Page 233 of Feralheart

The woman from House Mireille and her dragon slid back down the slope, the dragon’s body jarring on each rigid segment. Lord Blair and the others reined their dragons to the side. She tumbled past them, the dragon’s body jarring across the surface.

They hit a ledge and flipped over, falling.

The thread snapped. The nearest pillar pulsed once, a wave of light rushing from base to tip of every carved channel at once, the runes flaring so bright I could barely see.

Fed. Satisfied. Already waiting for the next victim.

I’d seen runes like these before on the oldest of the Unity Bands in the royal vault and on the foundation stones of the bonding chamber in the castle.

This path had never been meant to lead us anywhere. It had been designed to feed.

The runes on Aristus’s collar flared white, and his confusion turned to fear. Something was still pulling at him. I could feel more than see it.

Lord Cedric’s dragon stumbled, his legs appearing to forget how to move. One foreleg stretched out to carry them higher but dragged back. The dragon caught itself and continued climbing, but the collar around his neck blazed brighter.

Aristus shuddered. Then his wings locked. He remained rigid, the thread connecting his collar to the nearest pillar blazing white and pulling taut. Something was reaching inside him, finding the part of him that was tired, that had been carrying weight for twenty-three years, and was pulling on it.

His wings unlocked with a crack and caught the air. My heart restarted.

Don’t you dare fall, I swore I heard Eradin say.

Same to you, I thought back, not knowing if she’d hear it.

Warmth flooded through the connection.

She’d heard.

Her determination surged through the pack bond. She wasn’t giving up. Which meant we couldn’t either.

Lyndie’s dragon slowed, his wings stuttering before finding their rhythm again. Reece’s dragon slid backward, struggling to compensate for his damaged wing. We paused, waiting while they caught on a ledge before the dragon scrambled to his feet and surged to catch up to us.

Selira strode beside Aristus, her awareness spiking through the bond. She could sense something the rest of us couldn’t.

“They’re drawing power from the dragons.” Eradin’s voice echoed in the valley, naming what I’d already suspected. “Their magic is being siphoned through the collars to feed the structures.”

“That’s not possible,” Lyndie said in a shaky voice.

“Look at them.” Eradin gestured to where elite dragons were starting to lag. “Look at your own dragon. Every one with a collar is struggling. Selira isn’t.”

The higher we climbed, the worse it got.

The hum grew, calling for more.

Was this what killed my father?

He hadn’t been weak. He’d been murdered by the system I’d spent my life defending.

“Aristus.” I leaned forward, running my fingers across his neck where the collar bit deepest. Heat flared under my hand, but it wasn’t mine. This thing was helping the pillars drain him. “Fight it. Whatever it’s taking, hold on to it. Don’t let go.”

His uncertainty bled through the bond. He didn’t know how.

“Trust me.” The words scraped out. “The way I’m trusting you.”

“If we survive this,” I said, my voice a croak, “I have two wishes now. For Aristus to heal. And I want to know what happened to my father, Jaris.”

Aristus went rigid beneath me, every muscle locking at once. His wings stopped mid-beat, and we dropped before he caught himself, a sickening lurch that nearly unseated me.

He shook hard enough to rattle my teeth.