CHAPTER THREE

ELARA

WHEN ELARA FORCED HER EYES OPEN, IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. Orange sunlight crept through the window of her bedroom, fragmented by the trees in Papa’s garden. Shadows gathered in the corners, having watched over her as she slept. Her braids were tucked into a satin sleep cap, and someone had changed her clothes, leaving her in a pale pink nightgown. She sat up with a groan as the memory of the day before trickled back to her.

After Mala’s disappearance, Elara had blurted, “Faron is at Hearthstone,” before passing out in the middle of the street. Yes, she’d been exhausted, but she hadn’t realized how exhausted until now. Sleeping for almost twenty-four hours when her sister was in danger? Guilt twisted her insides as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Her room was a relic of the girl she’d once been. After the war, she hadn’t cared to do anything besides donate the clothes and shoes she’d outgrown. Eventually, when she’d started secondary school, she’d donated her stuffed animals and dolls, as well. But as she changed now into a simple day dress, Elara felt disconnected from the girl who had collected the drake figurines that lined her bookshelf, who had framed newspaper articles about the drake pilots on the walls, who had a small altar to Irie on the side table beneath the window. She had lived through too many things that had aged her by centuries instead of days. Everything else seemed frivolous.

“There you are,” said Papa when she stepped into the hallway, wiggling her foot deeper into her button boots. “Her Majesty has been waiting for you to wake up for the meeting.”

Elara blinked. “What meeting?”

Twenty minutes later, Elara was seated at the empty dinner table between Signey and Papa. Mosquitos buzzed around the window mesh, looking for a way inside. Queenshield guarded the exits, their faces impassive. Her jittery thoughts were drowned out by the sonorous tick-tock tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hall. Elara was beginning to understand why Faron always did the bad thing without waiting for permission. She itched to be on dragonback, soaring to her sister’s alleged location. Instead, Aveline was making it clear that no action could be taken until they had discussed the situation at length.

As if a lengthy discussion would bring Faron home any faster.

Curry goat scented the air as Mama prepared enough food for everyone. She stirred the goat meat stewing in the cast-iron dutchie, sprinkling diced Scotch bonnets into the curry. The scrape of her metal spoon against the pot’s sides broke the pensive silence.

Elara’s foot shook restlessly. “Your Majesty, the longer we wait—”

“How can we be sure that Faron is at Hearthstone?” Aveline asked, her eyebrows drawn together. “This could be a trap that Iya has set for us, knowing that the dragon bond shields his actions from the gods.”

“Mala said their sight is obstructed in the Hestan Archipelago, and Signey confirmed that the rest of the dragons returned to the Langlish capital after—”

“Yes, so you have said,” said the queen, holding up a hand. “But that merely confirms that Iya’s forces are at Hearthstone. How can we be sure that Faron is?”

Elara’s mouth snapped shut. Frustration rolled through her, but she forced it down. Aveline was asking the right questions, the questions that Elara would be asking if this weren’t about her sister. Aveline hadn’t seen the heartbroken and hopeless expression on Faron’s face as she’d disappeared into the clouds on Lightbringer’s back. The queen probably thought that Faron was in no danger at all. But these past few months since Elara had been claimed as a Rider by Zephyra had been the most amount of time that they’d ever spent apart since Faron’s birth. Even though her parents had said nothing of the sort, Elara still heard their voices in her mind: Protect your sister. Protect your sister. Protect your sister.

“We cannot risk dispatching the Sky Battalion without more information,” Aveline continued. “The pilots are still recovering from Port Sol. Families are still burying their dead. Iya is a god; he must have known they would find him and planned accordingly.”

“Then don’t deploy the Sky Battalion,” said Signey. “I can go alone.”

“No, you can’t.” Elara glared at her. “I’ll go with you.”

Signey didn’t look at her. “Your people need you.”

I need you, Elara wanted to say. But it was too much, too soon, even though Signey’s presence by her side had made the last few months bearable. There was still an awkwardness that lived between them, curling through that space like citronella smoke. Papa sat close enough for their elbows to brush whenever he moved. Signey sat so far away that not even her wayward curls would kiss Elara’s skin if she tilted her head.

Another thing that Elara didn’t have time to discuss.

