Chapter 18 Beyond the Veil #2
I swallowed the taste of fear and fire thick on my tongue.
The Auroric guard, posted on the highest terrace, gifted with enhanced sight, were the first to spot approaching dragons, wildweavers, or worse.
If they’d raised the alarm, that meant the enemy was near enough that every tower could feel it.
That was why the battle drums were sounding. A deep, rhythmic pounding echoes across the wooden beams, traveling through the steel, rattling the cliffside.
“Damn it, Solenhart.” Lorik raked a hand through his unruly hair, then dropped it, frustrated. “You are going to be the end of me.”
He exhaled sharply.
“I can’t portal you back.” He added.
The drums boomed again, louder now, vibrating through my ribs.
I understood instantly. The drums indicated the official start of a battle. During active battle, no one was allowed to create portals back to Rionis. Wildweavers could slip through with them. Transporting anyone back to the island would risk opening the Veil.
We were stuck. I was stuck.
“I can’t have you interfere with the fight or have a wildweaver take the Solenhart heir hostage,” Lorik said, voice clipped, looking at the horizon for answers.
“Hide in the core, Thea,” Ugo said immediately after, command-tight, pointing to the metal door.
“Stay hidden until we can return to Elarion.”
Heat flushed through my face, shame mixed with adrenaline.
I had come here out of curiosity, out of a reckless need to see what lay beyond the Veil. And he was right. I had no weapon, no training for this, no idea into what I was truly stepping.
Not yet, at least.
I didn’t think this through. Of course I didn’t.
I always acted on impulse.
I nodded, small, stiff and turned on my heel.
The drums thundered again, the wind whipping against the steel platforms as Dragontails took their positions.
I sprinted toward the metal door, shoved it open, and slipped inside.
The room was colder than the corridor, lined with long-range weapons designed to capture or kill dragons.
I had never imagined using any of them. In the center, a spiraling staircase twisted upward, connecting the tower’s platforms like a spine of steel.
I ducked beneath the concrete landing and curled into the shadowed hollow, dragging my knees to my chest. I tried to steady my breathing, to forget where I had dragged myself into… but then I realized just how far gone my mind truly was.
My wrist was bare.
I’d come back to the atrium to grab my protection heirloom, my family heirloom, the only thing shielding me from mental magic until my twenty-first birthday and I hadn’t even taken it.
A violent pulse of panic thudded through me. My breath stuttered. My heart kicked hard against my ribs. I tried to inhale deeply, to force the trembling out of my lungs, but nothing worked. I had messed this up—again.
I had been so desperate to prove I was different. So focused on showing my mother and the entire island that I could be Dragontail. That I never stopped to consider the consequences.
Whether I liked it or not, I was still heir to the throne. And the wildweavers would feast on an opportunity like this. They would peel me apart, use me to unbalance the crown, weaken the island from the inside out. They understood exactly how important a Solenhart heir was.
And I came here unshielded. Unguarded. Completely unprepared for battle. Then darkness swallowed me for a breath.
A scream tore across the cliffs.
Not human.
A dragon.
And the battle began.
From here, I couldn’t see anything, so I focused on listening, on piecing together whatever was happening outside.
I drew a breath and picked out four, maybe six different dragon growls.
Magic crashed through the air: bursts of light colliding with flames, high-velocity winds tearing across the platform.
The scent of rain and smoke seeped through the metal door.
Everyone was using their magical traces to fight the wildweavers.
But it was nearly impossible to separate the crack of magic from the screams of Dragontail students. Except for one voice, one I could always find, no matter the chaos, Lorik Draventh.
“Don’t kill the dragon, aim for the wildweaver, Ugo!” Lorik shouted.
His commands cut through everything, sharp and steady. He directed the legion with an ease that shouldn’t have been possible in the middle of a dragon assault. The legion respected him, trusted him, because he led like someone born for war.
More fire, shadow, and other magical traces crashed together just beyond the concrete walls, shielding me. Minutes stretched into hours in my hiding spot as screams tore across the battlefield outside, pulling at the instinct in me that wanted to run out there and fight those dragon feeders myself.
A violent explosion rocked the tower. Steel groaned beneath me as the whole structure swayed, and seconds later came the roar of water slamming against something massive outside. A portion of the tower had collapsed, I felt it through the floor.
I was supposed to stay hidden. Safe.
But I refused to die crushed beneath concrete, sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic.
