30. Eradin
CHAPTER THIRTY
ERADIN
The mist didn’t make sound the way sound was supposed to work.
It bypassed my ears and dove straight into bone. The vibration crawled up through my jaw and settled behind my teeth until they ached. My skull wanted to crack open to let the pressure out.
The commons dragons felt it worse.
Reece’s dragon reared, its wings snapping wide, talons gouging at air.
The blue scarf around his wrist caught on a stalagmite jutting up from the water.
The fabric pulled taut.
Reece turned, realizing what was happening. Horror flared in his eyes, and he tugged, trying to pull the scarf free. The mist surged toward them, eager to bite.
I cued Selira hard left, my thighs clamping, my weight shifting before my brain caught up. She tucked her wings and dove so steep my stomach tried to stay behind.
A creature in pain doesn’t care about your fear. It only knows its own. My mother’s voice echoed in my mind. I’d heard it while standing over a trapped dragon in the elite forest with the bonewailer screaming not far away. I heard it now the same way.
Reece’s fear was loud enough to feel the scrape of it across my skin. It would kill him faster than the mist would.
I started humming. Just a thread of sound, barely audible over the wind.
Selira responded before I’d finished the first note. Her awareness flooded through the bond, a focus so sharp it cut. She’d heard my mother’s tune before, when I’d released her from the trap and treated her wound and inside the cave. She knew what it meant.
Trust me.
We cut between Reece’s dragon and the mist tendril reaching for it.
Our wings nearly touched. I smelled the fear-sweat on Reece’s dragon’s hide. The creature jerked sideways, away from us and the mist.
Good, Selira said, satisfaction humming through the bond. Song works on broken things.
“Not broken. Surviving.”
Same thing, she sent back, but gentler.
Reece’s scarf tore free.
It fluttered down in lazy spirals, blue against silver-black, landing on the lake’s surface. Silver liquid lapped at it. The fabric dissolved, erased.
Reece’s face slackened.
He knew what I’d done, that I’d seen the disaster coming and moved without asking. His wife’s scarf was gone now, dissolved by a mist that ate everything it touched. There would be no getting it back.
My chest caved in. That scarf had been his wife’s heartbeat in fabric form, the only thing tethering him to home while we flew through death.
And I’d saved him by destroying it.
I saw what I’d cost him on his face and in his eyes. The scarf had been a promise he’d carried that he’d bring something of himself back to her. That if he died, at least she’d have the fabric he’d touched. The last thing that connected them.
His throat worked, and he looked away first.
We flew up toward the ceiling, darting toward the distant shore.
Lyndie swooped in close, her dragon moving with a precision that didn’t match the bumbling commons rider act she’d been performing. Hidden skill bled through when she thought no one was counting.
I was counting.
She banked her dragon right, tracking something in the water I couldn’t see, aiming for a section of lake that looked darker than the rest.
Reece’s dragon lurched sideways, the scarred creature’s damaged wing catching a downdraft wrong. They dropped toward the mist layer again.
“Pull up,” I shouted, knowing he couldn’t hear me over the screams from dragons and elite riders alike.
He’d latched onto the reins and sawed them. Light flickered along the straps. The mist surged toward the magic. Reece’s face blanched as he understood what he’d done. He’d just painted a target on his dragon’s hide.
The dragon’s wings beat frantically, trying to climb, but the mist was faster. Silver-gray tendrils strained toward the creature’s hind legs.
“Drop the reins,” I screamed.
He couldn’t hear me. Or he did and fear overrode instinct, because his hands stayed locked on the leather, pulling harder.
The rune-magic flared brighter.
Mist spiked toward him.
I banked Selira hard, urging her to dive toward them again. “Fucking let go of the reins or you’re going to die!”
His mouth dropped open, but he let the reins go slack. They fluttered along the dragon’s neck before dropping down, dangling toward the lake.
The mist hesitated, its tendrils loosening enough for Reece’s dragon to surge upward, his wings beating at a feverish pace. They climbed free.
Relief crashed through me so hard my vision blurred. He’d trusted me and dropped the reins the way Fenian had, the way I’d been flying with Selira since the cave.
Something that started with a crown prince was rippling outward, changing how we all flew.
Goosebumps rose across my skin in a quick wave.
A price would be paid, and I suspected I would be the one bearing this cost.
But Mother would’ve made the same choice. She’d healed people who couldn’t pay, who didn’t even thank her, solely because she couldn’t watch them die.