“What, exactly, is your plan?” she asked Signey instead. “Fly close enough for Iya to induce the Fury and then wake up in a dungeon?”

The Fury was a problem with no clear solution. When Elara had first formed her bond with Zephyra, Commander Gavriel Warwick had warned that if Faron didn’t find a way to break it, the Fury would drive Elara—and her dragon and co-Rider—mad. The sudden tendency of dragons to turn feral, violent, uncontrollable—which the commander had called the Fury—had been wielded as a weapon by Lightbringer during the battle. The only thing that had kept their minds sane and whole was Faron, using a kind of magic that Elara had never seen before. A kind of magic that Gael Soto—Signey and her brother, Jesper’s, ancestor, who now called himself Iya—had taught her.

Signey tucked her curls behind her ear. The scent of cocoa butter lotion wafted from her now-unwrinkled hands. “My plan is to pretend to defect to his side, send information about his plans through the den, and extract Faron at the earliest and safest time.”

It was a good plan. Good enough for Aveline to visibly consider. But Elara’s panicked heart refused to see its merits. Iya inhabited Reeve’s body. Faron had chosen to run with him. If Signey and Zephyra left, too, Elara would be completely alone. Even if she was no longer bonded to them, and could thus no longer share their thoughts and emotions, they were the only ones left who knew her down to her soul. Elara wasn’t sure she knew herself anymore.

An argument struck her like a lightning bolt, and she tried not to sound upbeat as she pointed out, “Lightbringer is connected to all the dragons, since he created the original dragon bond. He’ll read your intentions before you even get close to Hearthstone, let alone if you stay there. You can’t keep your walls up all the time.”

“Just because you’re bad at guarding your mind—”

“The Maiden has a point. A single slip would jeopardize the entire ruse,” said Aveline before a full disagreement could break out. “For such a long-term mission, we’d need someone whose intentions he cannot read.”

“Which,” Elara said, “would be me. If we go together, Zephyra can carry me as close to the shore as she can get, and, while the two of you are stalling Iya, I can sneak into Hearthstone and find Faron.”

“Absolutely not,” said Mama, setting the first plate of curry goat and rice on the table. “What if you get stranded?”

“I’m a trained soldier, Mama. I was the second-highest-scoring combat student at Hearthstone!”

“I don’t care if you’re the highest-scoring soldier in the entire world. I will not lose you both.”

And so it went. Aveline, Mama, and Papa poked holes in her plan, while Signey continued to insist that she did not need Elara’s help at all. Plates were cleared and tensions were high, and all the while the hours washed away like sand at high tide. It was nearing sundown by the time Elara’s frustration bubbled over and she set down her empty cup of carrot juice hard enough to rattle the table.

“I am the Maiden Empyrean, not a child to be coddled.” She looked at the queen and the queen alone. “This is the compromise: Signey and I will fly Zephyra out for a scouting mission. We won’t engage with Iya; we’ll get only as close as we can for reconnaissance and come right back. Is that acceptable to everyone?” And then, allowing the whole room to fall away so that Aveline could see the worry and the fear and the guilt that swirled inside her, Elara pleaded, “Talking in circles like this is just wasting time, Your Majesty. My sister needs me. Please.”

Aveline studied her for so long that Elara expected to be turned down, followed by another few hours of pointless conversation.

Then she sighed. “All right. But you are absolutely not to engage. Do you both understand?”

“Yes,” Elara and Signey said together.

“Do not make me regret this,” Aveline said. She lifted her glass. “Mrs. Vincent, may I have more rum?”

Elara rose with the sun and dressed in her newly cleaned riding leathers. She hadn’t slept, too anxious about the plan and everything that could go wrong with it, but she was counting on a mug of coffee to keep her awake for the two-hour flight to the Hestan Archipelago.

A half hour later, she and Signey stood at the base of the Argent Mountains, on the shoulder of the paved road that wound up the vibrant green and misty blue of its peaks. At the top was Highfort, a town named after the military base that took up most of one peak—a town that Elara hadn’t been to since her failed attempt to become a drake pilot and join the Sky Battalion of the Iryan Military Forces. They had gone the long way around Deadegg to reach this road to avoid any sight of the wreckage of Valor, but, if Elara squinted far enough behind them, she could see the scorched tip of a chunk of silver scalestone.

