Weightless on the Wind

Chapter 30.

The wind cut sharp against her cheeks as Aeliana sprinted the last incline of the path, boots slipping slightly on frost-laced stone.

Her breath came in even puffs, misting in the cold morning air.

Each step pounded in rhythm with the steady beat of her heart — faster, stronger than it had been weeks ago.

She reached the plateau just as the sun crested the horizon, casting the training fields in gold and fire. The sky above the Vale burned with early light, and for a moment, she let herself breathe — really breathe — and took it in.

The dragons were still quiet. A few dark shapes circled far above, barely visible, but her own trio remained silent for now. Watching. Waiting.

Her muscles ached, but it was a satisfying kind of ache — the result of movement, of strength returning day by day. The scar tissue in her right arm pulled when she stretched, but it no longer throbbed. Elira had been right. It would take time. But she was getting there.

And she didn't stop.

After the run, she returned to her room, changed quickly, and reported to the training room as the rest of her squad began trickling in.

Varrin didn't speak when she arrived — just nodded once and gestured for her to warm up.

The squad still didn't quite look at her. The distance hadn't shrunk, not really. But they didn't look all that disgusted anymore, either.

Progress.

The drills began before the sun had fully risen, and they didn't let up. Varrin shouted corrections, demanded precision. When she misstepped, he had her run the sequence again. When she landed a hit, he made her do it better. When she lost footing, he made her start over.

"Again," he snapped as she faltered in the new footwork combination. "You're not dragging that right side anymore. No excuses."

She grit her teeth and reset her stance.

They trained for an hour. Then another.

By the end of the session, her shirt clung to her back, her arms ached, and the bruises had already started to bloom.

But Varrin only looked at her once — a brief glance after her final sparring match — and said, "Better."

She wasn't sure if that meant good enough.

But it meant something.

~

Aeliana's hands flexed inside her gloves as she stood at the edge of the auxiliary flight cliff, her boots toeing the worn stone where dozens of cadets had launched before her.

The late-morning sun broke clean and bright across the sky, though the wind still had bite to it, tugging strands of hair loose from her braid.

Professor Kaori stood a few paces back, arms crossed, his expression impassive as always — but sharper today. More watchful.

"Let's see it again," he said. "From the hover hold into a descending spiral. Maintain the centerline this time."

Virvolior crouched behind her, his wings twitching with anticipation. There was an energy between them now — more than before. She could feel him almost before he moved. Not just the weight of him, but the intent.

I'm ready when you are, he said simply.

She nodded and mounted quickly, strapping in. The harness clicked into place, and then — with the briefest pulse of strength — Virvolior leapt from the cliff.

The wind caught them instantly.

She braced her knees, leaned slightly with the rise of his wings, and held.

They hovered — not perfectly, but more stable than last week.

Below, Kaori didn't even flinch at the gust their wings kicked up as they hung suspended in the air.

Aeliana eased into the shallow spiral, letting her weight shift into the turn the way Liam had shown her. Her left side still complained at the pull, but it didn't falter.

Not this time.

They completed the maneuver — wide at first, then tighter — and Virvolior pulled into a slow, controlled glide toward the cliff.

They landed clean.

Professor Kaori raised an eyebrow. "Better."

Aeliana exhaled, heart pounding.

"Now again," he said, tilting his head toward the sky. "But I want a steeper drop before the pull-up. Let the descent work with you."

She turned toward Virvolior, gave a nod, and they launched again.

Three more runs. Each one harder than the last.

By the fourth, her arms ached from holding balance and leaning jnto the turn. Her thighs trembled with the effort of staying flush with the dragon's spine.

Kaori didn't praise, didn't smile — but she saw him take a note as she landed the final spiral with cleaner timing than ever before.

"That's enough," he said finally. "You're improving. Keep practicing your timing — especially on the pivot turns. You're hesitating at the crest."

"Understood," she said, breathless.

He gave a final glance at Virvolior — something unreadable in his expression — and turned, cloak flaring as he walked off toward the path down the cliffs.

A voice reached her mind almost immediately.

He's impressed, Virvolior said. But he won't admit it.

She grinned tiredly and slid down from his shoulder. That makes two of you.

"That looked good," came another voice.

She turned.

Liam stood with Deigh at the treeline, arms crossed, watching her with an easy smile. His red Daggertail rumbled beside him, one eye lazily half-closed.

