Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
We waited in tense silence as Narvea lay curled against the blackened grass, her breath shallow and steam curling from her nostrils like a wounded beast trying to hold onto itself.
Ferrula knelt beside her, whispering words I couldn’t hear—soft things, maybe fierce things—but her hand never left her dragon’s scales.
Then Narvea stirred.
Her tail twitched. Her wings stretched once, slowly, then again, with more strength. And finally, she rose.
Ferrula didn’t hesitate. She mounted in one smooth motion and Narvea launched into the air, shaky at first, but steadier with each beat of her wings. Relief punched through me like a second wind.
The others followed, dragons rising one after another as we joined her in the sky. We were bruised, rattled, but we were still whole, for now.
Kaelith’s voice twisted through my mind like smoke. We must warn the others. Despite the last vote, there are those among the lost horde who do not favor our alliance with the riders. They must be warned of this new threat.
I gritted my teeth. “Do you have any idea who could cast a spell that strong? That corrupting?”
There is only one man with the power to do this, she answered, and dread thickened in my chest even before she said his name. Veralin.
My heart stilled for a breath. “My grandfather.”
Yes. He is the only Blood Fae powerful enough to cast this kind of soul-splitting enchantment… a pause …besides you.
My fingers tightened on Kaelith’s spine. “He’s using the same thing I did, isn’t he? To call the dragons.”
It is similar, Kaelith admitted. But yours was instinctive, born of need and purpose. His is deliberate. His magic digs its claws into a dragon’s soul and drags it into the dark. Where yours calls with hope—his chains with despair.
I closed my eyes against the wind as it whipped my braid loose.
“He’s calling them to destroy.”
Yes, Kaelith said softly. And if we do not stop him, he will succeed.
As Kaelith soared over the sea cliffs of Warriath, I leaned into her scales, wind biting my cheeks, the aftershocks of that corrupted magic still making my stomach churn.
“How was Siergen able to connect with us from so far away?” I asked aloud, though I knew she heard me long before the words left my lips.
He is the king, Kaelith responded, her tone reverent. He can reach any dragon from the isle at any time—regardless of distance. That is the birthright of the Unifier.
I blinked against the sting in my eyes. “Can he connect with the ones from the lost horde?”
No.
“Why not?”
A long pause.
We don’t know. Something has changed them. Their essence… it’s different. They follow another now, but they will not say who it is.
The implication wrapped icy fingers around my spine. Another dragon powerful enough to lead the lost horde? One who could rival Siergen?
We soared toward the Dragon Isle, Kaelith cutting through the skies like an arrow. The others peeled away, Zander guiding Hein and the rest of Thrall Squad back to the Ascension Grounds. Only I remained. Only Kaelith and I would bear witness to what came next.
We landed in the heart of the Dragon Isle, the clearing already thick with bodies, massive and small, wings tucked, heads raised. Hundreds of dragons, and more arriving by the minute.
I slid from Kaelith’s back and stepped forward only as far as I was allowed. No farther.
The dragons were arranged by flight and region. The unbound formed their own loose rings, most of them wearing the dull gray hue of the lost horde. Norven stood at the center, his bearing proud but unreadable. His eyes flicked once to me, then back to the empty sky.
Then the air shifted.
A low tremor rolled across the earth just as Siergen descended from the clouds in a slow, deliberate spiral. His wingspan cast a shadow that stole the breath from my lungs. The dragons below bowed their heads, even Norven, as the red-scaled beast landed with a thud that shook the island’s roots.
His voice filled my mind—ours—all of us bound by the power in his call.
I call this summit to order, Siergen said, and the sky itself seemed to still.
Kaelith stepped forward, her violet scales glinting under the overcast sky as the dragons gathered closer around the clearing. Her voice slipped into the minds of those present like silk drawn across sharpened stone.
We encountered a magical smoke created by the Blood King himself. It was not a weapon of fire or fang, but of soul. It twisted Narvea’s mind, tried to sever her bond, to shatter her will. Had she fallen… had she not remembered Ferrula’s heart… she paused, her wings flexing, we would’ve lost her.
A ripple of unease swept through the dragons, shoulders tensing, tails thumping the earth in warning. Even Norven’s unreadable expression cracked into something pained.
How could the Blood King cast such magic across such a distance? one dragon asked, her voice sharp and tinged with disbelief.
Because he has always had that power, Siergen answered.
But the wards once held him back. They shielded our lands, prevented invasive magic from crossing into Earendall’s sky.
That protection is gone now—reduced to a flickering veil that barely covers Warriath and the isle.
The rest of the continent is open… exposed… under siege.
There was silence. The kind that ached. The kind that screamed louder than any roar.
Then what of the young? came a voice, low and hoarse. An older Clubtail, scaled in bronze and green, stepped forward. If this is the kind of magic he will use… then no hatchling is safe. No unbound will survive long.
All eyes turned to Siergen.
He looked at them—at all of them—as if every scale had settled on his shoulders. Then he spoke, and his voice surged through our minds like thunder beneath a storm-swollen sky.
For too long, we have lingered in the shadow of peace, growing soft on the dream that treaties would shield us from war. That oaths alone could hold back monsters. But war is here. Not because we invited it… but because we dared to exist.
He turned, sweeping his gaze over the gray-hued dragons of the lost horde, the vibrance of the bonded flights, and finally to me.
The Blood King comes not for land, but for obedience. For domination. He seeks to control the soul of the dragon kind. To reduce us to pawns and beasts of burden.
He stepped forward.
We were born of storm and flame. Not for chains. Not for silence. The hatchlings will be protected. The unbound will be guarded. We will not let Veralin poison our skies without blood in return.
The dragons rumbled, deep and echoing, as wings spread and heads lifted.
We rise together, Siergen said. Or we fall in fire.
The dragons had voted. Kaelith’s decree echoed across the clearing, her voice silent to all but the minds it pierced—We rise together.
And they had agreed.
A tide of draconic assent rolled through the summit—wings unfurled, horns lifted to the sky, a storm of unity that should have filled me with hope.
But it didn’t.
I turned slowly, the voices fading in my mind, and found Zander waiting at the edge of the circle. He must have heard my unspoken question because he met my gaze with the same troubled gleam in his lavender eyes.
The timing, I sent, not bothering to speak aloud.
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking it too. This attack… it was too precise. Too targeted. It wasn’t just an attack on Narvea. It was a message.”
“And we’re all too busy rallying around a single fire to see the smoke billowing elsewhere.”
Kaelith stirred, her head lowering to the clearing. You’re both correct. It was a distraction. Someone wanted the focus here, on threats from beyond. But the true danger lies behind our walls. Among us.
Zander exhaled, his hands fisting at his sides. “The king’s poison. The attacks on the warders. The dark magic meant to break the dragons, it’s all been carefully orchestrated.”
“And now we have a summit to celebrate. A victory we didn’t earn. Not really.”
You were meant to see this, Kaelith whispered, her voice quieter than before. The summit was necessary—but don’t mistake necessity for coincidence. The hand guiding these events… belongs to someone who knows our history. Someone tied to the Blood King.
Zander’s jaw tensed. “Then it wasn’t Severeth acting alone.”
“No,” I said. “There’s someone else. Someone who’s been manipulating every step—stalling us with infighting while they dismantle the very things keeping this continent alive.”
He scanned our surroundings, the wind catching the edges of his cloak. “Then we find them. Before the rest of the kingdom burns.”
My hand found his.
“Together,” I said.
His grip tightened.
“Always.”