She wanted to talk to Signey about it, but she didn’t know what she would say. Besides, once she started talking, she had a hard time stopping, and no doubt she would start with Valor and end up somewhere near Why are you acting weird and distant?

“It’s nice that I don’t need the bond to tell what you’re thinking,” Signey said in her accented patois. Once again, there was enough space for a third person between them, but Elara tried not to focus on that. “Stop worrying. It won’t change what will or won’t happen.”

“Easier said than done,” said Elara as the wind around them picked up, a sign that Zephyra would soon arrive. “But I’ll try.”

Zephyra landed in front of them in a small cyclone of dirt, her wings momentarily blocking the sun. She was fifteen feet in length, her body the deep green of a palm frond, with dark spikes trailing down her back. Signey’s saddle was affixed to her, strapped just above her now-folded wings. Light green scales protected her sleek stomach, and a pointed snout curved upward from her head, which lacked the horns that Elara had noticed on some other dragons.

But then, Zephyra was a sage dragon, the smallest of the four dragon breeds, built for speed rather than for war. And though Signey was fluent in patois, sage dragons like Zephyra were gifted with languages, and their bond allowed Signey to understand any human tongue, whether spoken, written, or signed. It was a handy ability, one that Elara missed having.

There were a lot of things that Elara hadn’t expected to miss when Faron had severed Elara’s bond with Signey and Zephyra.

The dragon carefully flattened herself on the road, laying her head close enough for Signey and Elara to step forward and rest their hands on her snout in greeting. Signey closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against Zephyra’s scaly neck, no doubt in silent conversation with her mount, and Elara tried to ignore her envy as she rubbed the soft skin of Zephyra’s forehead. She wasn’t even sure which one she was envious of. This was the most affection she had seen Signey show anyone all week, and she wished she were on the receiving end of it. Before the Battle for Port Sol, Signey had kissed her for the first time, a passionate clash of lips that had distracted Elara long enough for Signey to drop her from Zephyra’s back before the dragon succumbed to the Fury. Elara had expressed her own feelings, returning the gesture with a kiss on Signey’s cheek before going to beg the gods for the power of the Empyrean. Ever since, they’d been too busy to talk, let alone kiss—but Elara wasn’t sure when things had changed from couldn’t to wouldn’t.

So many things would be easier if she could just see inside Signey’s head, could just feel that Signey still wanted this. Or if she could feel Zephyra’s comforting affection, a kind of love that could never expire. But Elara had lost her dragon bond and become a tool of the Iryan gods.

That was better, she told herself. That was what her island needed. Her destiny was to remove dragons from this realm, not to ride or befriend them. She had to focus on issues more significant than her stalled love life.

Zephyra blinked her golden eyes, her catlike pupils finding Elara. Elara swallowed around the ache of regret, whispering, “It’s nice to see you, old friend.”

Signey helped her struggle up into Zephyra’s saddle, and that utilitarian touch felt like another kind of loss. When they had been bonded, Elara had enjoyed the Rider magic that gave her perfect balance when on the back of her dragon. Now she had to strap herself in and hope that she didn’t slip off the sides as they flew, while Signey leaped higher than a normal person could, landing gracefully in the saddle in front of her. She strapped herself in as well, but it was a formality. Even if Zephyra flew upside down, Signey wouldn’t fall.

Elara’s front pressed against Signey’s back, her arms wrapping around Signey’s waist, and she inhaled Signey’s honeysuckle-and-clove scent. If Signey noticed or minded, she didn’t show it as they took off. So at least Elara could confirm her girlfriend wasn’t repulsed by her.

The last time she had made the flight from San Irie to Langley, she’d been terrified. Of the future, of the cold soldier in the saddle before her, of the dragon that was the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. Even now that she only feared one of the three, anxiety twisted her stomach until she felt sick with nerves. Nine days ago, her sister had felt—for just an instant—like a stranger. Would she go home with them now? Or was whatever she had left to do more important than the worry of her loved ones?