“Stay close to me,” I shouted at both him and Lyndie. “Watch where I fly. The mist follows patterns.”
Lyndie’s gaze fell on my hands where the lines flared bright. “You can see them.”
“Selira can.” I pressed my palms against her neck, warmth flooding through the bond. “We can.”
Deaths came in waves I stopped counting. Wings locked mid-beat, riders screaming as stone spread faster than thought. A full team tried retreating. The lake swallowed them before they reached the initial shore.
I kept flying because stopping meant joining them.
“We’re not dying today.”
Selira’s response was wordless, fierce. No. Today we fly.
Wild dragons didn’t waste energy on fear. They flew until they couldn’t, then they died flying.
Selira’s awareness changed, and I saw through her eyes for one instant before I was yanked back into myself again.
Safe paths existed, narrow strips of dead water where the mist didn’t go, where something underneath had already fed and moved on.
But they shifted, following patterns I couldn’t quite make out.
The red lines across my palms glowed brighter, warmth flooding through me and into her. I was either giving her something or she was pulling it from me.
It didn’t matter. We moved together.
Fenian waited with Aristus on the other side of the lake. Even from a distance, I felt his attention lock onto the glow.
He’d seen.
The red lines weren’t subtle anymore. They blazed bright enough anyone glancing my way would know this wasn’t dye or the hands of a woman who had worked hard all her life.
He knew I was different. He’d known since the garden, maybe. Since the kitchen.
And he hadn’t reported me.
Get us out of here, I shouted to Selira in my mind.
If she could navigate the shifting safe zones, I could lead my team through. Give them a chance when the alternative was death.
“Dead water left,” I shouted, pointing. “Three lengths. Bank right at the stalagmite!”
Lyndie’s dragon shot in that direction.
The rest of us followed.
Halfway across, she met my gaze.
Selira’s wings beat smoothy. She knew where to go the way I knew how to breathe.
Exhaustion bled through the bond, hers and mine tangled together. Cold bit through my damp leathers, settling in my spine and every place where warmth was supposed to live. Her muscles strained under my thighs, each wingbeat taking more effort than the last.
The red glow faded from my palms.
Reece flew behind me, and I kept looking back, making sure he was with me. His dragon flew rough, the damaged wing making his course crooked. The creature’s breathing stuttered on every third beat.
Reaching the distant shore, we flew through a narrow tunnel, emerging at another long stretch of dark beach. Selira’s talons crunched on sand when we landed. My legs shook when I slid off her back, and I barely caught myself before my knees gave out.
Around us, elites rested.
Fenian stood among them. Seeing me, he started in my direction, only to have Lady Severine grab his arm and drag him around to face her. She waved her arms in the air and spoke, though she was too far away to hear.
Selira’s exhaustion crashed through the bond, deeper than muscle-tired. Bone-tired. Soul-tired. But underneath it, fierce pride.
We flew. We led. We lived.
“Yes.” I leaned my forehead against her neck, breathing in her cinnamon-smoke scent. “You were perfect.”
Alive. Her amusement flickered. Better than perfect.
Lyndie had landed her dragon nearby, and her face was pale but composed. Her dragon’s sides heaved, foam flecking its mouth.
Reece dismounted and stood beside his dragon, staring at his hands like they belonged to someone else. Then he ripped off the harness and threw it away.
Yes.
A cavern opened ahead of us, wider than the one we’d left. Faelights floated across the ceiling, illuminating what waited.
Another lake.
It didn’t register at first. My brain saw the silver expanse stretching ahead and tried to tell me we’d somehow circled back, that this was the same lake. We’d failed without knowing it. But the shore behind us was gone. The tunnel had sealed closed the moment we’d passed through.
Only forward existed now.
This lake appeared larger. Wider. The silver surface held the same delayed reflection, shapes moving beneath that were too big to be anything but the bringers of death.
Elite teams clustered near the shore, their dragons pawing at the black sand, riders arguing in tight clusters. One team had already tried to retreat. Their dragons’ claw marks scarred the sand leading back the way we’d come, ending at a solid stone wall.
No way out but across.
Fenian snarled at Vella Severine and left her sputtering, going to Aristus, though not before glancing at me. He stroked Aristus’s snout. The black dragon’s sides bellowed, his wings trembling with exhaustion.
