Urla’s body ached with the same raw sensation that had stricken her in the midst of battle as she saw her husband’s dragonfall.


    Utter terror. Helpless fear.


    So overwhelming, she’d nearly fallen herself to a Sigan barbarian’s scimitar.


    The entire company froze, gazing upward. Helpless.


    Two bodies fell.


    The emperor’s dragon dove.


    One body plummeted to the ground and crumpled on an outcropping of rocks with a horrific crunch.


    The other neared the trees. Black and crimson cloak trailing.


    The dragon lurched ahead, snatched the emperor from the air as it plunged into the trees at the base of the mountain.


    Urla lost sight of the emperor as the dragon curled. Branches exploded from the edge of the forest with a devastating crack.


    The world went still.


    Urla sprinted across the rocky terrain, a desperate prayer to the All Mother on her lips. Soldiers swarmed around her. On foot. On alkine. The ground thundered.


    The dragon did not stir as they neared.


    Trees were decimated as though a firebomb had exploded. The dragon lay curled against the ruined trunks of toppled trees. Blood coated the stony ground everywhere.


    Urla cursed herself. She had seen Rykus fly during the runeship attack. But she’d never for a moment considered such a threat on the Dragon Emperor. It was a gods-damned suicide attack. Man against dragon. So bold, it had succeeded.


    The dragon’s wings were drawn tight against its body, like a child cowering from a dream terror. Its chest did not move, and Urla knew it was dead. She could not see the emperor for the wings.


    “Pry them open!” Urla shouted.


    Soldiers leapt in, pulling, jerking, prying the gargantuan dragon wings. They were large as a mast and sails, and locked tight in death. It took a dozen men to prize them away.


    The emperor lay curled in the dragon’s rear claws, hugged tight against her chest. More blood.


    Urla stepped closer. His face was pale, and a surge of dread filled her.


    Then, Athanasius shuddered, drew a faint breath, releasing a soft whistle, then, went still. She grasped his hand. No response.


    A few seconds passed, and breath came again, whistling softly, like a faint wind over the narrow entrance of a cave.


    Athanasius’s nose was caved in and bloody. Lips barely parted with the breaths.


    Soldiers latched on to the emperor’s limbs, preparing to pull while others prepared to pry the claws apart.


    A woman shoved her way forward.


    “Don’t move him yet! I need to examine his spine!”


    A slender woman in grey robes slipped past the others and took charge. Cedana was the head medic of the Bloody Company, hailing from the cruel canyonlands of Southern Attica, and she knew her way around traumatic injuries. Green robed imperial healers pressed around, but Cedana barked at them to stay back.


    All went silent. The emperor’s breaths were tepid and far apart.


    “The claws,” Cedana said. “They’re choking off his breaths. He won’t survive much longer on such little air. We have to loosen them, but don’t bloody move the emperor. Careful, careful!”


    Soldiers painstakingly worked to pry open the dragon’s claws, which encircled the emperor’s torso, while also taking extra care not to jostle Athanasius’s body in the process.


    Once the claws were loosened, the emperor breathed more easily, though the whistling persisted.


    Cedana knelt down and carefully examined him. The green-robed imperial healers arrived and tried to take over, but they quickly caved to Cedana’s forceful words.


    “Green cloaks barely know their way around a broken wrist, let alone such a fall!”


    Once Cedana had verified that the emperor’s spine was not broken, soldiers carefully hefted him onto the stretcher.


    Cedana turned back to the caravan and cursed. “What? No one thought to erect a healer’s tent?” The healer’s scathing gaze fell on Caliphus. The young lieutenant glanced to Urla.


    The sun had gone beyond the mountains, and night would come swiftly. They would not be able to leave this valley tonight.


    “Get on it, soldier. Make camp. We’ll need scouts to scour the woods before nightfall. Set a perimeter. The canyon too.”


    “Er, of course!”


    “And find that rebel bastard’s body!”


