“You lied to me. To all of us.”
She lets out an irritated humph. “You’ve been shielded from the sensitive details, but you’ve always known the core truth: Eryndor is fighting for survival. Humans cannot stand against immortal fae without magic. And relying solely on born-enchanters would have doomed us ages ago. We need magic to survive and that magic is not free.”
Nausea crawls up my throat as pieces snap together into a horror-filled mosaic. “The draken,” I whisper. Of course. The Spire’s insistence we view them as cattle, the retrieval teams sent for every fallen beast. “Is Eryndor… stealing draken magic?”
“Not stealing.” Her smile is sharp and proud. “Harnessing. Refining. The draken’s blood, breath—their very existence—overflows with magic. Properly extracted, it can be channeled. Shaped with auric alloy, it’s the key to humanity’s future. To our survival.”
My gaze drags to the rune-inscribed box the soldiers carried, and the nausea almost wins. “The egg. You’re here for the egg.”
Her smile widens and for the first time in my life, I see approval behind my mother’s eyes. Approval and excitement. “Yes. A newly formed draken. Malleable. Untapped. Pure potential. Its magic can be shaped from birth, before centuries of resistance form. It will usher in a new era for humans. And as an alchemist and an Ainsley, you, Rowan, will be part of it. An architect of humanity’s salvation.”
Words escape me. My mother steps forward and holds her hand out to me. Another first. Which makes the punch of my final realization hit even harder.
She needs me.
“What you did in the Spire, creating the perfect auric formulation—that was just the beginning,” my mother continues, curling her hand in acome hithermotion. “With the draken hatchling and your abilities working in concert, we could finally equalize the playing field against the fae. Perhaps even surpass them. We will make Eryndor safe for all human children.”
My heart pounds inside a too tight chest. I look at her beaconing hand and… and I step away. “No.”
“What did you just say?” my mother asks quietly.
“I said,no.”
The word is a spark dropped into dry tinder. The carefully groomed civility my mother wears like armor cracks straight down the middle, revealing the raw, pulsing fury beneath. Her face doesn’t simply harden — it sharpens, outrage carving into every flawless line. Her chin lifts, eyes narrowing to slits of power as her composure fractures in a way I’ve never witnessed. The commandant standing before me isn’t all cold dominance, but hot, venomous fury. Power gathers around her like a storm called to heel.
“Enough coddling.” Her voice drops, sharpened by command and betrayal. “Rowan will stand with us as an ally… or as a prisoner.” She thrusts a hand toward the warded nest. It’s not graceful, not precise, but fueled by a terrible certainty that she isright.
Power detonates from her palm in a vicious, rippling wave.
The wards scream. And fracture, light shattering outward in shards that dissolve before they ever touch the ground. In a blink, the protecting veil is gone and the nest stands naked and exposed.
Lethara reacts instantly.
The massive draken crouches low, wings mantling wide as she curls her enormous body around the egg, rain beading androlling off the obsidian-dark scales. Her talons dig deep furrows in the earth, teeth bared in a warning snarl that vibrates the entire clearing yet the lightning exposes the primal terror in her gold-ringed eyes.
The commandant lifts her chin, and without hesitation — without humanity — calls her next order. “Archers. Loose.”
The airsingswith auric-tipped death.
It all happens so fast. Ilian and Pherix sprint forward with shields to intercept the arrows, their draken taking to the air to attack from above. A cry echoes overhead—answering draken voices, distant but approaching. More humans erupt from the forest, pouring into the clearing like a river, forming ranks. Raising bows.
A shadow drops beside me—Kai—mud splattering across my shoulder as he lands in a crouch. His chest heaves, blood streaking his arm, rain plastering his hair to his jaw. His eyes meet mine, wild and furious andterrified.
“You,” he snarls—relief cracking the word. Then he’s pivoting, blades out, intercepting the first soldier who charges us.
“Loose!” my mother calls again and more auric steel whistles through the storm. If the first volley had slammed into Ilian and Pherix’s shields, the second veers right past them in an arch that must be aeromancer-guided. It’s fast, and high, and precise. And it spears Lethara’s flank, right in the sensitive spot at the crease with her wing.
She screams in agony and terror. Agony. Her wings spasm, collapsing inward. Another arrow strikes her shoulder, anchoring through muscle. Greenish light pulses along the exposed metal as the alloy arrow heads drink her magic like starved leeches and inject her with poison.
“No—no, no, no—” My voice rips out of me raw as I sprint toward her, boots sliding in churned mud. Pherix is right besideme, and then he isn’t, an arrow lodged in the back of his neck. Soldiers shout—orders, warnings, I can’t tell. I only hear Lethara’s keening and the faint, frantic thud of wings under her massive body as she curls tighter around the egg, trying—gods, failing—to stay upright.
A soldier’s sword catches my arm as I sprint past—Kai intercepts, blade locking with theirs. He shouts something after me, but I’m already sliding under Lethara’s trembling wing, skidding through mud toward the egg.
Rain streaks her scales. Her breath rasps, shallow, slowing.
The auric alloy is poisoning her magic.Myalloy.
“Rowan!” Kai roars again. “Don’t?—!”
