Page 21 of Feralheart

This wasn’t decoration.

The hatchling’s pupils had contracted the moment the Unity Band closed. Not gradually, like a creature adjusting to a new sensation, but all at once.

I touched the runes again, not pulling back when the cold-hot feeling traveled up my arm.

This wasn’t guiding a bond. It was carving compliance into a living creature with magic it couldn’t refuse.

I pulled my trembling hands back and clenched them into fists until the shaking stopped.

The elite had given torture a pretty name.

My mother had taught me to calm dragons with patience and understanding. With the low hum that said, I won’t hurt you, breathe.

If bonds were natural and sacred, why would they need magical restraints?

I finished oiling the harness and moved to the next piece, my hands working while my mind turned over what I’d seen.

Out in the hallway, two handlers spoke in low voices.

“Tighten Heartsbrim’s noseband another notch. Lady Severine says the dragon is getting mouthy.”

“It’s already on the third hole.”

“Fourth, then. She wants compliance.”

Trumpets split the morning air, followed by an overseer’s bellow down the hall, calling all staff to the arena.

I abandoned the tack room for the ring, joining the line of servants along the back wall. We’d assist as requested, but were basically decoration, the same as the banners.

The master of ceremonies announced Prince Fenian and his dragon, Aristus.

They swooped overhead, Aristus sleek and powerful in a way that made the other dragons look like rough drafts.

Fenian sat astride him in hunting leathers dyed deep blue, his posture perfect. Sunlight caught his inky-black hair, and even from a distance I couldn’t miss the noble line of his shoulders, the controlled power in how he moved with his dragon.

As beautiful as a blade and equally deadly. Made for a purpose. Honed until every edge served a brutal function.

My watching had stopped being surveillance somewhere in the last few breaths and become something I recognized in the same way I did hunger.

Pointless. Too late to prevent.

They climbed in a vertical spiral that left the crowd gasping. Higher, tighter, until they were barely visible against the pale sky. Spinning, they dove straight down, the dragon’s wings tucked to his sides, Fenian leaning across Aristus’s neck.

The crowd screamed.

A short distance above the sand, they stopped. Aristus flapped his wings hard enough to make the pendants whip and sand blast across the arena.

Fenian sat back and spread his arms wide.

“A sacred bond,” someone in the crowd called out.

Aristus’s jaw trembled, a ripple of muscle where the harness’s strap pressed against the nerve cluster behind his jaw hinge. The same stitches I’d seen in the tack room marched across this dragon’s equipment too.

Fenian’s right hand spread dramatically for the crowd. He spoke words in High Aurian, and Aristus’s pupils contracted, a trigger being pulled.

How could controlling a dragon in such a cruel way be a sacred bond?

They swooped back up into the sky and completed the routine, including a barrel roll, finally landing so lightly the sand barely puffed.