    Caliphus barked orders, and soldiers hurried off.


    Once Cedana was satisfied with the straps holding Athanasius to the stretcher, she allowed the green cloaks to draw near and help move him.


    Urla took one last look at the emperor’s dragon. Its back was mottled with bruises from the fall. Wings tattered from the collision of the trees. She had offered her life that the emperor might live.


    If only her husband’s dragon had been able to manage such a sacrificial act.


    Voltari had been pierced by a dragon arrow, straight through the chest. Her husband was thrown from his mount.


    She could still picture him falling.


    ***


    An hour after Rykus left, Riese and Malik managed to track two of their mountains stags. Malik hadn’t lost all his hunter’s sense during the past two years of shaman training.


    They crossed the forests leading up into the mountains swiftly. Occasionally, they glimpsed the outline of dragon wings far above, but the forests were thick, and the dragons never came nearly as low as their first encounter. The last time they saw them, it was nearing evenfall, and a dragon cry echoed across the valley. There was another distant cry, somewhere beyond. Dragons calling across the island.


    Riese went silent. Her brow furled, a grimace on her face.


    “What is it?” Malik asked.


    She reached absently for the egg in her pack, fingers brushing against the coarse fabric.


    “Dragonfall. They’re mourning.”


    Shivers shot down Malik’s arms. He drew his fur cloak tighter around his shoulders.


    “You’re sure,” asked Ulgar.


    Riese nodded. “Dragons share a bond with their riders, but also with others of their kind. A spiritual sense, maybe. I’m learning all this as it comes. Same way he sensed them before they reached us back beyond the glacial pass.”


    “Can they sense him?” Ulgar asked.


    Riese hesitated. “They share their sense freely. Not knowing he can sense it. I don’t think he’s sharing back. But this… ” She reached for the right side of her chest, where her spirit resides. And Malik could sense the pain too, from his friend’s sorrow.


    “He did it then,” Surel said softly.


    Riese nodded. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she took her satchel in her lap and held it tight as they continued through the forest.


    “Rykus took down a bloody dragon,” Ulgar muttered after a long silence.


    “God’s breath,” Surel said.


    Riese said nothing.


    “Do you… think he survived?” Ulgar asked.


    Malik sighed. “I don’t think he meant to.”


    The silence returned till they neared the edge of the vast forest.


    “So, your dragon’s a he, is it?” Malik asked, desperate to lighten the load on his mind.


    Despite the sorrow emanating from her spirit, she managed a smile at this. “I think he’s going to hatch soon. I can feel it.”


    “Best hope not tonight,” said Ulgar. “Last thing we need is childbirth in the bloody mountains.”


    Riese chuckled, coming back to herself. “Not exactly the same. Dragons aren’t nearly so helpless at birth.”


    “Yeah? How do you know?”


    “I’ve a sense too.”


    It was near dark when they reached the edge of the forest. No signs of dragons above. They urged their stags across a wide expanse of short grass and crushed boulders, fast as they dared, until they reached the base of a harrowing mountain.


    A sweeping climb of loose scree, leading up to a treacherous peak of enormous boulders. They left the stags behind andbegan to climb.


    Darkness came swiftly, as they picked their way up the mountain.


    Enhanced with the occasional use of hish focused on their eyes, all four of them were able to aid their ascent through the treacherous passes leading to Kalengal Valley.


    Malik urged them to use it sparingly. Gods knew, they’d need all the spiritual strength they could muster. To become the first of their people to dare a second Ascent and a return to the Abyss.


    Not to mention the dragons hunting them, and the imperial company marching for the same destination.


    But they were descendants of the gods, gifted with the power of their breath, and they had a mission before them that could determine the future of all ?rithèa.


    A mission that Malik’s father had given his life for. That Ava and Captain Rykus had given themselves over to the enemy for.


    And now, it fell to them.


    First, though, they must brave the night.


