I opened the dragon-psychic channel to Corvus and broadcast the location. At once, the formation shifted, every dragon in the valley banking toward our point.
Vaelog dropped through the cloudbank with a roar. “You don't belong here, and I will remind you why.”
The sky turned black with the shadow of his wings. He hit the formation dead center, claws out, teeth bared, a living missile of hatred.
Jax barely had time to react. He banked hard, and I flew into Vaelog’s side, knocking him off balance. Jax and I flew in opposite directions to regroup.
Behind us, Corvus’s squad broke apart, some diving, others rolling up and away. For an instant, I lost sight of everything but the blur of Vaelog’s pitch black hide as it knifed past.
Jax rolled left, tucking wings, and Vaelog missed him by less than a meter. His claws sliced the air. I short forward to try to distract Vaelog, and Adalinda dove from above like a golden comet chasing a black hole. She aimed for Vaelog’s spine, but he twisted, absorbing her impact like a stone wall absorbs a rainstorm. Adalinda’s claws scraped off his armored hide with a shriek.
He bucked, throwing her off, and for a moment, all three of us tumbled together in a death spiral. I felt the heat of his breath, the static charge of his wings, and then we broke free, the ground far too close for comfort. Jax didn’t speak, just dove, claws forward, aiming to slash across Vaelog’s exposed underbelly. Vaelog saw it coming, rolled, and caught Jax by the wing with a snap so loud I thought it had to be broken. Pain lanced through our link, so sharp and sudden I nearly blacked out, which caused me to drop from flight. I recovered just before hitting the ground. Jax screamed, but instead of retreating, he barrel-rolled into Vaelog, jaws snapping for his throat.
Still feeling the effects of Jax’s injuries, I stayed on the ground a moment too long. Vaelog saw me, and his eyes widened, not in fear, but in something that looked like recognition. For a moment, he hesitated. Then he twisted, flinging Jax towars me. I shot up into the air. Break time was over.
Vaelog came for us again, this time slower, more deliberate. The rest of the formation was circling, regrouping, but no one else dared get close. This was personal.
He hovered, wings beating in slow, monstrous rhythm. “You do not belong.”
Vaelog launched at us. We matched his speed, climbed into the sky, but the crazy dragon was gaining on us. I braced for impact. And then, out of nowhere, Luci appeared. He was just…there, floating ten meters above the kill zone, arms crossed.
He looked down at the three of us, cocked an eyebrow, and in a voice that carried through the sky as clear as a trumpet. Then he turned to Vaelog and said, “Here, hold this.”
A wheel of cheese materialized in his hands. It couldn’t truly be called a wheel. It was wheel-shaped, yeah, but it was the size of a large kitchen table. He handed it to Vaelog, who, in his confusion, actually took it. The entire fight paused. Vaelog stared at the cheese, claws digging into the rind. He looked at Luci. He looked at us. For a full three seconds, no one moved, no one breathed. Then Luci winked, snapped his fingers, and the cheese exploded in a cloud of sticky, yellow mist. Vaelog yelped, dropped the remnants, and for the first time, looked less like powerful villain and more like a child at a birthday party gone wrong.
He shook himself, glared at Luci, and in a gesture that was as close to petulant as I’d ever seen in a dragon, turned and bolted, diving through the clouds at a speed that made even Corvus’s jaw drop.
The sky went silent. The only sound was the drip of melted cheese falling toward the valley. Luci dusted his hands, smiled down at us, and with the theatricality of a stage magician, bowed. Then he lowered himself to the ground, walked over to a plant with a pink flower, picked it, put it into his suit jacket pocket, and vanished.
Jax and I hovered, stunned. Adalinda, recovering from her shock, banked toward us. She looked at the cheese residue, then at me, and if dragons could blush, she would have.
The rest of the formation slowly regrouped, each dragon eyeing the cheese mist warily, more than one of them sniggering. No one spoke. No one needed to. We had survived. Barely. But as the wind cleared the last of the cheese from the air, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Luci had just bought us time, not a victory. Vaelog would be back. But so would we. And next time, we’d be ready.
13
HAILEY
It’d beentwo days since our battle with Vaelog. Everyone’s spirits were down, so Solenne threw a party to bring back some of the smiles. But this was no party I’d ever been to. It was cooler because it had sky dancing.
Dozens of dragons gathered in circuits above the keep. The air crackled with telepathic banter, the volume rising and falling with every new arrival. Even from our perch on the upper terrace, I could feel the hum of anticipation radiating down the stone.
It was, as Solenne explained to us, a last-minute sky-dance. “A diversion, nothing more,” she had said, though the way she preened at the center of the activity suggested otherwise. “Let them stretch their wings and remember who we are, not who we are supposed to fight.”
I stood at the edge with Jax, both of us in full dragon form, neither willing to be the first to speak. The memory of the recent battle clung to my scales, but here, now, the mood was different, lighter, almost festive. We watched as pairs and trios of dragons soared in formation, their wingbeats perfectly synchronized,their shadows weaving complicated tapestries across the clouds. The precision of it was hypnotic. At one point, a formation of seven, led by the moody color-shifter, wove a double helix pattern through a column of mist, not a single wingtip drifting out of line.
Jax watched them, and though his jaw was set and his eyes narrow, envy leaked through our link. He was a man who respected discipline, even if he didn’t much care for performance.“You see the lead’s timing?”he said, voice pitched so that only I could hear it beneath the telepathic chatter. “He’s compensating for the crosswind by a quarter-beat. Smart.”
I nodded, though what I really saw was the joy in the movement, not the tactics.“Reminds me of a marching band. The way they practice until everyone moves the same, and then suddenly you’re part of a machine instead of a crowd.”
Jax arched a scaly brow.“You were in marching band?”
“Not even close. But the twins did Color Guard, and you don’t forget the bruises when they practiced in the living room.”
He snorted, a sound that came out as a plume of smoke, then glanced skyward.“You think they’re really doing this for morale?”
“Morale, ego, lust, whatever gets the blood pumping,”I said.“Even dragons need a reason to get up in the morning.”
We watched as the formations grew more complex, the patterns looping and folding. Every so often, the sky would split with a boom as one group broke through the sound barrier, the pressure wave trailing rainbow turbulence in their wake. Below, the younger dragons and those too old or too weak to fly in formation roared approval.
