Chapter 42
Chapter
Forty-Two
The wind cut across the ridge in swift, slashing gusts, trailing veils of snow behind the high peaks.
Vornokh soared above it all, massive and silent, wings wide and still as he rode the upper currents.
Thorne sat tall in the saddle, one hand on the reins, the other resting against the warm leather strap over his chest. His eyes drifted toward where she was supposed to be, toward where she usually flew and would flash that beautiful smile at him.
He could still feel her fingers tangled in his hair, the brush of her breath against his jaw, the sharp flare of her power when she shoved him back during sparring, only to drag him closer again.
“Careful, Prince,” Garric’s voice snapped him back to the present. “You go soft on a patrol, and the next thing to find us won’t be friendly.”
“I wasn’t, ” Thorne began, but Darian cut in.
“Oh, you were definitely brooding or swooning from that dumb look on your face,” he said with a grin. “Right now, I’d guess storm-haired and trouble-mouthed.”
Thorne exhaled sharply. “You’re all exhausting.”
“Only because you make it too easy,” Rowan added, coasting closer. “We’re just here to keep you from drowning in your own mood.”
Before Thorne could retort, Sorren’s quiet voice came through the bond. “Eyes up. Something just shifted.”
Vornokh growled, not aloud, but deep within Thorne’s chest. A pulse like distant thunder echoed inside his bones.
"Vornokh?"
Something is wrong, the dragon rumbled, a warning edged in ancient weight. The storm stirs. The bond trembles.
Thorne sat bolt upright, eyes scanning the skies.
A second later, every dragon in the formation jolted. Mirra shrieked. Kaeroth folded into a dive. Tieren roared behind them. Garric’s dragon snapped its wings open wide, catching a violent shift in the air.
Then it struck. Not sound, but sensation. A scream not of voice but of magic that tore through the bond. Thorne reeled back. It was Nyxariel. A surge of wild storm and flame, fury and fear, crashing into him like a blade to the chest. Thaelyn, her pulse in the bond flared white-hot, then vanished.
Thorne’s breath shattered. “Thaelyn!” He pitched forward, clutching the front of Vornokh’s saddle as though trying to hold his heart in place. Pain sliced through him, unbearable and raw.
“She’s been taken,” he gasped.
Vornokh’s roar ripped across the sky, flames pouring from his jaws.
Garric swerved close. “Taken? By whom?”
Thorne’s eyes were wild. “I don’t know, but she’s gone. I can’t feel her. I can’t find her pull.” The squad fell into formation and dove back toward the Asgar Training Academy. Thaelyn was already slipping into silence.
Thaelyn awoke to cold stone beneath her cheek.
She recalled falling in and out of consciousness.
She blinked, disoriented. A dull throb echoed behind her eyes, her limbs heavy and sore.
She vaguely could recall being dragged for what seemed like miles.
Her thoughts moved sluggishly. Something had struck her, too.
No, someone. Her eyes felt swollen, and she felt as if her nose might be broken from the immense pain she felt.
Her mind fumbled with recalling memories.
The cave. The shadows. Fingers clawing at her arms. The sharp snap of a ward flaring around her like a collar. Then, nothing.
She rolled onto her back, breath hitching as metal clinked.
Shackles. Her wrists and ankles were bound in cuffs that shimmered faintly with anti-magic glyphs.
Her wrists ached from the shackles that had worn through her skin, nearly to the bone, and she was bleeding.
How long had she been down here, she thought to herself.
She tested whether she could summon her magic.
Aether didn’t answer. Her pulse spiked. Nyxariel?
Nothing. The silence that met her call was absolute.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.” She tried to scramble to her knees, straining against the magic-choked room and the shackles that bound her. She tried to summon her magic again, but it was like shouting into a void. She couldn’t feel Nyxariel. Her bond, her anchor, had been severed.
A sob clawed up her throat, but she forced it down.
Panic would serve nothing. She had to think of a plan to get out of here.
She had to try to move. The ancient door groaned open.
Thaelyn twisted sharply. Three figures entered, faces obscured by cowls.
The tallest held a sigil stone, still glowing with the same sickly light as her cuffs.
“I want to see who’s behind this,” she hissed.
The figure stepped forward. He did not speak.
He raised the sigil stone, pressed a rune, and flooded the chamber with a pulse of suppressive energy.
Thaelyn collapsed back, gasping. Her magic tried to surface.
Aether coiling like lightning in a storm, but the cuffs crushed it.
She was powerless to fight against the wards they were using.
Thorne staggered from Vornokh’s saddle as his flying squad landed in the Asgar Training Academy’s upper field. Smoke curled from a scorched wall. Professors and guards swarmed around the various areas of the fields. Commander Dareth was already striding toward him, grim-faced.
“She’s gone,” Thorne said, raw. “They took her. We were patrolling, and we felt the fury of Nyxariel’s scream, and then the bond went still.
I try to reach for her through the bond, and there is nothing.
Vornokh can’t feel her through Nyxariel either.
It’s just vanished between us all, there’s nothing. ”
Commander Dareth’s mouth tightened. “We saw the wards flicker even back here. They put a strain on our own wards. What magic the dark ones released wasn’t meant for a dragon. They were so powerful it was meant to sever a bond.”
Thorne rasped. “I can’t feel her. Does that mean she’s dead?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions until we find her.
” Commander Dareth’s voice hardened. “We will destroy whoever touches her. You have the full support of this academy, and your father will support you as well. We haven’t asked for his help yet because we suspect an inside betrayal or leak.
Asking for his help so soon could jeopardize our finding out who actually has her.
The first several hours or even a day are critical. ”
Thorne didn’t speak. He only turned and headed back to Vornokh, jaw clenched.
He mounted Vornokh again. "My squad will ride and investigate around the general area to see if there are any clues that may help us find her. Garric, you stay here and see if you can help Kieran. The rest of the squad, back into the air!”
Storm and flame, Vornokh growled. They will regret this.