    Urla’s body ached with the same raw sensation that had stricken her in the midst of battle as she saw her husband’s dragonfall.


    Utter terror. Helpless fear.


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    So overwhelming, she’d nearly fallen herself to a Sigan barbarian’s scimitar.


    The entire company froze, gazing upward. Helpless.


    Two bodies fell.


    The emperor’s dragon dove.


    One body plummeted to the ground and crumpled on an outcropping of rocks with a horrific crunch.


    The other neared the trees. Black and crimson cloak trailing.


    The dragon lurched ahead, snatched the emperor from the air as it plunged into the trees at the base of the mountain.


    Urla lost sight of the emperor as the dragon curled. Branches exploded from the edge of the forest with a devastating crack.


    The world went still.


    Urla sprinted across the rocky terrain, a desperate prayer to the All Mother on her lips. Soldiers swarmed around her. On foot. On alkine. The ground thundered.


    The dragon did not stir as they neared.


    Trees were decimated as though a firebomb had exploded. The dragon lay curled against the ruined trunks of toppled trees. Blood coated the stony ground everywhere.


    Urla cursed herself. She had seen Rykus fly during the runeship attack. But she’d never for a moment considered such a threat on the Dragon Emperor. It was a gods-damned suicide attack. Man against dragon. So bold, it had succeeded.


    The dragon’s wings were drawn tight against its body, like a child cowering from a dream terror. Its chest did not move, and Urla knew it was dead. She could not see the emperor for the wings.


    “Pry them open!” Urla shouted.


    Soldiers leapt in, pulling, jerking, prying the gargantuan dragon wings. They were large as a mast and sails, and locked tight in death. It took a dozen men to prize them away.


    The emperor lay curled in the dragon’s rear claws, hugged tight against her chest. More blood.


    Urla stepped closer. His face was pale, and a surge of dread filled her.


    Then, Athanasius shuddered, drew a faint breath, releasing a soft whistle, then, went still. She grasped his hand. No response.


    A few seconds passed, and breath came again, whistling softly, like a faint wind over the narrow entrance of a cave.


    Athanasius’s nose was caved in and bloody. Lips barely parted with the breaths.


    Soldiers latched on to the emperor’s limbs, preparing to pull while others prepared to pry the claws apart.


    A woman shoved her way forward.


    “Don’t move him yet! I need to examine his spine!”


    A slender woman in grey robes slipped past the others and took charge. Cedana was the head medic of the Bloody Company, hailing from the cruel canyonlands of Southern Attica, and she knew her way around traumatic injuries. Green robed imperial healers pressed around, but Cedana barked at them to stay back.


    All went silent. The emperor’s breaths were tepid and far apart.


    “The claws,” Cedana said. “They’re choking off his breaths. He won’t survive much longer on such little air. We have to loosen them, but don’t bloody move the emperor. Careful, careful!”


    Soldiers painstakingly worked to pry open the dragon’s claws, which encircled the emperor’s torso, while also taking extra care not to jostle Athanasius’s body in the process.


    Once the claws were loosened, the emperor breathed more easily, though the whistling persisted.


    Cedana knelt down and carefully examined him. The green-robed imperial healers arrived and tried to take over, but they quickly caved to Cedana’s forceful words.


    “Green cloaks barely know their way around a broken wrist, let alone such a fall!”


    Once Cedana had verified that the emperor’s spine was not broken, soldiers carefully hefted him onto the stretcher.


    Cedana turned back to the caravan and cursed. “What? No one thought to erect a healer’s tent?” The healer’s scathing gaze fell on Caliphus. The young lieutenant glanced to Urla.


    The sun had gone beyond the mountains, and night would come swiftly. They would not be able to leave this valley tonight.


    “Get on it, soldier. Make camp. We’ll need scouts to scour the woods before nightfall. Set a perimeter. The canyon too.”


    “Er, of course!”


