Chapter 41
Chapter
Forty-One
The wind whispered high above the stone towers of the Asgar Training Academy as Thaelyn and the rest of the first-year cadets soared through the skies on dragonback.
The sun had risen past its morning haze, gleaming silver and gold against the wings of Nyxariel as she banked wide beside the formation.
Aether shimmered in the currents around her, subtle, beautiful, and volatile.
Brynnek led the patrol, riding the earthy bulk of Tieren at the head. His voice echoed in their ears.
“Veer left. Keep your intervals sharp, we’re not out here for a pleasure glide,” he barked.
Feyra snorted from her place just behind. “Speak for yourself. I happen to enjoy my rides.”
“Keep up, and I’ll assign you to the rear where the updrafts are worst,” Brynnek growled, but the edge of humor in his voice softened it.
Rhys chuckled from above. “Remind me again why they gave him command?”
“Because Lieutenant Dareth was promoted and he’s the only one brave enough to be responsible when you crash into a cliff,” Orion said, gripping the reins of his dragon.
“I can hear all of you,” Brynnek muttered.
Thaelyn smiled quietly, her gaze scanning the peaks below. Nyxariel’s presence pulsed steadily beneath her, ancient and alert.
All is quiet, too quiet, the dragon rumbled through their bond. Something watches.
Thaelyn straightened slightly in the saddle. “Brynnek, I don’t like the feel of this air. Nyxariel says something’s off.”
“Copy that,” Brynnek said, voice clipped. “Everyone, hold formation and tighten ranks. Feyra, take the high arc. Rhys, sweep left. Thaelyn, stick close to me.”
Far below, the Asgar Training Academy’s stone walls framed the horizon. Unseen by the cadets above, another event was unfolding.
The wind was biting at the first year’s cheeks, sharp with the cold of the higher altitude.
Thaelyn leaned forward in her saddle, the muscles in her thighs straining as Nyxariel banked into a slow, wide turn above the snow-draped mountain ridges.
Below them, the Asgar Training Academy sprawled like a fortress of stone and history, the early sun gleaming against spires and arches.
But out here, in the open sky, the world belonged to dragons and riders alone.
“Brynnek, I’m not seeing anything yet,” Thaelyn called, her voice steady despite the icy updrafts.
“Hold pattern above the second peak,” came Brynnek’s reply, his dragon Tieren flying just a few wing-lengths away. “Rhys, circle south. Feyra, take Orion and Iri westward. Stay tight, we’re only meant to run along the perimeters unless ordered otherwise.”
Iri’s voice crackled. “I can’t believe we’re actually patrolling unsupervised. First years out on a real run. Feels illegal.”
Feyra laughed. “Illegal, but freeing, exhilarating, and it feels sexy.”
“Don’t jinx it, Solen,” Orion muttered. “The last time you two got cocky, we nearly dive-bombed a rookery.”
“Still worth it,” Feyra muttered, a grin audible in her tone.
Thaelyn smiled faintly, her gaze sharpening as she swept the ridgeline again. Nyxariel’s presence filled her mind: calm, alert, and watchful. They had flown together long enough now to speak without words. When something felt wrong, Nyxariel always knew before she did.
“It is quiet,” the dragon finally spoke, her voice a reverberation of mist and old sky. “Too quiet.”
“I know,” Thaelyn whispered, tucking a curl of hair under her helmet. “I feel it too.”
The sky had changed. It wasn't the color that made her take note, still vast pale blue rimmed in soft clouds, but something deeper.
Something underneath. The way it trembled around them as Nyxariel carved wide arcs through the wind, the way the air itself seemed to whisper warnings Thaelyn couldn't quite understand.
She flew high with her patrol, the first years gliding wide in formation, wings spread in practiced symmetry.
Brynnek led them, sharp-eyed and vigilant.
They swept the northern edge of the mountain ridge, near the perimeter posts that flickered faintly with warding runes.
Rhys and Feyra flew to her left, Orion and Iri slightly ahead.
"Anyone else feel like the air’s heavier today?" Feyra called across the bond, her brow furrowed as wind tossed silver-blond hair around her face.
"It’s the pressure change," Rhys offered. "Storm front rolling from the east. Typical for this time of month."
"Doesn’t feel like just storm pressure, it’s something else," Thaelyn murmured.
Brynnak’s voice came through next, firm and clipped. "Eyes sharp. Stay alert. We’ll sweep this ridge, then circle back to the southern cliffs near the Hollow. If you see anything, call it."
They fanned out slightly, dragons cutting trails across the firmament. Nyxariel rumbled beneath Thaelyn as if speaking through her bones. “Something stirs. Old and cold. I do not like this wind.”
