Chapter Three
The clouds were thick, stretching endlessly beneath them in churning sheets of silver.
They clung to the hull like fogged glass, veiling everything beyond the viewing deck windows.
Runed panels lining the curved wall thrummed low, casting soft pulses of amber light over the gathered students as the ship dipped lower.
Every few seconds, a faint vibration trembled underfoot, signaling a shift in altitude.
Cassara stood near the archway, one hand braced against the doorway, the other folded tightly beneath her ribs.
Her coat hung open at the collar, barely touched by the breeze slipping through the subtle vents along the ceiling, yet she felt the air press cold against her neck. Not from the chill. From instinct.
The students had begun to gather at the front of the deck, pressed against the reinforced magisteel railing, faces lit with the glow of anticipation.
Liri’s nose smudged the window. Sonia perched on the balls of her feet like a cat waiting to pounce.
Even Evie stood breathless with her hands clasped to her chest, eyes wide with wonder.
Unlike the other students, Cassara wasn’t looking up.
She was watching the clouds.
And something was wrong.
It was a flicker, no more than that. A streak of motion through the mist: dark, sinuous, impossibly fast. Gone before she could track it.
Too high for birds and far too large for anything that should be flying this close to the descent path.
Another blur rippled through the cloud bank, larger, lower, angled toward the hull.
Her breath caught.
“Did you see that?” Evie whispered. She turned slightly, half-laughing, half-afraid. “Tell me someone else saw that.”
“It’s a scare tactic,” Sonia said, though her voice lacked its usual sharpness. “A little flash before orientation. It’s probably an instructor showing off their bonded beast.”
“Maybe a projection,” Jonas added, leaning on the rail like nothing had changed. “You know, some weird enchantment to welcome the newbies.”
Cassara didn’t answer. Her fingers curled slowly against her arm.
Because she’d read the paper that morning.
She remembered the headline.
Something twisted through the haze again, closer now. A blur of segmented limbs and trailing shadow. The ship tilted slightly as the stabilizers adjusted, but the light in the room seemed to shift, dimming for the briefest moment.
Cassara didn’t speak. Her pulse quickened as dread clenched in her gut. She turned, eyes sweeping the deck.
When she found who she was looking for, it confirmed her fears.
Auren had moved to the edge of the deck. One hand rested lightly on the support rail, the other raised, not in alarm, but in analysis. His head tilted just slightly. He was listening. Watching.
And that look on his face?
It wasn’t the look of an instructor preparing to deliver a scare tactic, it was the look of a soldier about to enter combat.
The deck jolted.
A violent, teeth-rattling shudder as something slammed against the hull from below, hard enough to rattle the magelights overhead and pitch a few students off balance. A whoosh of displaced air followed, hot and sulfurous, sweeping through the vents like breath from a furnace.
Then came the sound.
Not a roar. Not the shriek of wind.
A screech, raw, metallic, ear-splitting, like steel dragged across stone. Cassara’s hands clenched the railing on reflex as the noise vibrated through the glass, through the floor, and straight into her bones.
Around her students scattered, screams erupting near the viewing windows as another impact struck the port side, this time accompanied by the hideous scrape of claws against enchanted plating.
Something huge was circling them.
Auren was already in motion, the hem of his coat snapped as he moved, all sharp lines and sudden velocity. He began barking orders, giving commands to someone unseen, calling in positioning and stabilization. Readying for combat .
Movement drew Cassara’s eyes back to the window where a creature had begun to uncoil from the clouds with unnatural grace.
It spiraled upward, impossibly long, a segmented horror with a sinuous body wrapped in charred bone plates and wings that didn’t flap so much as tear through the air in great lurching pulses.
Four limbs extended from its torso, mantis-like and jointed wrong, ending in bladed claws that scraped sparks against the hull.
Beneath its twisted rib cage, lightning pulsed through translucent sacs, crackling with every beat of its impossible heart.
Its head—gods, its head—was wrong. Finned like a serpent’s, its jaw split down the center to reveal rows of barbed teeth, and from between them, a tongue lashed like a whip, barbed and wet.
Cassara froze.
It wasn’t fear that gripped her, it was awe, ugly and electric. A shiver of knowing. This was what the world could throw at her. This was what Vallemont trained for.
And she was not ready.