    “And find that rebel bastard’s body!”


    Caliphus barked orders, and soldiers hurried off.


    Once Cedana was satisfied with the straps holding Athanasius to the stretcher, she allowed the green cloaks to draw near and help move him.


    Urla took one last look at the emperor’s dragon. Its back was mottled with bruises from the fall. Wings tattered from the collision of the trees. She had offered her life that the emperor might live.


    If only her husband’s dragon had been able to manage such a sacrificial act.


    Voltari had been pierced by a dragon arrow, straight through the chest. Her husband was thrown from his mount.


    She could still picture him falling.


    ***


    An hour after Rykus left, Riese and Malik managed to track two of their mountains stags. Malik hadn’t lost all his hunter’s sense during the past two years of shaman training.


    They crossed the forests leading up into the mountains swiftly. Occasionally, they glimpsed the outline of dragon wings far above, but the forests were thick, and the dragons never came nearly as low as their first encounter. The last time they saw them, it was nearing evenfall, and a dragon cry echoed across the valley. There was another distant cry, somewhere beyond. Dragons calling across the island.


    Riese went silent. Her brow furled, a grimace on her face.


    “What is it?” Malik asked.


    She reached absently for the egg in her pack, fingers brushing against the coarse fabric.


    “Dragonfall. They’re mourning.”


    Shivers shot down Malik’s arms. He drew his fur cloak tighter around his shoulders.


    “You’re sure,” asked Ulgar.


    Riese nodded. “Dragons share a bond with their riders, but also with others of their kind. A spiritual sense, maybe. I’m learning all this as it comes. Same way he sensed them before they reached us back beyond the glacial pass.”


    “Can they sense him?” Ulgar asked.


    Riese hesitated. “They share their sense freely. Not knowing he can sense it. I don’t think he’s sharing back. But this… ” She reached for the right side of her chest, where her spirit resides. And Malik could sense the pain too, from his friend’s sorrow.


    “He did it then,” Surel said softly.


    Riese nodded. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she took her satchel in her lap and held it tight as they continued through the forest.


    “Rykus took down a bloody dragon,” Ulgar muttered after a long silence.


    “God’s breath,” Surel said.


    Riese said nothing.


    “Do you… think he survived?” Ulgar asked.


    Malik sighed. “I don’t think he meant to.”


    The silence returned till they neared the edge of the vast forest.


    “So, your dragon’s a he, is it?” Malik asked, desperate to lighten the load on his mind.


    Despite the sorrow emanating from her spirit, she managed a smile at this. “I think he’s going to hatch soon. I can feel it.”


    “Best hope not tonight,” said Ulgar. “Last thing we need is childbirth in the bloody mountains.”


    Riese chuckled, coming back to herself. “Not exactly the same. Dragons aren’t nearly so helpless at birth.”


    “Yeah? How do you know?”


    “I’ve a sense too.”


    It was near dark when they reached the edge of the forest. No signs of dragons above. They urged their stags across a wide expanse of short grass and crushed boulders, fast as they dared, until they reached the base of a harrowing mountain.


    A sweeping climb of loose scree, leading up to a treacherous peak of enormous boulders. They left the stags behind andbegan to climb.


    Darkness came swiftly, as they picked their way up the mountain.


    Enhanced with the occasional use of hish focused on their eyes, all four of them were able to aid their ascent through the treacherous passes leading to Kalengal Valley.


    Malik urged them to use it sparingly. Gods knew, they’d need all the spiritual strength they could muster. To become the first of their people to dare a second Ascent and a return to the Abyss.


    Not to mention the dragons hunting them, and the imperial company marching for the same destination.


    But they were descendants of the gods, gifted with the power of their breath, and they had a mission before them that could determine the future of all ?rithèa.


    A mission that Malik’s father had given his life for. That Ava and Captain Rykus had given themselves over to the enemy for.


    And now, it fell to them.


    First, though, they must brave the night.


