THIRTY #2
“My theory is simple. The world doesn’t create something this rare unless it has to. The last time the Unmaking rose, it took a bond like this to seal it away. Now it stirs again. The bond reawakens. Cause and effect.”
A beat.
“You didn’t wake something, Amara. Something woke you.”
He glances toward the shelves lining his quarters, then turns to Thane.
“I don’t speak from experience, Thane. I’ve never seen this before. But some of what I’ve read, others have refused to believe. Stories buried in pre-Fire Era records. Magics don’t create something from nothing—it answers imbalance. That’s the pattern I’ve followed.”
He pauses.
“You’ve studied war. I’ve studied what comes before war.”
Thane nods, absorbing it.
“If you’re certain,” he says, “then we move forward from that truth. Let’s see what we can do proactively.”
An hour later, I’m standing with Valen on the training field, Calryx just behind me, her breath warm against my back.
Thane had to meet with the council to discuss the attack. He said the Spymaster, Malek, had brought new information forward. Something urgent.
That left me here.
Valen said we couldn’t wait. That I needed to begin learning how to channel from Calryx without burning out.
The sun hangs low over the training field, casting long shadows across the packed earth. Calryx waits nearby, her wings folded neatly, her eyes tracking my every move.
Valen stands beside me, arms crossed.
“Before we begin,” he says, “you need to understand what happens when you channel.”
I glance at him, already tense.
“You felt it yesterday when you tried to take too much. That pressure, the way it builds. That’s imbalance.”
He steps in front of me, tone measured but firm.
“Channeling through a dragon is unlike any other form of magics. It isn’t casting. It isn’t summoning. It’s a conduit. The power flows through you, but it isn’t yours. If you try to take too much, or hold it too long, you lose the ability to release it safely.”
He meets my eyes.
“That’s burnout.”
I nod slowly.
“But that’s not the worst of it.”
His gaze shifts to Calryx.
“Because when you draw from her, you’re not just borrowing her strength. You’re opening a channel. If that bond destabilizes while magics are passing through it, the backlash doesn’t stop with you.”
A pause.
“If you burn out, you risk dragging Calryx with you.”
The words hit hard.
I look over my shoulder. At the steady rise and fall of her breath. The gleam of intelligence in her eyes. The sheer presence of her.
My dragon. My partner.
She didn’t choose this bond lightly, and gods help me, I won’t be the one to break it.
I nod, jaw tight.
“We start with connection,” Valen says. “Not power. Feel her. Let her feel you. The dragon-rider bond won’t carry what it doesn’t trust.”
I close my eyes and Calryx’s presence is immediate. Vast. Coiled like a storm behind glass.
“I’m here,” I send through the bond.
Her response comes like a rush of wind in my mind. “And I am with you. But do not reach for control. Ask.”
I blow out a breath, remembering how I grabbed for the power during the ball. It surged through me with such staggering force, I felt as though I was being ripped apart from the inside.
This isn’t about dominance. It’s about alignment.
“Will you lend me your strength?” I ask.
There’s a pause.
Then warmth.
Pressure.
The pulse of fire and air coils through the tether between us. My body responds instantly. My skin prickles. My heartbeat stutters.
It feels like too much, too fast. Heat presses against the inside of my ribs. Air rushes through my limbs.
I grit my teeth. My knees buckle.
Calryx roars behind me, loud enough to rattle my bones.
The sound crashes through me like lightning, cutting through the haze of power gathering inside me. Through the bond, she feels the strain building before I do.
The warning is enough.
Instinct takes over and I sever the channel. The power tears away in a rush. I stagger back, lungs burning.
I turn around, still catching my breath. “Thank you,” I murmur, a slight tremor in my voice. “I needed that.”
She huffs, a sharp gust of air that lifts the hair off my neck. Worry crackles through the bond, sharp and undeniable.
“Alright, alright,” I say, dragging a hand through my hair. “I know. It’s just . . . a lot. I’m doing my best, Your Majesty,” I grumble. “Some of us are still mortal.”
A low rumble echoes through my mind, dry amusement threaded with affection. The feeling grazes my thoughts, warm and reassuring despite the power beneath it.
“Even humans can be trained. Eventually.”
The panic from earlier hasn’t fully faded, but the weight of it eases enough for me to breathe again.
“Eventually,” I echo through the bond.
Valen steps forward from where he’s been watching, hands clasped behind his back.
“That connection,” he says, nodding toward Calryx, “didn’t simply reject you. It corrected you.”
I look at him, still catching my breath. “Because I pulled too hard.”
“Partly,” he says. “But it was more than that. It wasn’t resistance. It was a disruption of rhythm.”
He stops a few paces away, gaze narrowing with thought.
“You reached before you listened. You tried to take before the bond had settled into balance.”
He pauses, to let the words fall with the weight they carry.
“But when you stopped, when you breathed, that moment just before the roar, you weren’t fighting it. You were close.”
He looks between us.
“You’re not meant to control it. You’re meant to move with it. And when you learn how . . . ” He pauses. “It won’t just keep you from burning out.”
Another pause.
“It will let you become something this world hasn’t seen in an age.”
The words settle in my chest. Not as a burden, but as a truth I am finally beginning to step into.
Inevitable.
As if the world has quietly shifted around me, and there is no putting it back the way it was.
Slowly, I let a breath release and step back into position. The bond is still open. Calryx waits, present, patient, watching.
“Again,” I tell her.
This time, I don’t rush.
I reach. Not with effort, but with care, with intention. The power meets me halfway. A flicker of heat. The press of wind curling around my shoulders. It surges into me, but not like before. Less like a wave crashing, more like a current rising underfoot.
I brace, legs planted, and draw it in one thread at a time. The tension builds, but it doesn’t overwhelm.
“Good,” Calryx says. “You’re learning.”
Valen watches, saying nothing, but I feel his attention sharpen.
The wind lifts at my back. Sparks gather at my fingertips. This time, I don’t fight it. I breathe into it. And hold.
Then a thought catches at the edge of my awareness, quick and sharp. Valen’s words echo in my mind: something the world hasn’t seen in an age.
The weight of them slips through me, just enough to shake the rhythm. I lose focus. Just for a breath.
And the magics surge.
“Too much,” Valen says sharply. “Don’t pull. Regulate. Let her give.”
I try to suppress it, but the pressure builds. My breath catches.
“Stop,” Calryx says, her voice edged now. “You’re still grasping. Breathe.”
I release the channel in a gasp, staggering back. The magics drops away, leaving a hollow ache behind.
Valen steps forward, handing me a flask of water.
“That was nearing burnout,” he says. “Again. Slower this time.”
I nod, my jaw tight. After taking a long sip, I hand it back and try again. Valen retreats a few paces, giving me space.
“If you are ready,” Calryx whispers, “then open yourself.”
I let the bond remain open. Let the magics come to me. It hums through my chest, warm, unwavering, but restrained. A shared current instead of a flood.
I don’t force it. I shape it. Let it move where it will.
Wind rustles at my back. My skin tingles, not with sparks this time, but with a low thrumming glow that pulses below the surface.
“Good.” Valen raises his voice. “Now hold. No more pulling. Just hold.”
The magics stabilize, dancing just beneath my skin. I’m sweating, my breathing shallow, but I’m standing.
Calryx’s pride thrums across the bond.
“This is only the beginning,” she says, satisfaction coloring her voice.
And I believe her.
We continue, again and again. Sometimes I pull too much. Sometimes everything clicks.
After an hour of practice, the magics begins to rise at a thought, like an old friend answering a call. It still demands my focus, but it no longer steals every ounce of it.
When we finally pause, the silence feels different.
Earned.