wind, but I saw his shoulders shake with it. “You’re assuming I’d tell you about all of them.”
“Fair point.” I let the wind whip through my hair, feeling gloriously, recklessly alive. “But seriously, how long has this been going on? The unauthorised dragon squad, I mean. Because watching you try to justify an all-female unit that doesn’t officially exist is going to be entertaining as hell.”
“They’ve been training for about six months,” Lincatheron called, guiding his twilight dragon in a smooth banking turn. “Started as a request from a handful of female soldiers who wanted to try for the dragon corps. Officially, I told them we’d consider applications once we expanded the program.”
“Unofficially?”
“Unofficially, I’ve been working with them every few weeks. And they’re some of the most naturally gifted riders I’ve ever seen.”
Something fierce and proud flared in my chest. “That’s what happens when you stop treating women like they’re fragile.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Lincatheron said, and there was steel beneath his words now. “I’ve been fighting for integration for decades. But there are... traditional elements in the command structure who need more persuasion.”
“Traditional,” I repeated, letting all my disdain bleed into the word. “Is that what we’re calling stubborn male bullshit now?”
Kaelen rumbled with amusement beneath me. “Females have been bonding with dragons since before his precious military structure decided they were suitable for combat roles.”
I patted his neck affectionately. “Not everyone can be as enlightened as dragons, apparently.”
“I can hear you talking to him, you know,” Lincatheron said, though there was the faintest trace of amusement in his voice now.
“Good. He agrees with me. You’re outnumbered.” I grinned at him across the space between our mounts. “Does Fenric know you’ve been organising rebellious female dragon squads?”
“Isara.”
“What? I’m just enjoying learning the secrets of the stoic military commander.” I adjusted my grip on Kaelen’s neck, letting the wind whip through my hair as I savoured the way Lincatheron’s jaw went tight. “I promised to keep the secret, not that I wouldn’t mock you.”
Lincatheron’s dragon banked sharply to the left, and I caught the way his knuckles went white where they gripped the reins. “Can we focus on the mission instead of my personal—”
“Oh, this is perfect,” I called across the space between us. “The great Lincatheron, terror of battlefields, reduced to a blushing mess by one pretty male. Does he make you nervous, Commander? Does your heart race when he calls you sir?”
“I’m going to throw you off your dragon myself,” Lincatheron growled, but the threat lacked heat. He was too busy looking mortified.
“This is highly entertaining,” Kaelen purred in my mind. “Please continue tormenting the uptight commander.”
“You’d have to catch me first, and something tells me you’re too busy thinking about catching Fenric instead.”
That’s when the screaming started.
The sound ripped through the sky. It came from ahead of us, from the direction of the camp that should have been a controlled military operation.
Lincatheron’s dragon snapped into a steep dive without warning, and Kaelen followed suit, both of us suddenly focused on the horizon with single-minded intensity.
“What the fuck?”
Then the camp came into view, and the words died in my throat.
Dragons filled the sky like a plague of locusts, their scales black as midnight, eyes burning with sickly green fire. Below them, the camp was chaos incarnate. Tents burned, soldiers scattering like ants from a kicked hill, the bright flash of magic crackling through smoke-thick air.
But these weren’t Lincatheron’s dragons. These weren’t anyone’s dragons that should have been there.
“Fuck,” Lincatheron’s voice cracked across the wind, every syllable dripping with rage that could level mountains. “Those are Nyxarian war beasts. The entire camp is under attack.”
“Wildfire.” Kaelen’s entire body tensed. “Hold tight. We’re going to war.”
The sky became a battlefield of wings and fire and death.
Kaelen threw us into the chaos without hesitation, his emerald form cutting through the air like a living weapon. Shadow dragons wheeled around us. Massive, wrong things with scales that seemed to drink light. They moved with terrifying coordination.
I tried to loose the black fire, tried to be the weapon I’d been training for, but everything was moving too fucking fast. The wind tore at my hair, my eyes watered, and every time I thought I had a target, Kaelen would swerve to avoid claws or teeth or streams of that sickly green flame.
“Easy, there.” His voice rumbled through my mind as I nearly slid sideways off his back during a particularly violent roll. “You’re not ready for aerial combat.”
“I can handle it!” I snarled back, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. I was clinging to his neck like a terrified child while dragons who’d been born to this dance of death and sky moved around us with lethal grace.
A shadow beast dove at us from above, claws extended like obsidian spears. Kaelen twisted away at the last second, the motion so sudden and violent that I lost my grip entirely. For one heart-stopping moment I was sliding down his flank, my fingers scrabbling desperately for purchase on his scales.