Lady Severine followed him, her lifted voice carrying across the shore. “You removed your dragon’s tack in front of everyone. Do you understand what you’ve done? Your mother will—”
“I don’t fucking care,” he snapped.
She reached for his arm, but he stepped back.
Her hand fell, her expression cycling through shock, fury, and grief-tinged calculation. “You’ve ruined everything.”
She turned away, her posture rigid. He’d destroyed something between them that couldn’t be rebuilt. Whatever alliance they’d had, political, personal, or both, he’d chosen Aristus over it.
The gap between us felt smaller than it ever had.
Lady Severine angled her path to pass close to where I sat huddled against Selira’s side.
As she drew level with my left leg, a sharp charge filled the air—the localized, prickling heat of an elite magic spike.
She didn’t even look at me, but the malice landed with a physical weight.
She was aiming for my burned boot, intending to make the blisters from the fire maze deliver fresh agony.
I braced myself, my muscles locking as I waited for the sear.
It never arrived. Instead, a wave of biting, glacial cold washed over my ankle. I gasped, looking down as a dusting of blue-tinted frost erupted across the black sand, encircling my foot in a protective ring.
The lady’s boot hit the slick surface and her foot slid sideways. She let out a cry, her arms spiraling before she managed to steady herself. Her face went from pale to crimson as she hurried toward the elite area without looking back.
Fenian glared her way while the scent of his magic hung in the air.
“We’re not crossing that.” Lady Severine pointed at the second lake, hovering on her toes, ready to bolt. “It’s suicide.”
“She can stay here by herself, then,” Reece said, a touch of humor in his eyes. “We’ll take her dragon with us, though. She seems nice enough.”
My snort rang out, but I muffled it with a hand over my mouth.
Selira rose onto her haunches. She wasn’t asking if we’d fly. She was confirming when.
An official’s voice boomed across the cavern, magically amplified. “Ten-minute rest period. Then the first trial resumes.”
Ten minutes before we flew into death again.
Fenian glanced my way.
Staying with Selira would be wisest. I could check my supplies. Do literally anything that wasn’t walking toward the crown prince in front of everyone.
My feet moved anyway.
The sand crunched under my boots, each step taking me farther from smart choices and closer to whatever this was between us. Elite riders tracked my movement, their whispers starting before I’d made it halfway.
I didn’t care.
Fenian’s jaw was still tight when I stopped in front of him. That tell I’d learned to read. Except now I knew it meant he was fighting something he wanted to say.
“You dropped your reins,” I said.
“You led your team through a death trap.” His voice rasped. “We’re both doing things we shouldn’t.”
The space between us vibrated with everything we couldn’t say in front of the crowd.
“Your mother’s going to kill you,” I said.
“Probably.” Something that wasn’t quite a smile pulled at his mouth. “It’s worth it.”
Aristus shifted behind him, and Selira’s attention sharpened through the bond. The two dragons were watching each other the way Fenian and I were.
“The second lake’s bigger,” I said, because one of us had to remember we were about to die.
“I noticed.”
“You should stay toward the center. The mist rises from the edges first.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Giving me advice now?”
“Keeping you alive. Someone has to.”
The almost-smile became real, crooked and brief and completely devastating. “Then I guess we’re even.”
We weren’t. We never would be. He’d killed for me, given me supplies, and defended my registration in front of his mother.
But I’d just walked across sand to make sure he knew I’d noticed.
“I saw what you did. You let Aristus choose.”
Warmth flickered in his eyes. “You sound like you approve.”
“I do.” Acknowledging that an elite had done something right cost me something, but this was also another price I was willing to pay. “He flies better without the control.”
“So does Selira with you.” His throat worked. “I’ve been watching as well.”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“Aristus used to move that way with me, before…” His jaw tightened. “Before I forgot what trust felt like.”
The admission hung between us. He’d just given me something he probably hadn’t even admitted to himself.
An ache settled in my chest.
“Keep Aristus close. Don’t…” I swallowed. “Don’t lose him.”
I knew what it would do to Fenian if he did. I’d seen it in his face every time he looked at his dragon.
“I won’t.” His voice went rough. “Thanks to you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You showed me what I couldn’t see.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and turned to go.
“Eradin.”
I looked back.
“Fly well,” he said. “Fly like no one’s watching.”
“Everyone’s watching.”
“Then give them something to see.”
I walked back to Selira, my hands trembling, my heart throbbing in a complicated, painful way.
This wasn’t just about survival anymore.