"You were smooth in the air," he said, walking forward. "Especially on that last spiral."

"I was less terrible," she countered, wiping sweat from her brow. "Not quite smooth."

He shrugged. "You didn't clip a wing on landing this time. I'm calling that a win."

She snorted. "Barely."

Liam nudged her shoulder lightly. "You'll get there. Kaori pushes hard, but it means he thinks you're worth the effort."

Virvolior huffed behind her. I've been telling her that for days.

Deigh made a sound halfway between a grunt and a snore, and Liam gave his dragon an affectionate pat. "We'll be flying drills this evening. Want to watch?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "If I can stand by then."

Liam grinned. "That's the spirit."

~

The sun had long since dipped behind the mountains by the time Aeliana made her way back up the narrow trail that led beyond the auxiliary cliffs. The air was colder now — sharper. Thin wisps of fog clung to the tree line, curling between roots like ghosts.

But she wasn't cold.

Not when three dragon minds hummed at the edge of her thoughts — a chorus of warmth and power, woven so tightly together that it was hard to tell where one ended and the next began.

Virvolior was waiting when she reached the crest.

Giollis and Daennia stood beside him.

Together, they looked like sentinels carved from moonlight. Each distinct in posture and energy — Giollis more watchful, his shoulders squared and wings slightly open as though ever on guard. Daennia more relaxed, her head tilted curiously, silver-flecked eyes tracking Aeliana's every step.

You came back, Daennia said, her tone soft and pleased.

"Of course I did," Aeliana murmured, brushing a hand down the side of Virvolior's foreleg as she passed. "You don't just... walk away from something like this."

Virvolior's tail flicked, a subtle signal of agreement.

She stepped into the clearing and sat cross-legged on a protruding rock, boots soaked from the snow the ground was covered in.

What do you want to know? Giollis asked after a beat of silence.

Aeliana looked up slowly. "Everything."

Daennia shifted, curling her tail tighter around herself like a cat. The Valaari are old, she said. Older than your Empire. Older than Aretia, Poromiel, and even the first Riders.

We flew when the world still bled magic freely, Giollis added. When dragons weren't bound by alliances or quadrants or war.

Aeliana's brow furrowed. "Then why bond with riders at all?"

Virvolior's voice was quiet. Because the world changed. And we changed with it.

Daennia's wings rustled. Not all of us agreed. Some of our kind vanished into the wilds. Some refused to bond at all. Some— Her eyes flicked toward the stars above. —forgot what it meant to care for anything other than power.

"But you didn't," Aeliana said.

Giollis lowered his head. We remembered what it meant to choose.

For a while, none of them spoke. Aeliana let their words settle deep in her bones — the weight of them, the quiet sadness that lingered beneath.

Then Virvolior shifted slightly, angling his gaze down toward her. You were alone for a long time, he said. But you're not anymore.

Aeliana looked at each of them — their massive forms silhouetted by starlight, gold eyes glowing faintly.

She swallowed hard. "I don't know how to be all of this," she admitted. "A rider. Your rider. I feel like I'm just pretending most days."

Giollis exhaled through his nostrils. Pretending doesn't win battles.

But pretending doesn't matter if you keep showing up, Daennia said gently.

Virvolior lowered his head until it hovered just above hers.

You're not pretending anymore.

Her chest tightened, a knot of something unnameable pressing against her ribs.

Then — slowly — she reached out and placed one hand on his jaw.

She sat with that for a moment — the weight of it, and the strange relief of it.

Then the quiet shifted.

Not uncomfortably. Just — intentionally. The way a room changes when someone who has been waiting finally decides to speak.

We need to discuss what comes next, Giollis said.

Aeliana looked up.

The three of them had changed their posture almost imperceptibly — Giollis drawing his wings tighter, Daennia lifting her head, Virvolior's tail stilling against the snow. Something about it felt like a council convening. Old, and deliberate, and unhurried.

What has happened here, Giollis continued, has not happened before. Not in any memory we carry. Not in any record older than your Empire's founding.

"Three bonds," Aeliana said quietly.

Three bonds to one rider. Daennia's voice was careful. It is not that it was forbidden. It was simply... not believed possible. The quadrant was built on the assumption of one. Every law, every structure, every formation — all of it rests on that assumption.

Which means, Virvolior said, that there is no existing framework for what you are.

Aeliana didn't answer. She turned that over slowly, the way she turned over problems she didn't yet have the language for.