The creature shrieked again, closer this time, its thunder sacs glowing hotter with each pass. Sparks rained down as one of its clawed limbs scraped along the upper hull again, scoring the protective wards. A tremor rolled through the deck, and the lights flickered in their sconces.
Chaos erupted.
First-years screamed. Some dropped to the floor, others sprinted for the exits, crowding the stairwells in frantic waves. A few brave, or foolish, students hovered near the railings, eyes wide and mouths slack, too stunned to flee.
Cassara was among them, breath locked tight in her chest.
Auren’s voice rose above the panic. “Crimson Talon squad. Aerial flank. Bracket left and keep it clear of the rudders. Do not engage directly if at all possible, our goal is to redirect.”
And like that, they moved.
One third-year launched herself from the upper deck, wind shrieking around her as her glider-wing caught, stabilizing into a controlled dive.
Her beast, an obsidian wyvern with ember-lit veins and an impossible wingspan, shrieked below, circling to meet her midair.
She landed on its back with practiced ease, mana conduits flaring along her bracers as she leveled her hooked glaive.
The weapon pulsed with heat as the wyvern banked hard and dove toward the creature tearing at the hull.
Another followed, this one on a beast built like a plated wasp-raptor, all blade-legs and lightning-hum wings.
The rider stood braced between the creature’s spines, his ACS igniting a magnetic shield just as a strike came too close.
Sparks skittered across his curved blade, charged by his beast’s electric pulse.
Cassara’s stomach dropped as the sky exploded into motion.
A third beast thundered up from the cargo ramp: a granite-scaled charger with curved tusks and rune-scarred armor plating.
Its tamer crouched low between the reinforced shoulder-straps, raising a short hammer that blazed with sigils as the beast hurled itself against the airship’s side and latched on, hooves gripping like claws.
A defensive pair, holding the line. Their support glyphs flared, forming protective arcs beneath the other riders.
A wall of wind swept across the deck. Cries rang out as another shriek split the air.
The beast, talons clacking, tail spiked like a flail, curled tighter around one side of the hull.
Its four wing-limbs cracked the air, throwing off bolts of sound and heat.
Its barbed tongue struck out again, too fast for a blade to catch, too wild for spellwork to counter.
And then—
He moved.
Auren emerged from the command tier like he’d been waiting for this. There was a glimmer of silver, dual daggers flaring as he activated the core embedded in his ACS. Firelight spilled across the sigils lining his arms.
“Maintain distance! Flank on the eastern drag! Don’t let it pin the hull!”
He didn’t hesitate, didn’t panic, he didn’t even look back. He directed the chaos like it belonged to him and him alone.
The third-year circled wide on her wyvern, signaling with a spin of her glaive. Her beast dove low, drawing the creature’s attention. Another rider intercepted midair, their lightning-charged raptor unleashing a thunderburst from its crest that staggered the attacker mid-coil.
Auren leapt into the fray, blades flashing as he vaulted from the deck edge, caught a support rig, and landed on one of the hull anchor points. The corrupted beast struck toward him. He lashed outward, the blade leaving a searing trail of red along the tongue that came for his throat.
Cassara’s breath snagged, her heart pounding.
This wasn’t the man from the corridor. This wasn’t even the instructor who’d faced them moments before with clipped warnings and judgement in his eyes.
This was something else.
Auren moved like he had been born for it, as though countless battles had carved his reflexes from steel and adrenaline alone.
The creature reared back with a thunderous screech, wings snapping wide, and slammed its tail against the underside of the viewing deck. The ship lurched, the sigils along the stabilizer edge blinked red, flickering fast.
Cassara staggered, catching herself on the railing. Someone nearby screamed as another jolt tore through the hull.
And then, the ship began to tilt.
Julian grabbed her arm, tugging hard, trying to pull her towards safety. “Cassara. We need to get below deck. Now.”
But she didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on the stabilizer glyph flickering near the port side, its pattern sputtering, destabilized from the hit. If it failed completely, the ship would tilt into a spiral and dozens would fall.
Julian’s voice sharpened, cutting through her haze. “Cass.”
“I see it,” she muttered.
“See what? Cass? What are you—”
“There.” She pointed and could almost feel the decision calcify in her bones before her mind had caught up.
“Don’t,” Julian warned, sensing it before she even shifted her weight. “Cassara—!”
But she was already moving.