    Urla’s body ached with the same raw sensation that had stricken her in the midst of battle as she saw her husband’s dragonfall.


    Utter terror. Helpless fear.


    So overwhelming, she’d nearly fallen herself to a Sigan barbarian’s scimitar.


    The entire company froze, gazing upward. Helpless.


    Two bodies fell.


    The emperor’s dragon dove.


    One body plummeted to the ground and crumpled on an outcropping of rocks with a horrific crunch.


    The other neared the trees. Black and crimson cloak trailing.


    The dragon lurched ahead, snatched the emperor from the air as it plunged into the trees at the base of the mountain.


    Urla lost sight of the emperor as the dragon curled. Branches exploded from the edge of the forest with a devastating crack.


    The world went still.


    Urla sprinted across the rocky terrain, a desperate prayer to the All Mother on her lips. Soldiers swarmed around her. On foot. On alkine. The ground thundered.


    The dragon did not stir as they neared.


    Trees were decimated as though a firebomb had exploded. The dragon lay curled against the ruined trunks of toppled trees. Blood coated the stony ground everywhere.


    Urla cursed herself. She had seen Rykus fly during the runeship attack. But she’d never for a moment considered such a threat on the Dragon Emperor. It was a gods-damned suicide attack. Man against dragon. So bold, it had succeeded.


    The dragon’s wings were drawn tight against its body, like a child cowering from a dream terror. Its chest did not move, and Urla knew it was dead. She could not see the emperor for the wings.


    “Pry them open!” Urla shouted.


    Soldiers leapt in, pulling, jerking, prying the gargantuan dragon wings. They were large as a mast and sails, and locked tight in death. It took a dozen men to prize them away.


    The emperor lay curled in the dragon’s rear claws, hugged tight against her chest. More blood.


    Urla stepped closer. His face was pale, and a surge of dread filled her.


    Then, Athanasius shuddered, drew a faint breath, releasing a soft whistle, then, went still. She grasped his hand. No response.


    A few seconds passed, and breath came again, whistling softly, like a faint wind over the narrow entrance of a cave.


    Athanasius’s nose was caved in and bloody. Lips barely parted with the breaths.


    Soldiers latched on to the emperor’s limbs, preparing to pull while others prepared to pry the claws apart.


    A woman shoved her way forward.


    “Don’t move him yet! I need to examine his spine!”


    A slender woman in grey robes slipped past the others and took charge. Cedana was the head medic of the Bloody Company, hailing from the cruel canyonlands of Southern Attica, and she knew her way around traumatic injuries. Green robed imperial healers pressed around, but Cedana barked at them to stay back.


    All went silent. The emperor’s breaths were tepid and far apart.


    “The claws,” Cedana said. “They’re choking off his breaths. He won’t survive much longer on such little air. We have to loosen them, but don’t bloody move the emperor. Careful, careful!”


    Soldiers painstakingly worked to pry open the dragon’s claws, which encircled the emperor’s torso, while also taking extra care not to jostle Athanasius’s body in the process.


    Once the claws were loosened, the emperor breathed more easily, though the whistling persisted.


    Cedana knelt down and carefully examined him. The green-robed imperial healers arrived and tried to take over, but they quickly caved to Cedana’s forceful words.


    “Green cloaks barely know their way around a broken wrist, let alone such a fall!”


    Once Cedana had verified that the emperor’s spine was not broken, soldiers carefully hefted him onto the stretcher.


    Cedana turned back to the caravan and cursed. “What? No one thought to erect a healer’s tent?” The healer’s scathing gaze fell on Caliphus. The young lieutenant glanced to Urla.


    The sun had gone beyond the mountains, and night would come swiftly. They would not be able to leave this valley tonight.


    “Get on it, soldier. Make camp. We’ll need scouts to scour the woods before nightfall. Set a perimeter. The canyon too.”


    “Er, of course!”