Navarre will not understand it, Giollis said. And what Navarre does not understand, it moves to contain. Or erase.

A beat of silence passed between the three of them — something unspoken threading through it, older than words.

You will fly with only Virvolior for now, Daennia said at last. Not a suggestion.

Simply a truth that had already been arrived at, somewhere between them, before tonight.

Your squadleader has not yet cleared you for formation flight.

The rest of the quadrant has not seen Virvolior.

That is not a complication — it is a gift. Use it.

Aeliana frowned slightly. "And the two of you?"

We will not be seen, Giollis said. We are Valaari. Invisibility is not a burden — it is a choice we have made before, and will make again. His pale eyes moved to hers. Your bond with us does not require the world to witness it. It requires only that you do.

Build your hours, Daennia continued.

Progress through what Kaori demands. Earn your place in formation on Virvolior's back, until no one can question your right to be in the sky.

Her voice dropped, thoughtful. When the time comes for the rest to be known — and it will come, we do not doubt that — you must already be standing on ground no one can take from you.

Aeliana was quiet for a long moment. "You've thought about this."

We have had centuries to think about many things, Virvolior said dryly. We thought about this before we ever landed.

The world is not ready, Giollis said. And you are not yet ready for the world to be unready. Those are different problems, and they require different timing.

There was a weight to it — not unkind, not bleak. Just true, in the way that only very old things could be true without apology.

"And my friends?" Aeliana asked. "Liam. Ridoc." A pause. "Garrick."

The three dragons exchanged something — not words exactly, but a current that ran between them like a shared breath.

Not yet, Virvolior said finally.

Trust is earned slowly and broken quickly, Daennia added, gentle but firm. The ones who care for you are not the threat. But secrets carried by many become secrets no longer. For now, this belongs only to the four of us.

Aeliana nodded once, slowly.

It should have felt like loss, maybe. Like being handed a beautiful thing and told to keep it wrapped in the dark until the moment was right.

But it didn't.

It felt like strategy. Like the patience she'd learned in six years of waiting for a life that was hers.

She could wait a little longer.

Good, Virvolior said, as if he had heard the whole of it.

~

The sun hadn't yet risen high enough to warm the stone when Aeliana reached the Parapet.

She stood in silence at the edge, arms loose at her sides, jacket unzipped just enough to let the wind catch her collar. The cold bit at her cheeks. The gorge before her yawned wide and familiar — not just a test of courage anymore, but a line she had once claimed as her own.

You've walked this path before, Virvolior said, not quite a question.

I lived here, Aeliana thought. After Threshing, when no one wanted me. When I didn't even want myself.

She stepped closer to the edge, her boots landing with that steady scrape that used to soothe her nerves. "I used to train here," she said aloud. "Fighting drills. Balance. Sometimes just to breathe."

She'd fought on this strip of stone. Danced across it with fists raised, boots pivoting inches from death. It had been her arena when the world offered none. A place where no one could follow — not without fear. Not without the same steel she'd been forced to sharpen in her bones.

But she hadn't returned since that night.

Since Violet's scream had split the dark and Aeliana had run — not across the Parapet, but toward that sound.

Since the blood on her sleeve, slick and hot, had soaked into the stones.

Since her arm had been nearly ruined.

You've been avoiding it, Daennia whispered, her voice like a breeze through pine.

Aeliana nodded once. I didn't want to see where I used to be strong.

A beat passed, then Giollis spoke — low, quiet, solid as the cliffs themselves. Then come see who you are now.

Her breath caught. She looked out at the narrow bridge — not with fear, but reverence.

Then she stepped forward.

The wind didn't howl like it used to. It sang. And she moved in rhythm with it.

Not fast. Not slow.

Balanced.

Sure.

She crossed halfway and pivoted — just like she'd done dozens of times before — her boots light on the stone. Her body remembered the motion. The angles. The stillness beneath movement.

The difference now was the presence at her back. Three dragons — three heartbeats threading through her own — watching, steady, patient.

When she stepped off the far edge, back onto solid ground, a strange warmth bloomed in her chest.

"You're not just surviving anymore," she whispered to no one.

You're coming home to yourself, Virvolior said.

She looked up at the sky, felt the ache in her arm — no longer sharp, no longer defining — and smiled.

