Chapter 26
Tess
"Last week was a disaster," Theron said as he stood at the edge of the training grounds. His arms were crossed, Yrden a rust-colored wall of heat behind him.
The morning air was sharp—late enough in the semester that my body had stopped flinching at the pre-dawn starts, early enough in the day that the chai I'd inhaled was still the only thing keeping my brain online.
He let the silence stretch, his gaze moving across each of us like he was cataloging every weakness he already knew was there.
"Dragon Riders don't get called when things are going a little sideways," he said, his voice low and flat. "We get called when it's already gone to hell. When local response is overwhelmed. When the body count is climbing and no one else can get in."
He uncrossed his arms, and for a second something older moved behind his eyes—something that had nothing to do with the lecture. "The people waiting for us are in the worst moments of their lives. They are trapped, injured, terrified. And we are the last option they have."
He paused. Let that land.
"So we need to get this right. Not close to right. Not almost. Right."
He continued, "Today we run it again. Same scenario.
Landslide has buried a mountain town. Civilians are trapped in partially collapsed structures.
Terrain is unstable, secondary slides are active.
No hostiles—the danger is environmental, and it will kill people just as efficiently as any Harbinger operative if you don't move with purpose. "
His eyes flicked to the observation platform at the far edge of the grounds.
"Councilor Voss is observing today."
I didn't look. I didn't need to. I'd felt Lucien Voss's attention the moment I'd walked onto the field—that careful, measured stillness that had become a constant hum in the background of our training days.
The Omnium observers rotated, but Voss showed up more than the others.
He always watched me a beat longer than anyone else.
Today it felt different. More focused. Like he'd come with a purpose instead of a clipboard.
I filed it and turned my attention back to Theron.
He ran through the roles—Draven on recon, Raze on aerial cover and debris clearing, Lunessa on structural security with Kaelthar holding the terrain. Then his eyes met mine, and the contact held for a fraction longer than instruction required.
"Tess—ground extraction lead. You're going in for the civilians. You call the timing."
My pulse kicked. Ground extraction lead. He'd never given me a sub-lead role on a drill this complex. The last time we'd tried, I'd been embedded in the ground team taking direction, not giving it.
"He trusts what we've built, little one."
Thalon's voice moved through me—warm, certain, faintly amused. I pressed my hand against his obsidian and gold scales, and the soul bond held between us.
I did not look at Lucien Voss.
"Anya, Valen—you're observing from the ground today. Watch the coordination, watch the timing. I'll want your eyes in the debrief." Theron glanced at them briefly, then back to the team. "Mount up."
I swung into Thalon's saddle and the world shifted.
Four weeks of this, and the transition from ground to dragonback still rearranged my sense of scale—the training grounds spreading out beneath us, the other dragons filling the sky with color and heat and the particular thrum of five bonded pairs moving into formation.
"Sound off," Theron said through the comms.
"Raze, airborne." A green-gold blur banked wide to our left—Talven showing off, storm energy crackling along her wingtips. "Talven is feeling herself today."
"Lunessa, in position." The wind was picking up as we climbed, cold enough to sting my eyes. "Kaelthar says Talven's form is sloppy."
"Kaelthar can say that to my face," Raze said.
"She just did," Lunessa said.
"Tess, airborne," I said. Thalon's wings caught a thermal and we rose, the ground pulling away beneath us. "Thalon and I are in formation."
"Try not to have too much fun down there," Raze said.
"Try not to clip anyone's extraction zone this time."
"That was once."
"Twice," Lunessa said.
"The first time was barely a clip."
"Draven, airborne. Amrion's beginning the psychic sweep." Draven's voice cut through the chatter—calm, focused, already working.
I exhaled and let the quiet take hold. Below us, the simulation zone shimmered as the terrain enchantments activated—mountainside fracturing, structures half-swallowed by displaced earth, dust clouds rolling through narrow valleys that hadn't existed five minutes ago. It looked real. It was supposed to.
The bond felt different today—faster, more instinctive. Like the difference between translating a language word by word and starting to think in it.
Theron called the approach. Draven swept the terrain and fed us positions—fourteen civilians, an unstable ridge, a collapsing building. The clock started.
The drill was messy and real and ours.
Lunessa's seismic magic held the ridge while Raze blasted the entry points open—overcorrecting once, catching Theron's warning on comms, tightening the next pass.
Draven called out stress points from the air while I worked the ground, pulling civilians from half-collapsed structures with Thalon positioned outside to receive them.
Golden Shield held. That was the thing that mattered.
A month ago, maintaining the shield while moving would have cost me focus on everything else.
