Page 8 of Feralheart

My hands still burned. My brother was still dying. And soon, the elite would hold their favorite culling.

Few of us commons dared enter the Scorching.

But I’d freed a wild dragon today.

Maybe that meant I could do the impossible twice.

CHAPTER THREE

FENIAN “FEN”

The hatchling’s cry cut through the ceremonial chanting.

None in the audience reacted, though a few flicked their fingers, creating sparkles with magic that rained down on those seated below them.

But I’d grown up around dragons. I knew the difference between distress and happiness.

That sound was distress.

Today, we’d been witnessing a sacred tradition, the awakening of a dragon bond. The gift that separated the elite from commons. My mother’s voice rang through the vaulted space, reciting words older than the stones beneath our feet, and I stood where I was expected to stand and thought what I was expected to think.

Mostly.

Lord Holmen’s face didn’t betray a single ripple of emotion. He’d attended every Claiming Ceremony for at least forty years, and I was sure he’d attend on his deathbed even if they had to wheel him in and prop him up enough to see.

The hatchling was six months old, give or take, and about the size of a large dog. Its ruby scales caught the torchlight, making it glow. It had been separated from its mother the moment the egg hatched. This was standard protocol, though no one used words like “separated.” Prepared for unity was the phrase. The hatchlings were prepared, and when they bonded, the children were blessed.

Lady Valis stood on the ceremonial dais near the dragon, her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The girl couldn’t be older than nine. Petra, I thought her name was. She wore a white silk gown, and her dark hair had been braided with silver threads that pulsed softly with magic. The expression on her face was caught between terror and desperate hope.

I remembered that feeling and the fear that somehow, despite your bloodline and your training and everything you’d been promised since birth, the bond wouldn’t take. That you’d be the one it failed.

It never did. That should’ve been comforting.

The hatchling shifted, its talons scraping across the spelled stone. Two servants worked to keep it calm—a commons man I didn’t recognize and the woman whose face I’d seen not long ago. She’d pulled her reddish-brown hair back in a tight braid, and her brown eyes tracked the dragon, not the nobles. She had a heart-shaped face. A thin scar cut across her hairline, pale and old. I wondered how she’d gotten it.

She was pretty in a way I wouldn’t have registered if she wasn’t ignoring everyone who mattered.

Though I didn’t know her name or her station beyond commons servant, I knew the line of her shoulders and the way she held herself careful and small. Three days ago, I’d seen her hiding in a blackthorn thicket, holding her breath while the hunting party searched the clearing. I’d seen the stains on her clothing, the panic in her eyes, and the way her hands had curled into the mud beneath her.

And I’d turned Aristus west and called the hunt away from her.

I hadn’t thought I’d see her here, her hands on a hatchling like she had every right to touch it, humming low while the creature’s breathing eased.

She had no idea I’d saved her life, and I had no idea why I’d done it.

“The bond between dragon and rider is sacred,” my mother said, magic enhancing her voice to fill the chamber. “It’s a gift from the fates and the foundation upon which our kingdom stands. The gift is passed through bloodlines, refined through generations, and bestowed only upon those who are worthy enough to carry it.”

Petra’s hands twisted in the skirt of her white gown.

The priestess stepped forward, the Unity Band on a black velvet cushion hovering beside her. The band had been carefully constructed of platinum woven with gold and set with small sapphires that matched House Valis colors. The runes etched into the metal caught the light, a decorative touch my fellow elites adored.

Without the band our bonded dragons would die, so it was vital it was secured before the bond fully formed. It had been this way for eons and would be this way for many generations to come.

“The Unity Band represents the sacred connection,” the priestess said. “Once placed, it attunes the dragon’s spirit to its bonded rider, creating a link that takes us beyond mere communication. Two souls become one. What the band joins, no hand may part. To break the band is to break the beast.”

The hatchling’s head swung toward the approaching priestess, and its nostrils flared.

The commons woman stroked the creature’s neck. Her lips moved, though I couldn’t hear what she said. The hatchling’s attention shifted back to her, its body relaxing again.