Despite her agitation, Elara dozed on and off, drifting from stress dream to stress dream. She saw faceless people vandalizing her house again—this time going a step further and shattering windows—as Signey stood by and watched with an inscrutable expression. She saw Faron with her eyes glowing the same mold green as Lightbringer’s, her sister lost to the Fury and attacking her own allies. She saw Reeve caged and begging for help, pleading with Elara to save him the way he had saved her, even as the iron bars grew smaller and smaller around him.…

Worse than the metaphors were the memories that her tired mind latched on to. Once, she had asked Reeve if it had ever bothered him, being the only member of his family who wasn’t a Rider. His mother and father were co-Riders to their carmine, Irontooth, and Reeve had spent most of his childhood bedridden with illness after illness, his immune system so weak, it was almost as if he didn’t have one. For that reason, his parents had never taken him to the Beacon Dragon Preserve, where eggs were laid in an area called the Nest and hatched into colorless dragons waiting for Riders to bond with. Considering the Warwicks were one of the four dragon-riding dynasties of Langley—alongside the Sotos, the Hylands, and the Lynwoods—Elara had wondered how that made Reeve feel, long before she’d ever learned half that information.

Reeve had considered the question as thoughtfully as Reeve considered everything, his finger acting as a bookmark in what he was reading at the time: a biography of the first Renard queen. Then he’d said, “Not as much as other things. My parents loved me—or seemed to—but I always got the impression that Irontooth thought I was weak. He protected me, but he scared me, too. And I didn’t even know what he was doing to San Irie. I just thought a creature that powerful shouldn’t be trusted in the hands of people so… small.”

From his tone of voice, it had been clear that he hadn’t just meant in size. Her book of choice, which she could no longer remember the subject of, had been face down on the table. They’d been at the Hanlon house, with Reeve’s foster parents in the kitchen making stew chicken. The window had been open to provide some relief from the late-spring heat, and the wind had been steadily growing cooler as the sun finally began to go down.

That hot-spice smell of stew filling the house. That rhythmic chop-chop-chop of vegetables being diced. That comforting warmth of Reeve’s foot pressing against hers beneath the table. It was those little things that made her heart seize now that he was gone.

“Isn’t that blasphemous of you?” Elara had asked, amused. “You said Riders are worshipped as saints.”

Reeve had glanced off to the side, out the window, his eyes slightly narrowed. “I never said that was a good thing. Being worshipped.”

Elara jolted awake, just in time to find them plunging through the air.

“We’re still a mile out from shore, and we’ve already been spotted by a perimeter guard,” Signey said, snapping Elara into the present. “Ignatz, to be specific.”

“We’re not supposed to engage,” said Elara, her mind still struggling into wakefulness.

“Oh, we’re engaged. Hold on tight.”

Elara barely had time to make sure her straps were secure before Zephyra shot upward. She closed her eyes against the sunlight that Zephyra was using for cover, and, behind them, she could hear the echoing roar of Ignatz. If she remembered correctly, Ignatz was an ultramarine dragon, deep blue in color, larger than Zephyra in size, and the strongest swimmer of all the breeds. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need to put that to the test.

Wind sliced Elara’s skin. Cloud water slicked her face. Her heart beat so fast, it sounded like static. She didn’t want to think of how high up they were, how quickly she would slip if Zephyra had to roll away from an attack. Instead, she forced herself to remember that she was in the best hands. Signey was one of the top soldiers in Langley. She and Zephyra had bonded half a decade ago, and Signey had been strong enough to bear the dragon bond alone until they’d found a Wingleader in Elara. Together, Signey and Zephyra moved like droplets in a river, harmoniously indistinguishable from each other. Defensive maneuvering was as easy as breathing for them.

Especially when they had Elara to help with the offensive.

She took a deep breath of knife-edged air and called upon the gods. The sky fell away, replaced by the vastness of the divine plane, and then Irie, ruler of the daytime and patron goddess of San Irie, appeared to answer her summons. Instead of floating before her in a forest fire, the world returned in golden color as the sun goddess glided alongside them, easily keeping pace with Zephyra. Her snow-white robes flapped around her dark brown skin, and her pupilless eyes glowered amber beneath her crown. The embroidery on her robe was a gold that matched her lipstick, both shimmering in the light.

Please, Elara gasped. Please, help us.

Irie’s expression was shrewd. Do you see, now, why this world needs to be rid of dragons?

Please!

Ah, of course. There is some urgency, isn’t there?

PLEASE!

