Obsidian Sky (Riftborn #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

The sky smelled of smoke and blood. Dragons moved above the Asgar Training Academy like living storms, their wings stirring the clouds until the entire sky shook with power.

The air quivered with thunder and the scent of iron.

Thaelyn’s single braid whipped across her cheek from the wind of passing wings, her pack pressed tight against her chest.

“Squad Two, this way!” a voice barked through the crowd of cadets.

She joined the stream of recruits moving toward the stone amphitheater that crowned the mountain. Armor clattered, boots scraped, and nervous murmurs filled the air. Some recruits looked carved from confidence, others pale with fear. Thaelyn tried not to stare like a wide-eyed village girl.

The open-air arena rose like an obsidian crown cut into the peak, half-shielded by a glass dome.

The hum of old magic thrummed beneath her boots, an ancient, steady pulse that matched her heartbeat.

The mountain wind smelled of lightning and molten stone.

When she glanced up, the world seemed to tilt: dragons circled above, vast and magnificent, scales catching sunlight like shattered jewels.

Thaelyn’s stomach clenched and churned.

“Don’t faint,” said a voice beside her. “They can smell fear.”

Thaelyn blinked and turned to see a male cadet with blond hair. “Noted.”

On her right was a girl with medium olive-brown skin whose dark hair was also blowing wildly in the wind. She had sharp cheekbones and amber eyes that watched everything.

“I’m not afraid,” Thaelyn said, a touch too defensive.

Thaelyn had never seen a dragon up this close.

She recalled seeing the dragons flying high above her city when they were on patrol or if a member of the royal family was on their way to the Asgar Training Academy.

Being this close to a dragon was terrifying, given their size and untamed nature, which made her pulse race.

She hoped she would grow used to their presence and that the anxious knot in her chest would ease.

For now, she refused to look foolish in front of her new squadmates, forcing her voice to sound calm and unaffected.

“Then you’ve got the right spirit for this place.” The girl stuck out a hand towards Thaelyn. “Irielle Vale, my friends call me Iri.”

“Thaelyn Marren,” she replied, almost distracted, eyes locked on the motion in the sky. She shook Iri’s hand and turned towards the guy next to her.

A second hand was outstretched. “Rhyslan Archer, call me Rhys.”

A deep horn bellowed through the mountain, silencing all chatter. Thaelyn looked toward the platform at the arena’s center, where a lone cadet stepped forward, tall, broad-shouldered, and far too composed. The crowd hushed.

The dragons began to descend. A crimson-scaled one swept low, its wings stirring the air into a gale. Thaelyn’s knees trembled with the force of it. A green dragon spiraled above the ring, its shadow sliding over the crowd.

Commander Kieran Dareth’s voice boomed through the gallery, “Darian Vale.”

Beside her, Iri stiffened. “That’s my brother.”

Darian, a second-year student, stood expressionless and unreadable.

His movements were sharp and steady, shoulders squared in silent readiness.

Every part of him exuded control. Thaelyn’s eyes followed him.

Something about the tension in his jaw made her uneasy.

He descended the platform stairs toward the arena below.

Above, the dragons began to stir faster, shifting in spirals.

During the Kaelthir Reckoning, a dragon will select a human whom they find is worthy of them.

The dragons watch and wait for a rider to excel in some sort of elemental magic.

No one knows exactly why a dragon ultimately chooses a rider.

Being chosen by a dragon is one of the highest privileges and ranks in the royal army.

The crowd fell quiet as Darian stepped into the center of the arena.

The red dragon landed before him, claws striking sparks from the stone.

Its gaze was molten and unreadable. For a long breath, nothing happened.

For a moment, it didn’t move. The dragon finally stepped forward and let out a roar.

The crowd waited with anticipation. A flare of light bloomed in its mouth.

The dragon blew fire around Darian. Iri let out a scream.

The dragon’s fire did not touch Darian. He let out another deafening roar and then nudged Darian’s forehead with his snout.