    “And find that rebel bastard’s body!”


    Caliphus barked orders, and soldiers hurried off.


    Once Cedana was satisfied with the straps holding Athanasius to the stretcher, she allowed the green cloaks to draw near and help move him.


    Urla took one last look at the emperor’s dragon. Its back was mottled with bruises from the fall. Wings tattered from the collision of the trees. She had offered her life that the emperor might live.


    If only her husband’s dragon had been able to manage such a sacrificial act.


    Voltari had been pierced by a dragon arrow, straight through the chest. Her husband was thrown from his mount.


    She could still picture him falling.


    ***


    An hour after Rykus left, Riese and Malik managed to track two of their mountains stags. Malik hadn’t lost all his hunter’s sense during the past two years of shaman training.


    They crossed the forests leading up into the mountains swiftly. Occasionally, they glimpsed the outline of dragon wings far above, but the forests were thick, and the dragons never came nearly as low as their first encounter. The last time they saw them, it was nearing evenfall, and a dragon cry echoed across the valley. There was another distant cry, somewhere beyond. Dragons calling across the island.


    Riese went silent. Her brow furled, a grimace on her face.


    “What is it?” Malik asked.


    She reached absently for the egg in her pack, fingers brushing against the coarse fabric.


    “Dragonfall. They’re mourning.”


    Shivers shot down Malik’s arms. He drew his fur cloak tighter around his shoulders.


    “You’re sure,” asked Ulgar.


    Riese nodded. “Dragons share a bond with their riders, but also with others of their kind. A spiritual sense, maybe. I’m learning all this as it comes. Same way he sensed them before they reached us back beyond the glacial pass.”


    “Can they sense him?” Ulgar asked.


    Riese hesitated. “They share their sense freely. Not knowing he can sense it. I don’t think he’s sharing back. But this… ” She reached for the right side of her chest, where her spirit resides. And Malik could sense the pain too, from his friend’s sorrow.


    “He did it then,” Surel said softly.


    Riese nodded. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she took her satchel in her lap and held it tight as they continued through the forest.


    “Rykus took down a bloody dragon,” Ulgar muttered after a long silence.


    “God’s breath,” Surel said.


    Riese said nothing.


    “Do you… think he survived?” Ulgar asked.


    Malik sighed. “I don’t think he meant to.”


    The silence returned till they neared the edge of the vast forest.


    “So, your dragon’s a he, is it?” Malik asked, desperate to lighten the load on his mind.


    Despite the sorrow emanating from her spirit, she managed a smile at this. “I think he’s going to hatch soon. I can feel it.”


    “Best hope not tonight,” said Ulgar. “Last thing we need is childbirth in the bloody mountains.”


    Riese chuckled, coming back to herself. “Not exactly the same. Dragons aren’t nearly so helpless at birth.”


    “Yeah? How do you know?”


    “I’ve a sense too.”


    It was near dark when they reached the edge of the forest. No signs of dragons above. They urged their stags across a wide expanse of short grass and crushed boulders, fast as they dared, until they reached the base of a harrowing mountain.


    A sweeping climb of loose scree, leading up to a treacherous peak of enormous boulders. They left the stags behind andbegan to climb.


    Darkness came swiftly, as they picked their way up the mountain.


    Enhanced with the occasional use of hish focused on their eyes, all four of them were able to aid their ascent through the treacherous passes leading to Kalengal Valley.


    Malik urged them to use it sparingly. Gods knew, they’d need all the spiritual strength they could muster. To become the first of their people to dare a second Ascent and a return to the Abyss.


    Not to mention the dragons hunting them, and the imperial company marching for the same destination.


    But they were descendants of the gods, gifted with the power of their breath, and they had a mission before them that could determine the future of all ?rithèa.


    A mission that Malik’s father had given his life for. That Ava and Captain Rykus had given themselves over to the enemy for.


    And now, it fell to them.


    First, though, they must brave the night.