I bolted from my hiding place and sprinted toward the swaying staircase. As I neared the metal door I’d entered through earlier, it suddenly swung open.
Rory Rey filled the frame.
Her fair skin was smeared with smoke and soot, her green uniform shredded in several places. Her expression, cold and sharp, never wavered. She didn’t show fear. She didn’t show anything.
Still, I asked, “Are you okay?”
We weren’t friends. We weren’t even allies. She’d gladly see me fail in any other circumstance. But right now, in this chaos, we were on the same side.
“No time for chitchat,” she snapped. “The tower’s falling apart. And as much as I’d prefer you buried under a few tons of concrete, I should not let you die.”
She grabbed my arm and yanked me out.
The moment we stepped onto the open terrace, the world changed.
What had been a bright blue sky earlier was now suffocated in swirling gray, a mix of dragon fire smoke, Sunheart flare, and the electric storms conjured by storm wielders.
The air stank of ozone: lightning and rain magic thick in the atmosphere.
No one was visible through the haze, not on the terrace, not in the sky, but the growls of dragons vibrated through the clouds above us.
The tower trembled again. Another strike somewhere below.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Dragon fire, it is crushing the concrete beneath us,” Rory said curtly. “Move.”
She released my arm, but her glare made it clear I was expected to follow as she led us toward the narrow metal bridge connecting our tower to the other, a half mile away.
“Where is everyone?” I pressed. “Where are we going?”
“You don’t stop talking, do you?” she muttered, irritated.
“Lorik, Ugo, and Marla are fighting in the lower terraces. We’re heading to the other tower. This one is severely damaged.”
Everything in me screamed not to trust her. But the tower beneath us shuddered again, metal groaning, and I knew staying behind wasn’t stubborn, it was suicidal. If Rory wanted me dead, she could’ve left me in the collapsing stairwell.
I stepped onto the bridge. Then another step. The world around us dissolved into smoke. I couldn’t see more than an arm’s length ahead.
The bridge swayed, but I kept my pace steady. Rory trailed close behind.
Screams and magical clashes rose from far below, sunlight blasts, shadow ruptures, dragons shrieking. It wasn’t the time to be curious, but my mind refused to stay quiet.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked, eyes fixed on the path ahead.
“I’m not helping you. I’m following orders,” she spat. “Don’t get sentimental.” “Whose orders?”
Rory hesitated. Barely a heartbeat, but enough.
“Lorik,” she said.
That stopped something in my chest. Lorik hated me. She hated me. And yet here they both were, keeping me alive.
We were nearly across the bridge when a low, guttural growl rumbled above us. A dragon. I couldn’t see it through the smoke, but the sudden gust of air from its wings brushed my face.
“Run!” Rory shouted.
We surged forward but a massive crimson shape dropped out of the sky, landing on the narrow bridge ahead. I skidded to a halt.
The dragon stood nearly twenty feet tall, wings half unfurled, its enormous weight bending the metal under it. Crimson scales glinted through the gray haze. Its talons dug into the railing. Smoke curled from its nostrils as it fixed its green eyes on me.
I froze. No step forward. No step back. Just terror locking every muscle. Then a voice cut cleanly through the air.
“So the rumors were true. A Solenhart in Dragontail.”
I looked up.
Through the smoke, a figure emerged, astride the dragon’s back. A wildweaver. I had never seen a wildweaver in my life. His eyes were the same impossible green as the beast beneath him, glowing faintly over his covered faced with a black mask. A mask with horns that hid his face completely.
He wore black leather, molded to a broad frame, and, despite the chaos around us, he sat with terrifying ease, as if the dragon belonged to him and he to it.
And he was staring right at me with interest and recognition.
“I could recognize a Solenhart anywhere,” the wildweaver said, his voice smooth and too damn sure of itself. “Your aura. Your eyes.
Your scent. Mint crushed with pine, just like every Solenhart before you. Our master will be very pleased to learn the rumors were true.”
Heat flared through my palms, fire forming on instinct. I didn’t stand a chance against a dragon, not here on a swaying bridge a hundred feet above jagged rock and deep waters, but I had nothing left to lose.
“Leave Rionis alone,” I said, forcing steadiness into a voice that wanted to shake. “We’ll walk away. You can rot in the Wastelands in peace.”
The dragon huffed, a thick plume of smoke curling into the fog.