Iri let out a strangled laugh and clutched Thaelyn’s arm. “He did it,” she breathed.

The Kaelthir was complete. Cheers erupted from the tiered terraces as cadets and instructors applauded.

Thaelyn smiled, but her attention snagged on something else, a sudden, strange stillness that rippled through the crowd like the hush before a storm.

Every spine straightened. Even the instructors went silent.

A figure stepped from the shadows of the upper stairs. Thaelyn’s breath caught.

He wore no pristine cadet uniform, only a black tunic with the sleeves rolled back, revealing cuts and scars.

Wind caught in his tousled brown hair, and his eyes, Gods, they were a piercing blue as if created from shards of ice, sea, and fire.

He carried himself like a honed warrior with nothing left to prove, as if the mountain itself stepped aside for him.

Iri’s voice lowered, suddenly more serious.

“That’s Thorne Dareth, second son of King Dareth.

He started training in military hand-to-hand combat at a very young age.

He will use his lethal skills to protect his older brother, Prince Kaen, when Kaen becomes king.

Thorne is known for being extremely cunning and ruthless.

People usually try to avoid speaking to Thorne; he’s very intense.

Cadets say he came to the training academy to face the Kaelthir, where he has a chance to bond with a dragon.

Thaelyn whispered, “I heard someone say he wasn’t offered a bond earlier today when a dragon approached him, but it just flew away. Why would he risk his life and go through the Kaelthir?”

Iri replied softly, “King Dareth expects Thorne to bond with a dragon; failing would be nearly disgraceful to him and the crown.”

Thaelyn forced her gaze forward, but curiosity gnawed at her.

There was something in the way the air bent around him, how even the dragons circling above shifted course, sensing his presence.

The next heartbeat came with a tremor. A shadow blotted out the sun.

The world seemed to hold its breath. The sky split with a roar that shook every bone in Thaelyn’s body.

The dragon that descended was unlike the others.

He was massive, with scales streaked with threads of red fire.

The air turned heavy, electric. Thaelyn could barely breathe.

The wind shifted violently, as if in warning.

Overhead, the enormous shadow passed over the glass ceiling of the arena.

The other dragons moved away as if they were bowing in respect.

They moved to a higher range and then reformed.

The arena grew darker and quieter, despite the thousands of initiates and cadets watching from the terraces.

Thorne stepped into the center of the ring.

His jaw was tight, and his face was pale due to the bruising that darkened his cheeks from the series of trials that day.

He wore no armor or visible weapons, just the silent expectation of a bloodline soaked in legacy.

He was visibly letting out big breaths of air as if he were trying to calm his mind.

The light in the sky above went completely black.

A sound rumbled over the mountaintop. It was low and boomed like thunder.

A set of enormous wings spread wide like the horizon was ripping open.

Vornokh. No one had seen the massive ancient dragon for a century.

Dark black scales covered him, ridged and scarred by old wars.

He spiraled downward, and the winds lashed the trees along the cliffs.

Vornokh descended like judgment itself. He landed so hard that the ground cracked beneath his claws.

He was utterly massive compared to the other dragons.

When he rose, he stood almost as tall as the highest building.

His wings snapped inward with a sound that vibrated in every chest watching from above. Tension was felt throughout the arena.

Thorne didn’t flinch, but his breathing deepened.

His lip was swollen and bloody from the day’s trials, yet he held his gaze.

He recalled the words of the trial: “If a dragon comes before you in the Kaelthir and doesn’t complete the Reckoning, you will fall.

” He had seen it happen with other cadets.

Some were burned alive by the dragon as a sign of rejection, and others met their deaths as a sign of not being able to withstand the bonding process.

Thorne shifted slightly, sucking in a broken breath.

The Reckoning had begun. Thorne felt an excruciating pain in his chest. It sharpened and intensified with each moment.

He could feel his ribs cracking, and his lungs were burning.

