Rain pelted Rylan’s face as he flew Vedron over the Holt. He wore a thick fur coat and riding gloves. He’d wrapped his woolen scarf around his face and neck twice. He had the hood of his elkskin cloak cinched and pulled low. Even so, the freezing air stung his cheeks, and ice crystals clung to his eyelashes.
The bright sun had long since set. With the dark sun hidden behind storm clouds, the landscape was left in inky shadow. Rylan bid Vedron fly so low that the downdraft from her wings caused the tips of the citadel trees to sway, but at this low altitude, the imperial lookouts and hunting stands sprinkled throughout this part of the Holt would have a harder time spotting him.
Lightning flashed overhead. Rylan squinted at the rain frozen in place. The light faded, and he returned to the bone-chilling cold, the hiss of rain, and the rhythmic whoomp-whoomp of Vedron’s broad wings. Thunder rumbled in the near distance.
Vedron was annoyed, both by the rain and because she was being forced to fly beyond the forest, which no umbral wanted to do. When Rylan had arrived at her den a few hours earlier, the rain had just begun and it was still light out. Vedron had wanted to chase elk or frighten wolves or race through the trees like they used to, but Rylan couldn’t. He had a date with a dragon, and the conditions—though they promised to be miserable—were perfect.
Vedron huffed and a memory flared: lying on the bank of the Diamondflow, Rylan sitting with his back against her flank, tossing dandelions into the water.
“I know I’ve been gone too often.” Rylan patted the rough scales along her neck. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
His father’s threat against Vedron still worried him, but Willow had convinced Marstan that allowing Rylan to tend to Bothymus was in his best interests. A message had been forwarded to Skylar Solvina three days ago. Her reply had been short and sweet. She thanked him for his offer but told him she saw no need for Rylan’s help at the moment. Should the situation change, the missive said, she’d inform Marstan and gratefully accept Rylan’s help.
It was precisely the sort of response Rylan had been hoping for. He’d wanted them to think everything was going to be fine with Bothymus. Now he was on his way to Highreach’s eyrie to ensure Skylar would write a second letter, inviting him to Ancris.
Vedron carried him beyond the forest, over a swath of grassland, the foothills, and then the Whitefells themselves. As the rain mercifully eased, Rylan adjusted their path to avoid the imperial watchtowers. Ahead, lightning crashed through storm clouds, illuminating Mount Blackthorn. Rylan guided Vedron toward the cluster of lights at Highreach, a walled palace and the seat of the Solvina family, on one of the mountain’s broad shoulders.
Not far from Highreach was the imperial eyrie, a structure of wood and stone that housed some seventy radiant dragons. All the adult dragons would be trained for war and would easily be a match for Vedron, especially in the rain, which would dampen the effects of Vedron’s breath. But Rylan hadn’t come to fight. Far from it. If all went well, he’d be in and out with no one the wiser.
“There, girl,” Rylan said, pointing, “at the top of that cliff.”
Vedron gracefully arced up and landed on the cliff’s rocky lip. Rylan waited patiently as Vedron adjusted the talons along her wingtips and hind legs. Only on hearing Vedron’s satisfied gurgle did he scale her neck using the row of long, dorsal barbs and the crown of horns along her head. Soon he was onto the rocks and heading along the expanse of mostly flat land that held the eyrie.
He crept as close to the eyrie as he dared and crouched behind a leaning rock shaped like a broken knife blade. The eyrie, some forty yards ahead, looked like a bloody great stronghold left by the giants when they’d abandoned the mountains. Its stone walls measured thirty yards to a side and were nearly as tall. Jutting from its gabled roof was a cupola with high arches, a convenient path of entrance and egress for the dragons. Beyond the eyrie, reachable by a gravel road, was a cluster of buildings—the imperial barracks, where Ancris’s dracorae ate, slept, and trained. Rylan studied the road and what little he could see of the training yard for signs of movement and thankfully found none.
The eyrie’s rolling doors were cracked open. Rylan had just pulled off his gloves and untied a leather pouch from his belt when the dim blue light coming from inside brightened. He hunkered low as Stromm, a tall man with a red beard, stepped outside. In one gnarled hand he held a lit pipe; in the other, the leather handle of a wisplight, its bright, silvery-blue light casting the muddy landscape into sharp relief. All around the entrance the earth was deeply gouged from dragons’ claws.
Stromm was the imperial Master of Dragons in Ancris. He took another puff on his pipe, breathed out a stream of smoke, and tapped the bowl against his boot heel. Orange embers floated to the muddy ground. He stuffed the pipe into his coat, sniffed loudly, pulled his hood over his bald head, and trudged toward the barracks.
Rylan counted to twenty, then tugged his leather pouch open. A strong odor, like rich, freshly turned soil, mixed with the rain’s fresh scent. Inside the pouch was a healthy amount of umbris—a select portion of the dead amber dragon Rylan had found and rendered some months ago. The powder was worth a small fortune. As he headed toward the eyrie, he tipped the bag and spread it randomly on the ground. It was one of the reasons he’d needed to come during a rain—the powder had to soak in by morning so it wouldn’t be noticed, but it would leave the ground with a massive amount of magical potential waiting to be unleashed.
Rylan used a light hand so that, by the time he reached the gouged, grassless area in front of the eyrie, he still had a good amount of powder in the bag. It was enough; more, and the effect would be too strong.
