She touched one of the gauntlets, reverence in every movement.“I will wear them with honor.”
Jax stepped forward, picking up the sword with a care that bordered on ritual. He turned it in his hands, the weight shifting easily, the runes responding to his touch. “You said it would take someone who knows both sides of the blade.”
Tharneval nodded, a slow, deliberate motion that carried a lifetime of regret. “The blade is bound to the user’s will. But only those who have known exile and home, grief and hope, can truly wield it.”
Jax looked at me, then back at Tharneval. “Is this a test?”
“It is a mercy,”said Tharneval. “If you aren't worthy, the blade won't kill you. It will simply refuse to serve. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.”
Flint, unable to resist any longer, edged closer to the anvil. “Are the runes magic? Or are they just pretty?”
Tharneval lowered his massive head until it was level with Flint’s. “They are magic, little one. But they are also pretty. The best things are both.”
Flint’s eyes went huge. “Can I have one when I am big?”
“I’ll make you a hundred,” Tharneval said, and if it was possible for a dragon to smile, he did.
I cleared my throat. “What do we do now?”
“You wait,” said Tharneval. “The gauntlets must be finished. Vaelog will sense the completion, I am fairly sure, and he will come. You must be ready.”
Adalinda nodded.“We will wait, then. And when he comes, we will end it.”
The forgemaster inclined his head, the gesture formal and final. “I will send word when they are complete. But you may take the sword now so you can train.”
After saying good-bye, we left through the huge tunnel. The sound of his hammer was the only music in Ayrathys, and it echoed through the chamber like a promise.
Jax and I exchanged a look, the first moment of quiet we’d shared since arriving in this world.
“You know,”he said,“if we survive this, we should start a line of custom swords.”
I grinned, my lips splitting wider than they ever had as a human. “Only if you do the paperwork.”
He snorted, and for a moment, the weight of the coming war lifted.
Adalinda and Flint walked together, the Queen’s wing draped over the tiny dragon’s back. Flint peppered her with questions about forging, about flying, about whether the runes could be made in pink. She answered each in turn, her mind-voice lighter than I’d ever heard it.
I watched them, my heart aching with hope and dread in equal measure. We had our weapons. We had each other. We wouldn't fail. Behind us, Tharneval’s hammer fell again and again, a heartbeat for the exiles of the sky. And beyond the ridge, somewhere in the gold-lit wild, the enemy waited. But we would be ready.
8
HAILEY
The castleof Solenne and Corvus stood like a fossilized hallucination at the center of its own windstorm, every stone larger than my house and every window as wide as a football field. The outer walls, all pale gold and black basalt, looked poured from a mold made for gods and then aged a good hundred thousand years.
We landed in the upper courtyard, the span of it so enormous it could have hosted an air show or two. The wind here whipped off the peaks in constant, purposeful motion. I expected flags or banners, but there were only carved runes along the parapet, pulsing with a faint, ceremonial blue.
Our arrival was met with a small contingent of dragons. They lined the main walkway, eyes unblinking, heads tilted at the exact same angle. A telepathic ripple ran through them as we touched down, a chord of respect and anticipation of the Queen’s.
Solenne moved ahead of us and waited in the grand entryway, her scales even more luminous in the clean light. She bowed her head to Adalinda, but when she turned her gaze to the rest ofus, it was pure delight. “Queen. Guests. You honor this house. Please enter and claim the Hall as your own.”
The Hall was a masterwork in negative space, designed for flying through it if a dragon felt like it, or walking, or rolling, or whatever else dragons preferred to do in their off hours. The ceiling was so high that clouds formed up near the rafters, and every supporting column was carved with stories, actual pictograms of dragon history, looping around in an ascending spiral, ending in a burst of gold leaf at the top. The floor was an inlaid map of the world, updated, apparently, to reflect current realities. Ayrathys was front and center, and the earth I’d left behind was a pale blue marble at the extreme periphery.
The main attraction was the table. Not a human table, not even a conference table, but a slab of black stone the length of a commuter train, set into a dais so that even the smallest dragons could see over the edge. Atop the table was a scale model of the surrounding mountains and valleys, rendered in exquisite, almost photorealistic detail, and studded with gemstones to mark sites of note.
Corvus was already there, tail wrapped around the base of a column, wings folded in military fashion. His mind-voice was as clipped as his posture. “We meet in crisis, but we don't panic. There is a plan.”
Solenne settled at his right, and the rest of us found space around the table, Jax to my left, Adalinda at the head, Flint wriggling in the space between my forelegs and the stone. A contingent of dragons filed in at the far end, some in ceremonial armor, others bare-scaled and glinting.