~

The wind howled along the cliff's edge as Aeliana adjusted the strap on her harness. Her boots scraped against the worn stone as she paced, glancing toward the sky where Virvolior circled lazily above — his wings gleaming like sunlight on fresh snow.

Professor Kaori stood near the edge of the flight cliff, arms crossed, his face unreadable beneath the shadow of his hood. The chill of late autumn was creeping into winter now, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Mount up," he said simply when she approached and Virvolior landed.

Aeliana obeyed, fingers moving quickly through the familiar sequence — run, grip, twist — swinging up and settling into the saddle. Her body moved instinctively now. Muscle memory had returned, stronger by the day.

Virvolior shifted beneath her, already attuned to her posture.

You seem less like you're going to fall off this time, he remarked mildly.

"Progress," she muttered.

Kaori stepped forward and spoke up, voice clipped but not unkind. "We're moving beyond drills today. I want to see how you handle variable wind currents. There's a storm system edging toward the mountain pass — perfect for instability."

Aeliana swallowed. "So we're flying into the edge of a storm?"

Kaori's mouth twitched. "Controlled exposure. You'll be in and out in under ten minutes. Your job is to maintain elevation and trajectory through uneven thermal waves."

"Right," she said.

She exhaled slowly and nodded.

Kaori raised a hand. "Virvolior — keep her at four hundred feet. No higher. No diving."

The dragon snorted, clearly unimpressed, but didn't argue. Instead, he spread his wings with a graceful stretch and launched into the sky, the ground dropping beneath them in a rush.

They climbed fast — too fast — and Aeliana instinctively leaned forward to counter the lift.

Let me fly, Virvolior said calmly. You hold steady. That's all.

She eased back and focused on her seat — legs firm, body loose, arms positioned to absorb the rise and drop of each beat.

Clouds gathered in the east, the edge of the coming front casting a dusky sheen across the sky.

Wind slammed them sideways.

She yelped — but Virvolior corrected instantly, tilting into the current like it was nothing. Her stomach dipped, but she stayed upright, breath coming in hard bursts as she focused on what Kaori had told her:

Learn your dragon's movement pattern. Learn how to move with it.

The next gust hit from below — lifting instead of pushing — and she adjusted, pressing her thighs tighter into the brace, loosening her grip at the shoulders.

Better, Virvolior murmured. You're reading the wind.

"I'm trying," she muttered.

They dove into a shallow spiral, weaving through cross-currents like dancers threading between gusts. She felt the motion before she thought it — leaned into it before she could name the direction.

Ten minutes passed in a blur of motion and muscle, instinct and correction.

By the time they landed again — wings flaring wide as they touched down — Aeliana was drenched in sweat and panting like she'd just run the Gauntlet twice.

Kaori stood where she'd left him, arms still crossed. But as she dismounted, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"You're adapting," he said.

She blinked at him. "That sounded suspiciously like praise."

He didn't smile. "You're not done."

Of course not.

Kaori stepped forward and handed her a small folded slip of parchment. "These are precision drills. Altitude holds, twist-lifts, spiral descents. Practice them during your independent sessions."

Aeliana took the paper, breath still shallow. "Got it."

He paused. "You're pushing harder than most would at this point."

"I'm behind," she said simply.

Kaori didn't reply at first. Then: "Not for long."

She watched him turn and stride back across the field, his robes catching in the wind.

Virvolior rumbled in her mind. He likes you.

Because I'm stubborn?

Because you're not afraid of the sky anymore.

Aeliana looked up — at the storm clouds receding in the east, at the sunlight breaking through the veil of wind.

Not afraid.

Just... beginning.

~

She found him by accident.

Or maybe Virvolior had something to do with it — the dragon had been unusually smug all morning, and she'd learned not to question that.

Either way, she nearly walked straight into Liam at the intersection of the east corridor and the lower flight path, both of them coming around the corner from opposite directions with their heads down.

"Whoa—" Liam caught her by the shoulder before the collision became a full disaster, his laugh already halfway out. "Do you always walk like you're charging into battle?"

"Do you always stand in doorways?"

"Corridor." He pointed behind him, grinning. "Technically a corridor."

She exhaled and adjusted the folded slip of parchment in her hand. He glanced at it immediately — the look of someone who noticed everything and pretended not to.

"New orders?"

"Drills," she said, holding it out. "Kaori gave me a set of precision exercises. Altitude holds, twist-lifts, spiral descents." She paused. "The kind that are easier to practice when someone can tell you what it looks like from the ground."