He tied the bag back on his belt, faced the eyrie doors, and slowly expanded his awareness. In the same way he could sense Vedron clinging to the cliff face behind him, he sensed the dragons in the eyrie shining like distant campfires, each with its own unique hue. Many of the dragons were asleep, but one brightened, an old female, then more.
“It’s all right,” Rylan said softly as he entered the eyrie. “Everything’s just fine.”
A wisplight was hanging from a hook on a support beam. It was quite ancient and dim, but it was enough for Rylan to see by. He spotted bright yellow canaries in a cage. A few were out and were pecking at a brass dragon’s scale worm. They chirped loudly at him, then settled again. Beyond the cage was a cluster of brass dragons, the most social of the radiant breeds. Farther on, a clutch of iron dragons lay curled in their stone nests. The largest of that bellicose breed was eyeing him hungrily. Rylan ignored it, and continued toward the far corner of the eyrie. A dozen golds, perched above him in nests built onto a criss-cross of wooden beams, warbled and chirruped.
Rylan kept an eye on them but only enough to make sure none of them were preparing to pounce on him. He was more worried about Bothymus, who lay like a silvery-blue hump in the corner.
Rylan headed steadily toward Bothymus’s nest. When he came within five paces, Bothymus lifted his head and studied Rylan with moonstone eyes.
Sensing the dragon’s wariness, Rylan spread his arms, opened his mind, and projected a vision of a grassy meadow, a light breeze swaying the grass, the bright sun high above in a cloudless sky. “Remember me?”
Bothymus extended the frills on his head and broadened them in a threat display. Then he spread his wings and raised his tail.
“Easy now.” Rylan held his left hand, the one with the missing pinky, behind his back. The other he extended toward Bothymus, fingers splayed. “I didn’t harm you in Glaeyand, and I’m not going to harm you now.”
Bothymus’s third eyelids nictated. He snapped his frills twice.
Rylan wanted to move fast—the longer he stayed there, the more likely Stromm or a sentry would check on the eyrie—but he couldn’t rush this. Bothymus was nervous, and Rylan thought he knew why. He took a deep breath and suppressed his bond with Vedron. He felt Vedron slap her tail against the cliff face in agitation, but then his sense of her faded. Rylan would pay for it later, but it couldn’t be helped. Bothymus had likely sensed their bond. A mere whiff of an umbral dragon would be enough to raise the big indurium’s scales.
Bothymus’s wings slowly settled. Only when his frills retracted did Rylan approach the edge of the stone nest. Once there, he pulled on a pair of supple dragonskin gloves, proof against viridian acid, then reached inside his coat and pulled out a small green bottle. Bothymus tilted his head to get a better look at it. Rylan pulled the cork. He stepped onto the large stones at the nest’s border, but Bothymus reared his head back, spread his jaws, and bared his sharp, yellow teeth.
Rylan’s heart thudded in his chest. “This isn’t for you,” he said. “It’s for your fetter.” He held the bottle up for Bothymus to see, then pointed at the golden stone worked into his bridle.
The fetter was chrysolite that had been harvested from fallen meteorites and had many unique qualities. The most important of them—to the empire, anyway—was its ability to link the mind of a dragon to its rider. More specifically, it made the dragon subservient. Unlike the Kin, who bonded with dragons, the empire bound them with fetters, which was why it was forbidden, on penalty of death, for anyone but the empire to gather or buy the fallen star stones.
Rylan poured some of the bottle’s contents, an acid harvested from Vedron himself, onto a special square of cloth made from the rendered fibers of dragon scales. When he tried to wipe it on the fetter, Bothymus reared back again. The iron dragon behind Rylan growled, low and gurgling. Two of the golds stared down from the nests and hissed.
Rylan stayed perfectly still. “It won’t destroy the stone,” he said softly. “It just dulls its effect. You’ll feel like you again.”
Rylan was aware that the dragon might have had the fetter its entire life and not even know what it felt like without it. So he waited.
Eventually, Bothymus lay his head back down. Rylan extended the cloth slowly and wiped the acid over the stone, then poured a few more drops of acid on the cloth and wiped it again.
The acid would hamper Bothymus’s rider’s ability to control him, but it would also make Bothymus irritable, perhaps even become dangerous. By all accounts Stromm was a competent eyrie master and a gifted dragon handler. He’d likely separate Bothymus from the others before too long.
“I promise,” Rylan said, stuffing the cork back into the bottle, “if this doesn’t work, I’ll come back and destroy the stone myself, and they’ll get you another.”
Rylan took a deep breath and projected calmness as he left the eyrie. He couldn’t have Stromm or the empire’s dracorae picking up any discontent from the dragons come morning. Outside, the rain had become a drizzle. Nox shone through a gap in the clouds over Mount Blackthorn, deep purple like a full-bodied wine.
Rylan tugged his winter gloves on and pulled the hood of his cloak up to protect his skin. He hadn’t judged the rain perfectly—he’d thought it would continue a good while longer—but he hoped it wouldn’t matter.
He returned to the drop-off and climbed down Vedron’s neck to reach the saddle. Vedron spread her wings and soared away from the mountain. She was surly, indignant even, but cooperative, as always.
Rylan laughed. “What, did you think I’d leave you for Bothymus?” When Vedron huffed, then grunted, Rylan leaned forward and pressed his cheek against her neck. “We’re doing this so I have a reason to come back, remember?”
Vedron didn’t seem to care much.
“What say we go flying in the Deepwood after the rain clears. Race through the forest a bit?”
Vedron gurgled low and beat her wings.