His own spirit was being pressed against by a force older than the mountains.

It was a storm tearing through every layer of fear, pride, and weakness.

Someone in the crowd motioned for him to move, to run before the dragon killed him.

He didn’t move. Instead, Thorne lifted his chin high.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

He whispered something. Not loud, nor desperate.

Just a breath of defiance carried by the wind.

“I was born for this.”

One of Thorne’s legs trembled from injury and exhaustion.

He nearly collapsed. The light in his pale blue eyes began to fade.

Thaelyn saw a flicker of something almost vulnerable in the line of his shoulders.

A flicker of possible defeat, perhaps. The dragon did not move.

It let out a large breath as if it were still making a decision. The wind howled louder.

Thorne knelt on one knee. It was not a plea.

It was a statement. He stayed perfectly still.

That was when Vornokh moved. The great dragon stepped forward, and the ground shook.

The cadets gasped, fear rippling through the crowd.

Vornokh stopped several feet in front of Thorne.

He was so massive that even from the stands, Thaelyn and the other cadets could feel the pressure of the dragon's movements and its hot breathing.

One moment passed, and then another. The dragon surged forward, growling low as he reached Thorne.

To continue the Kaelthir with an ancient dragon would be agony; to resist would be death.

In a regular dragon Kaelthir, a cadet could collapse under the weight of it, their heart could stop beating by the sheer force of the bond.

If Thorne’s soul held, if the spirit endured, Vornokh would next extend his mind, a bridge across the Kael, the narrow crossing to reach the Thir, the sacred oath.

The binding was not spoken in human tongue, but written in magical fire across the marrow of the bond, and the flesh of a human would sear.

Thorne shifted slightly, sucking in a broken breath. The Reckoning had begun. Thorne stood in the dragon’s shadow, and the faint tremor of exhaustion in his stance was the only proof he was human. The wind tore at his hair. Smoke coiled from the cracks in the arena floor.

Vornokh’s chest expanded. A growl rolled out, low and terrible.

Run, every instinct screamed inside of him.

Thorne didn’t. Instead, Thorne lifted his chin high.

Blood continued to spill from the corner of his mouth.

He whispered something. Not loud, nor desperate.

Just a breath of defiance. The wind carried Thorne’s words for all to hear.

“I’m ready.”

Vornokh lowered his massive head until his snout hovered inches from Thorne’s forehead.

Thorne’s eyes barely flickered open. Their gazes locked.

Time stilled. A pulse of bright light erupted between them.

It was not just a light, it was the ancient flames.

The force of it blew outward, sending cadets tumbling down, banners tore, and flags ignited in fire along the edges of the arena.

The air crackled with heat and something older, deeper.

Thaelyn felt the pressure of the magic pressing against her skin. It was suffocating, ancient, a force that reached into her lungs and demanded she watch.

Thorne took a step forward, and the moment stretched.

The dragon exhaled another blast of magical, searing fire.

The fire that burst between them wasn’t just flames of dragonfire.

It was something older that rose up, black, silver, and red all at once, as if it rewrote the very fabric of the world.

A shockwave tore through the arena, knocking Thaelyn backward.

She threw up an arm to shield her eyes as heat seared across the stands.

Runes carved into the stone circle blazed alive beneath the dragon’s feet.

Fire licked through the air like veins of starlight.

The mark of the dragon was on fire all around Thorne.

It burned fire across Thorne’s chest, down his right arm, and across his entire back.

He was completely engulfed in flames. The Thir was happening.

When the light finally dimmed, Thorne was still standing. Barely.

Smoke rose from his skin. A burning sigil stretched down his body, glowing like molten lava. His chest heaved, eyes wide and wild, and then, slowly, he lifted his hand. The dragon bowed its head and nudged Thorne’s forehead.

Thaelyn’s heart pounded so hard it hurt. Something deep inside her shivered in response. She didn’t know why and didn’t understand it.

Iri whispered, “He just changed everything.”