Liam took the parchment and scanned it quickly, brow furrowing in concentration. The morning light fell sideways across the stone corridor, catching the familiar ease in his expression — the same look he got right before he said something annoyingly insightful.

"These are solid." He handed it back. "He's pushing you past recovery drills. That's a good sign."

"That's what he said." She tucked the paper back into her jacket. "More or less."

"More or less meaning he said 'you're not done' and walked away."

She gave him a flat look. "He said not for long this time. It was practically a speech."

Liam's grin returned in full. "Growth." He tilted his head, studying the list again even though he'd already handed it back. "I'd help you run through those. The spiral descent timing is tricky — there's a wind reading involved that Kaori probably won't explain for another three sessions."

"I figured."

"I'm free this evening, probably." He glanced toward the upper stairs. "I want to check with Violet first — she's training with Imogen again today, and I don't want to pull out without checking if they need me. But if they don't—"

"I'm not in a rush," Aeliana said. It wasn't entirely true. But she also wasn't going to say please in a corridor before lunch.

"Good." He made a loose gesture, the kind that meant it's settled. "I'll find you when classes end. We'll go to the cliff again."

She nodded.

"You should eat first," he added. "You have that look."

"What look?"

"The one where you've already been awake for seven hours and are surviving on stubbornness."

She didn't answer, which was its own kind of answer.

Liam shook his head, still smiling, and stepped aside to let her pass. She had taken exactly four steps down the corridor when a third voice broke the quiet.

"Am I interrupting something deeply important, or can literally anyone join this conversation?"

They both turned.

Ridoc was leaning against the wall three paces back, arms crossed, expression caught somewhere between amused and mildly offended at having been ignored. He had clearly been there long enough to hear at least part of it.

"When did you—" she started.

"Thirty seconds ago." He pushed off the wall. "I followed the sound of Liam being helpful." He nodded at Liam. "It's very distinctive. Lots of wind metaphors."

Liam looked patiently unbothered. "There was one wind metaphor."

"You were building to more." Ridoc turned to Aeliana. "So. Kaori gave you precision drills and Liam's going to help you run them?" He gestured loosely between the two of them. "Can I come?"

She blinked. "You want to come."

"I want to watch someone attempt a spiral descent while Kaori has emotionally prepared them for disappointment." He held up a hand. "And also potentially help. I do know things."

"About spiral descents?" Liam asked.

Ridoc considered this for a beat. "About morale."

Liam looked at her. She looked at Liam.

"This afternoon," she said finally. "The cliff. Don't be late."

Ridoc straightened with the energy of someone who had expected to negotiate harder. "Done." He pointed at her jacket pocket. "Can I read the list?"

"No."

"Reasonable." He fell into step beside her as she started walking again, completely uninvited. "Eat something, by the way. You have that look."

"Liam already said that."

"Then two people who care about you have said it, and you should probably listen." He paused. "Also there are eggs this lunch. Real ones. I checked."

She didn't reply.

But she did turn toward the dining hall.

~

The auxiliary cliff in the late afternoon was a different place entirely.

The main flight field carried its usual noise — the crack of wings, shouted commands, the sharp whistle of Kaori's assistant marking time on runs.

But up here, beyond the northern treeline and the scattering of frost-touched pines, the world went quiet.

The wind moved without hurry. The sky stretched wide and pale, flushed orange and violet at the edges where the sun was starting to sink behind the mountains.

Aeliana arrived first.

She crossed the clearing and stood at the edge of the cliff, breathing the clean bite of it in, when she heard the slow beat of massive wings — and then the rush of displaced air that always preceded him.

Virvolior landed behind her.

Not beside her. Behind her. The way a sentinel takes his post.

His scales caught the last of the sun and threw it back as something softer — not a flash or a gleam, but a slow, layered luminescence, like moonlight had been pressed into ivory.

His wings folded with a sound like silk settling.

His eyes, pale gold and ancient, swept the clearing once before coming to rest on her.

You're early, he said.

"So are you."

I was bored. A pause. The one who makes noise — is he coming?

"Ridoc?" She gave a faint smile. "Yes."

Unfortunate.

She didn't answer that.

The crunch of boots on frost-laced grass signalled Liam's arrival first, Deigh a dark red shape descending through the dimming sky behind him. His dragon landed with the confident, heavy thud of something that had never once questioned its right to occupy space, tail sweeping once before settling.

