Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The dorm tower lay drowned in silence, moonlight sliding across the floorboards like liquid silver. Thaelyn sat on the edge of her bed, her hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles ached. She could hear the rhythm of her heartbeat in her ears, too fast, too loud for the stillness of midnight.
There was no alarm. No danger. Only that pull again. It thrummed faintly under her skin, soft, insistent, like a thread being tugged from deep within her chest. Thorne.
She pressed a palm to her sternum, willing it to stop, to still, but the ache only deepened. It wasn’t thought or voice; it wasn't something she could block out. It was a presence, warm, alive, steady, and the worst part was how familiar it had already become.
She stood abruptly, too restless to stay still.
The air in the dorm felt stifling, too close, too heavy.
Feyra mumbled in her sleep. Iri turned over by the window, the moon catching her braid.
The normalcy of it made the pull worse. Thaelyn shoved her feet into her boots, threw her cloak around her shoulders, and slipped into the corridor before she could change her mind.
The hall was cold and empty. Each step echoed like guilt.
Outside, frost glittered across the courtyard stones. The night had teeth, sharp and clean, biting her cheeks. The moment she breathed it in, her chest hurt, not from cold, but from the ache that was trying to drag her somewhere she didn’t want to go.
She followed it anyway. Down the slope, past the statue of the first bonded rider, toward the cliffs where the sky opened wide. There she was. Nyxariel was waiting.
The dragon’s scales shimmered faintly under the moon, each one catching the light like tempered glass. Her wings were half-furled. When her eyes opened, the world seemed to be still around her.
“You are restless,” Nyxariel said, her voice a low rumble that rolled through the stones.
Thaelyn wrapped her arms around herself. “I felt him.”
The dragon shifted, smoke curling from her nostrils. “The bond deepens. You are resisting it.”
“I don’t understand it,” Thaelyn said, and the words came sharper than she intended.
“Thorne makes me furious, Nyxariel. I feel like he sees me as if I’m some reckless girl, and yet,” She broke off, breath shaking.
“I find myself wanting to feel him. It’s wrong.
” The words tore out of her. “It’s not just some thread between minds.
It’s inside me. It’s changing me. Every time he’s near, it feels like I’m being pulled apart, like I’m not even me anymore. ”
“You are not becoming him,” Nyxariel said. “You are remembering what once was.”
“That’s worse!” Thaelyn snapped. “I don’t want to be some echo of a prophecy or a name I never asked for. I don’t want my choices stolen because of who I share a bond with!”
“You are storm. He is flame,” Nyxariel murmured. “The two were never meant to meet without ruin.” Lightning flickered faintly in the dragon’s throat. “Don’t fight it.”
“I am fighting it!” Thaelyn’s voice cracked, her breath shaking. “But it doesn’t stop! I dream of him, I feel him, even when he bleeds. It’s like the bond feeds on my defiance. It’s not fair!”
Nyxariel’s eyes softened, though her voice remained steady thunder. “Nothing ancient ever is.”
Thaelyn turned away, glaring at the horizon. “Then why bind us at all?”
“Because creation is born from what collides, not what coexists.”
“That’s not what I want.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I didn’t choose this. I didn’t ask for him.”
Smoke curled from Nyxariel’s nostrils, the scent of lightning sharp in the air. “Neither did any of us. Yet, here we are.”
Thaelyn’s chest tightened. “I don’t want to belong to anyone, especially him.”
“You do not belong to him,” Nyxariel said softly. “You belong to the storm. The bond does not chain, it mirrors.”
Thaelyn shook her head. “Then why does it feel like losing myself?”
The dragon’s eyes gleamed. “Because you are still trying to be one thing, when the bond and fate is making you two.”
For a long moment, Thaelyn just stood there, staring out at the dark ridge line where the wind scraped over the cliffs. The world below looked small and still, but inside her, everything was shifting, breaking, bleeding into something she didn’t recognize.
“I can’t carry this,” she whispered. “Not again. Not like the Trials.”
“You carry it already,” Nyxariel said. “You only refuse to look at it.”
Thaelyn turned sharply, anger and fear burning beneath her ribs. “Then maybe I don’t want to look! Maybe I just want to be left alone, to breathe without hearing his name in my head.”
The dragon regarded her with something like pity. “The bond does not listen to want. It listens to truth.”
Thaelyn’s breath shuddered out. She backed a step, the cold seeping into her bones.
“My truth is that I can’t want or ever have someone like him.
