Chapter 37
Raven
Orpheusand I laugh as we walk through campus, the afternoon sun warm on my shoulders, the scent of blooming jasmine drifting from the gardens nearby. Nova giggles in my arms, her tiny fingers tangling in a long lock of my hair. She tugs with surprising strength for someone so small, and I wince at the sharp pull against my scalp.
“I can’t believe you’re a mom.” Orpheus bumps his shoulder against mine, his gold eyes bright with amusement. His black hair catches the sunlight, gleaming like raven feathers.
“That makes two of us.” I wince again when Nova pulls harder, her mismatched eyes sparkling with mischief. She knows exactly what she’s doing, the little troublemaker. “I can’t believe I can use your basilisk gifts in human form.”
I flare my eyes wide, letting them shift for just a moment—the familiar tingle behind my irises, the brief flash of power—and my brother’s gold eyes go comically round before we both dissolve into laughter.
“I can’t believe you used them on me.” He shakes his head, his expression caught between outrage and admiration. “How rude.”
Our phone’s buzz simultaneously, the vibration humming against our thighs. Orpheus pulls his out first, his thumb swiping across the screen. I watch his face change—the laughter draining away, replaced by sharp alertness.
The message is from Abraxis. A single flame emoji.
The signal for battle. Or impending battle.
My blood runs cold.
Orpheus takes Nova from my arms without a word, cradling her against his chest with the protective instinct of an uncle who would die before letting harm touch his niece. I use the find my phone function, my fingers flying across the screen, my heart pounding against my ribs.
“He’s at his old outpost.” The words come out steady despite the fear coiling in my gut.
I lean over and kiss my daughter’s forehead, inhaling her sweet baby scent—milk and warmth and that underlying note of smoke and spice that marks her as Solaris’s child. Her mismatched eyes blink up at me, one amber, one split between sapphire and amber, and for a moment I want nothing more than to hold her and never let go.
But Abraxis needs me.
I point toward the eastern gardens, where ancient willows drape their branches like curtains of green and gold. “Go hide with her under the willow tree we used to play under. As soon as Solaris hears me, he’ll come looking for her.”
I kiss Nova’s forehead one more time, letting my lips linger against her soft skin, memorizing the feel of her. Then I hug my brother, wrapping my arms around both him and my daughter, breathing in the familiar scent of him—scales and something sharp and clean, like winter air.
“Be safe,” he murmurs against my hair.
“Always.”
I watch them long enough to see Orpheus slip inside the gardens, his tall form disappearing into the shadows beneath the willows trailing branches. Only when I’m certain they’re hidden do I turn away. As soon as my twin and my daughter are safely concealed, I spread my wings wide.
The black leather membranes catch the wind, stretching taut between bone fingers, and I feel that familiar rush of power as the air lifts me from the ground. Three powerful beats carry me above the rooftops, above the spires and towers of the academy, into the open sky.
When I clear the school grounds, I shift.
The transformation rips through me—bones cracking, muscles tearing and reforming, my human skin splitting to make way for scales. The pain is brief and exquisite, swallowed by the overwhelming rightness of my true form. I am black dragoness. I am death incarnate.
I roar.
The sound shakes the sky, echoes off the mountains in the distance, and carries across miles of territory. It’s a summoning roar—a call to battle that every dragon within range will feel in their bones.Come to me. Fight with me. Bleed with me.
Every beat of my wings drives me higher into the sky as I turn north, toward my territory, toward my nest Father, who sent a single flame emoji and now might be fighting for his life.
I feel the moment Corvus joins me—his presence a familiar weight against my awareness, his war drake cutting through the air like a silver blade. A half-dozen students rise to follow us, their smaller dragons dwarfed by my massive wingspan but their determination burning bright in their eyes.
Slowing to a glide, I roar for the smaller dragons to land on my back. They comply without hesitation, their talons finding purchase on my scales, their weight barely noticeable against my bulk. We’ll travel faster this way—my strength carrying them until we need their numbers.
As we approach the border of my mother’s territory, I roar again. The summoning call rolls across the land like thunder, and dragons rise to answer. Two dozen strong flank us within minutes, their scales glinting in the afternoon sun—reds and greens and silvers and golds, a rainbow of deadly force converging on my position.
The students on my back leap off and take flight, rejoining the formation as we cross over the large freshwater lake on the western border of my mother’s land. The water glitters beneath us, reflecting our shadows like dark omens skimming across its surface.