"I don’t either," Thaelyn whispered.
Far below, Asgar’s flying field echoed with distant horn calls.
A new sound joined it, the heavy wingbeats of an arriving fleet.
It was Prince Kaen. His arrival had been expected, but the timing unsettled her.
Thorne hadn’t spoken of it, and Nyxariel’s silence whenever his name was mentioned only deepened her unease.
Moments later, in the sky, Thaelyn’s squad was scattered.
Dark forces started their attack. The wind screamed across the ridge.
Thaelyn leaned low over Nyxariel’s neck, the dragon’s muscles rippling beneath her palms as they banked through the storm.
Below them, the valley burned green with corruption, acidic fire clawing up from the trees.
“Brynnek!” she shouted. “Pull back to the northern line!”
“Too many!” his voice crackled, strained. “We’re boxed in!”
He wasn’t wrong. Riftwraiths filled the sky now, their bone-spined wings blotting out the moonlight. Every shriek pierced her skull, every flicker of their necrotic fire splintered the darkness into chaos.
Nyxariel rolled sharply, dodging a blast that scorched the air where they’d just been. “The rot spreads fast,” the dragon growled. “These are not scouts. They were waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
The answer came as the clouds above split.
A shape descended, vast and impossible. Its wings unfurled like sails stitched from shadow, its body nothing but ribcage and void. Lightning flared inside its bones, and the sky went black around it.
Nyxariel hissed. “That is no beast. That is a command.”
Thaelyn’s pulse spiked. Through the shroud, she saw him, Maelor, the Arch-Necromancer, standing astride the skeletal drake’s spine, robes snapping in the wind. A crimson sigil burned over his heart, and when he lifted his staff, the Rift itself seemed to whisper.
“Watch your six!” Brynnek shouted, hurling a ball of earth toward one of the dark riders.
Feyra screamed. “They’re flanking, what the hell are these things?”
One of the creatures latched onto Rhys’s dragon, clawing with its talons. Orion peeled to the right, trying to aid him, but another shadowy figure struck from above, forcing him into evasive maneuvers. Iri hurled a shower of ice spears toward them. Feyra launched multiple fireball blasts.
Nyxariel dove and whirled, flames of violet-blue Aether cutting clean through two attackers. She sent one careening into the mountainside, another incinerated midair.
“They target you,” she warned. “They seek the Stormblood.”
“Down!” Brynnek roared, his dragon diving, but the command came too late.
The necromancer’s hand moved, and a spiral of green fire erupted outward. The blast struck Tieren mid-wing. The dragon bellowed in pain, spinning out of control. Brynnek barely stayed mounted.
“Brynnek!” Thaelyn cried, pulling on the reins. Nyxariel surged after him, wings slicing through the smoke.
But Maelor had already turned his gaze to her.
Found you, the voice slithered through her mind, cold and alien.
Thaelyn froze. The words weren’t spoken aloud; they crawled into her skull.
The necromancer smiled, his eyes burning bright as emerald coals.
“The Aether-born,” he hissed, voice carrying across the wind. “At last.”
Nyxariel roared, her scales flaring silver. “Hold fast!”
But it was a distraction. Two mages in shadow-stitched armor leapt from their mounts, landing on Nyxariel’s back with bone-sickening thuds. One struck her wing with a necrotic chain, the other slashed into Thaelyn’s armor with a barbed blade.
“I’m coming!” Brynnek bellowed, his dragon charging at them from beside her.
Orion followed and threw out a veil of poisonous powder at the mages, but their magic resisted its effects.
Thaelyn fought back, letting out a tornado-like blast of whirling wind into the air. She reached again for her power. Aether roaring from her hands, but the mage behind her pulled a dark veil from his belt, a summoning sigil. He threw it over her and slammed it against her chest. Thaelyn screamed.
Nyxariel wheeled violently, her roar shattering the clouds. Smoke curled from her flanks. Feyra’s dragon dove beneath a black streak of shadow magic. Two rogue dragons, marked with bone armor and red-crusted sigils, broke formation and dove toward Thaelyn.
"Down! Break!" Brynnek’s voice thundered. He fired several arrows, one after the other, at the dark mages. He stood up and got ready to leap onto Nyxariel's back with his sword ready for a battle. He used his magic to send up a shielding cover of rock around them as he jumped.
But it was too late. A dark mage leapt from one of the rogue dragons midair, landing on Nyxariel’s back first in a whirl of black robes. Another followed. Thaelyn cried out, trying to twist free, but the mage’s hands bound her in coils of red energy. Nyxariel shrieked, veering hard left.