He’s a prince with royal blood, and I'm nobody.” Thaelyn swallowed hard.
Her throat felt raw, her chest heavy. She turned from the dragon, eyes stinging.
“I need some air,” she muttered. “I need to breathe.”
She started back toward the path, each step slower than the last. The bond hummed faintly in her chest, steady and quiet, defying her anger.
Behind her, Nyxariel’s voice drifted like thunder receding into the distance. “You may walk away, Stormborn. But the wind follows what it claims.”
Thaelyn didn’t look back. She didn’t have to. The ache between them pulsed once, low and alive, refusing to fade.
The war room was lit only by the blue glow of the map that stretched across the table.
Commander Dareth stood at the head, cloak drawn back, both hands braced against the scarred wood table.
His voice rolled low and deliberate, carrying the weight of too many sleepless nights.
“The southern ridge has gone quiet. Too quiet. Our scouts vanished near the Avenwall ruins two nights ago. I want a small team to investigate before the council stirs panic.”
Thorne barely heard him. The words fell like stones into deep water, swallowed by the pressure building behind his ribs. It started faint, just a flicker. Then the pulse came.
A heartbeat that wasn’t his. He stiffened. The air turned thick. Each breath scraped like smoke in his lungs.
“Kieran,” he interrupted, voice rough. “Something’s—”
The commander didn’t turn. “We need to finish our plan and deploy.”
But it wasn’t something Thorne could ignore.
The tether pulled again, harder this time.
The sensation was a surge of heat down his arms, fire laced with panic.
For a single, flashing instant, he saw her.
Thaelyn. Moonlight on her hair. Fear on her face.
Three shadows closing in. Then pain. Sharp. Desperate.
His hand slammed down on the table, cracking the wood. The candles flared, spilling light into the room.
Kieran’s eyes snapped to him. “What in the seven hells?”
Thorne didn’t answer. The bond roared through him, no longer a whisper but a storm, her storm, alive and breaking. He could feel her pulse as if it beat inside his chest. Her terror bled through the connection, raw and real.
“She’s in trouble,” he breathed.
“The girl?” Kieran’s tone sharpened.
“She’s fighting, no, she’s failing,” Thorne said, chest heaving. “She’s trying to reach her magic, and it’s not there. She’s defenseless.”
The torches along the walls flared, shadows twisting like living things.
“Control it,” Kieran warned, stepping closer.
“I can’t.” Thorne’s voice cracked, and the shadows at his feet began to stir, responding to his panic. “She’s breaking apart. I can feel it. I can feel them touching her—”
The commander’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder. “Focus, Thorne. Anchor yourself. You must not lose control.”
Thorne was gone.
The fog clung thick along the courtyard path as Thaelyn wrapped her cloak tighter and quickened her pace. The night was too quiet.
She’d left the training fields after Nyxariel’s warning, her thoughts tangled with the dragon’s words, too heavy to bear. She only wanted air. Space. A moment of silence.
She turned a corner and froze.
Three cadets stepped from the mist, older and armed, their laughter low and sour.
“Well, look what the bond dragged in,” one sneered, blocking her path.
Her pulse jumped. “Get out of my way.”
“Not so fast.” The second drifted behind her. “No dragon now, Princess?”
“Enough,” she snapped, but her voice shook.
“Oh, she’s demanding, maybe she likes it rough,” said the third, his voice low and taunting. “What do you think, does the bond make you scream? We can make you scream, Princess.”
Her hand went for her dagger, too late. She hadn’t brought it. The weight that usually balanced her belt was gone. She cursed herself, stepping back, and her heart hammering.
When the first one grabbed her wrist, she twisted away. The second caught her other arm. The third laughed and shoved her hard against the wall. Her shoulder slammed into the stone.
“Stop,” she hissed, summoning her will. She reached for the wind, the element that had once lifted her high, but nothing came. The air refused her. The magic was silent.
Panic lanced through her. Please! She tried again. Nothing.
“Come on now, little Stormcaller,” one mocked.
“Where’s that power of yours?” He had her pinned where she couldn’t move.
His hand raked between her thighs, and he began to pull up her nightdress.
She screamed for help both out loud and in her mind.
She knew what was about to happen, and she was powerless to stop it.
The mist shivered. Then froze. The air changed, sharp, metallic, cold enough to bite. Even the leaves held still. From the corner of her vision, the shadows began to move. They coiled along the ground, spreading across the stones like spilled ink. From them, he emerged. Thorne.