Liam ducked under Deigh's wing and crossed to her, tilting his head toward the clear stretch of air above the cliff. "Good conditions. Wind's lighter than this morning."

"Kaori would say that makes it too easy."

"Kaori isn't here." He grinned. "So we get one night of not suffering."

Deigh made a sound that was probably agreement. Virvolior did not react, though his tail shifted, unhurried, against the rock.

Then came the second set of footsteps — slightly faster, slightly less precise — and Ridoc crested the path from the treeline at a jog, jacket half-zipped, a water canteen swinging at his hip.

"I'm here," he announced, slightly breathless. "I jogged, which I resent. You're welcome."

Aeliana gave him a flat look. "You were three minutes behind us."

"Uphill three minutes," he said, pressing a hand to his chest like this mattered. "Entirely—"

He stopped.

The word died somewhere behind his teeth.

Because Virvolior had turned his head.

Not quickly, not sharply. Just the slow, deliberate rotation of something ancient considering whether anything it had just observed was worth its attention.

The dying light hit his scales again as he moved, and the effect was — not normal.

The white of him didn't just catch the gold of the sun; it seemed to hold it, to diffuse it into something that had no name in common colour.

Ridoc stood very still.

His canteen had stopped swinging.

"What," he said, very quietly, "is that."

Aeliana's brow lifted. "You've seen him before."

"I've seen a white dragon before." Ridoc didn't look away from Virvolior.

His voice had gone oddly careful — the exact opposite of how Ridoc usually spoke.

"When he landed that night, it was dark.

I thought—" He stopped. "I thought the light was playing tricks.

Or that I'd hit my head harder than I thought. " A pause. "I hadn't hit my head."

He's doing the math, Virvolior said in Aeliana's mind, and if a dragon could sound mildly entertained, he did.

She didn't reply, just watched Ridoc's face.

His expression went through several stages in quick succession — surprise, confusion, something that looked like the mental sensation of opening a book and finding the pages had rearranged themselves.

"His scales are — they're doing that thing.

" Ridoc gestured loosely, the way people did when language failed them.

"The light thing. The — " He looked at her now, and for once there was no deflection in his expression, no easy joke waiting at the surface.

"The professor showed us an illustration.

An old one, from the pre-Navarrian period, before the quadrant system. Dragons that were believed to be — "

"Valaari," Liam said quietly, from beside Aeliana.

Ridoc's head snapped toward him. "You knew?"

Liam crossed his arms. "Found out recently."

Ridoc turned back to Virvolior. His voice dropped to something barely above a murmur. "The Valaari are supposed to be a myth. The text I read — it said the last confirmed sighting was..." He trailed off, jaw tightening. "Six hundred years ago."

Tell him I'm aware of how long it's been, Virvolior said.

Aeliana let out a quiet breath. "He says he's aware. He's also judging you right now, but he does that to everyone."

Ridoc looked at Virvolior again. Something shifted in his expression — the last of the shock being absorbed, slowly, into something quieter. More careful.

He took a single step forward.

Virvolior didn't move. He watched Ridoc approach the way old stone watches weather pass over it — without concern, without welcome. Just presence.

Ridoc stopped a few feet away and stood there, studying the lines of him the way someone studied a map they hadn't been told they'd need.

The sweeping horns. The faint iridescence along the ridge of his wings.

The eyes that were not quite gold and not quite silver, but something between the two that had no name in a language built for things that were supposed to exist.

"Okay," Ridoc said at last, very quietly.

He didn't say anything else for a moment.

Then he turned back to Aeliana, and the familiar current of wit returned to his expression, but softer around the edges. More real.

"Right," he said. "So. Precision drills."

"Precision drills," she confirmed.

He held out his hands. "Tell me what to do. I'm here for morale and practical purposes now, apparently."

I'm still not sure about him, Virvolior remarked.

Give him a chance.

I gave him a look. That's already generous.

Liam caught the tail end of her expression and raised a brow. She shook her head once — later — and reached up to check her harness buckle.

The sky above the cliff burned low with the last of the sun. The wind moved easy through the pines below.

And when Virvolior spread his wings to catch the air, the glow of him lit the whole clearing like a second dusk.

Ridoc made a sound under his breath, barely audible, and even Deigh raised his head to watch.

Some things, it turned out, didn't stop being extraordinary just because you'd decided to accept them.