Today I held it over a compromised ceiling, picked my way through rubble, extracted six dummies, and the shield sat steady the whole time.
It flickered once—one split-second where I reached too far and my heart slammed—but I pulled it back.
"There you are," Thalon said, and the quiet pride in it settled into my bones.
We cleared the rest together—building by building, structure by structure, the whole team moving like one thing with five heartbeats. By the time Draven confirmed all fourteen, I was breathing hard and shaking with pride.
"Exercise complete." Theron's voice came through the earpiece, and the team landed in a loose cluster.
The team was buzzing. Not triumphant—we all knew it hadn't been clean. But we'd done it. Fourteen civilians, unstable terrain, a ticking clock—and we'd gotten them all out. Last week's disaster had turned into this week's success, imperfect and hard-won and ours.
"Did you see that last pass?" Raze was already bouncing, shoving Draven's shoulder hard enough to rock him sideways. "Tell me that wasn't the cleanest debris lift I've done all month."
"The first pass, however—"
"We don't talk about the first pass."
"Theron's going to talk about the first pass."
"Then let Theron bring it up. I'm celebrating.
" Raze turned to Talven, who was preening behind him—wings spread, storm energy crackling along her scales in little bursts of self-congratulation.
He rubbed her neck and she leaned into it with the smugness of a dragon who knew exactly how good she looked.
Lunessa was leaning against Kaelthar's flank, arms crossed, watching the display. "Adequate," she said.
"Adequate is Lunessa for 'I'm impressed but I'd rather die than say so,'" Raze told me.
"Adequate is Lunessa for 'adequate.'" But her eyes were warm, and when Kaelthar's massive head swung around and nudged her shoulder, she softened into the expression she'd never let you see if she caught you looking.
Thalon radiated satisfaction through the bond—deep contentment that settled into my chest. I pressed my forehead against his scales and breathed him in.
Draven caught my eye across the landing zone. His expression was controlled—it always was—but the warmth in it had nothing to do with hunger. Just recognition. We did this.
The mate bond with Mason pulsed warm and golden in my chest. I wished he could have seen this.
These people. These bonds. The kind of family I'd stopped believing existed. I would burn the world down before I let anyone take it.
"Debrief," Theron called, and the team gathered.
Anya identified a blind spot first—the southeast corridor had a secondary obstruction invisible from the air, a gap in Draven's psychic sweep that someone on the ground could fill. Draven conceded the point. Theron's expression sharpened with interest.
Then he looked at Valen. "What did you observe?"
Valen straightened. His red eyes moved across the group with the careful, assessing attention that had been a constant presence since Week One.
"The dragon-rider coordination was the strongest element," he said.
His voice was smooth, cooperative, the model Training Partner.
"Particularly the bond communication between Tess and Thalon—the shield deployment was almost anticipatory.
The weak point is the transition between aerial recon and ground execution.
There's a latency gap where Draven's intel reaches the ground team.
A second set of eyes in the air with a different vantage could compress that gap significantly. "
Sharp. Useful. And it made my skin crawl.
The silence that followed was brief—three seconds, maybe four.
Then Lucien Voss stepped forward from the observation platform.
"Excellent observations," he said. His voice was warm. Measured. The tone of a man who had waited for exactly this opening. "From both Training Partners. Theron, if I may—"
He didn't wait for permission.
"The Training Partners' contributions to the debrief demonstrate exactly the kind of tactical awareness that strengthens a team. Ms. Ravenspell identified a critical blind spot in the ground approach. Mr. Beaumont correctly identified the transition latency."
Lucien's hands were clasped behind his back, his posture relaxed, his smile pleasant. "I think we have an opportunity here to deepen their training experience. In real-world operations, ideal pairings aren't guaranteed. Adaptability is essential."
My stomach dropped before my brain caught up to why.
"I'd like to see the exercise run again," Lucien said, "with the Training Partners experiencing it from the air. A cross-compatibility assessment. The dragons have demonstrated impressive responsiveness—let's see how they perform with different riders."
He said it like he was offering a gift.
I looked at Theron.
His jaw had gone to stone. The shift was instantaneous—one second he was running a debrief, the next his entire body had locked into the stillness of a man calculating how much he could afford to lose.
I watched him weigh it. The refusal forming behind his teeth, the political math running faster than the anger.
Lucien Voss was an Omnium Council observer.
He had the authority to direct training modifications.
Refusing him publicly wouldn't protect the team.
It would give Lucien grounds to escalate.
More oversight. More intervention. A paper trail that said Theron Blackwell's team was uncooperative with Council directives.
Theron didn't even try.
"Understood, Councilor."