Elara reached out and Irie merged with her, the majestic force of Irie’s soul briefly making her feel like a balloon close to popping. Despite the chill this high in the sky, she began sweating, her clothes clinging to her overheated body. Fire raced up her spine, and for a moment she thought that Ignatz had caught up with them, before she realized that it was just Irie’s power settling within her. Irie, she had learned, had magic that eclipsed that of both Mala and Obie, the kind of raw power that leveled cities and created worlds. What she loaned to Elara was just a trickle of something that was vast enough to corrode Elara’s weak human flesh from the inside—and that energy was exactly what she needed right now.

Though she’d have to talk with the gods about the effort it had taken to get it.

“Going down,” Signey said as Elara focused on the world around her.

Zephyra dived again, narrowly avoiding a burst of fire. She dropped so precipitously that Elara partially lifted from the saddle, the straps straining to keep her from falling. But Elara’s heart was no longer racing. Irie’s calm confidence had become her own.

She twisted around just far enough to stick her hand out toward Ignatz. Light erupted from her palm, illuminating the morning with a destructive beam that seared one of Ignatz’s horns. The dragon roared in pain and swerved away from them to regroup. His next attack came from the front, but Elara saw it coming and leaned around Signey to shoot two blasts of light at the gigantic blue target. Ignatz puffed a cloud of fire in their direction, which collided with the light beams and exploded in a blinding flash.

Zephyra was low enough that she had to pull up to avoid skimming the top of a mountain range; Elara’s mental map identified it as the one that cut through the Emerald Highlands in the south of Langley. They had passed the Hestan Archipelago entirely, and, even if they turned back, they had thoroughly lost any chance at stealth. Iya would either send his other dragons after them or take Zephyra out of the equation with the Fury. That left them with only two options: fight or flight.

Die or run.

“We’re made,” she said to Signey, settling properly into the saddle. “We have to turn back.”

“I can still drop you off—”

“They’ll expect something like that now. And there’s a dragon on top of us!”

Signey didn’t argue further. Seconds later, Zephyra was ascending into the clouds and racing back the way they had come. The gap between them and Ignatz widened until they were blissfully alone in the sky, too far from the Hestan Archipelago for Ignatz to still consider them a threat. Then and only then did Elara expel Irie from her body, allowing the exhaustion of summoning to settle into a full-body ache. Her eyes fluttered closed, from both fatigue and shame.

Another failure to add to the pile.

“It’s another four hours from here to Beacon,” Signey whispered. “Jesper and Torrey would love to see you, and we could use the time to regroup.”

“Okay.”

Signey let the silence envelop them, and it was broken only by the rhythmic flap of Zephyra’s wings. With no one but the stars to see her, Elara let the tears fall, wondering if she would ever feel like the Maiden Empyrean or if she was just going to keep failing massively and publicly until the gods realized they’d made another mistake. She wished she could talk to Faron about how she dealt with this unceasing pressure, this weight on her chest, this unrelenting dread that she was failing the world. Granted, it was an emotion that Elara was familiar with from being an older sibling, but it was heavier now that she had more than her parents’ expectations to meet.

Reeve had been right. Being worshipped was hardly a good thing, and a pedestal was nothing but a clifftop to fall from.

Elara reached down until her fingers were touching Zephyra’s hard scales, wishing she could hear the dragon’s kind voice in her head, could lean upon the strength of Zephyra’s soul to keep herself from shattering. Then Signey gasped, and Elara thought for a wild moment that she had somehow succeeded in renewing their bond just by wanting it badly enough.

Her hopes were dashed seconds later when Signey said, “It’s Iya. He’s—he’s speaking to us. To all the dragons. We can hear him, feel him, in our heads.”

“What? What’s he saying?”

Signey listened, her curls rippling in the wind. Elara didn’t need to see the expression on her girlfriend’s face, because she could picture it perfectly: the clenched jaw and glazed eyes and thunderous furrow of her forehead. Things were weird between them, and Elara couldn’t read Signey as well as Signey could read her, but she had seen that expression often enough in the last few months to draw it from memory.

When Signey spoke again, it was with barely concealed wrath. “He’s calling for all dragons and Riders to join his faction. If we do, we’ll be safe from his conquest. If we don’t”—and here her voice shook, though Elara couldn’t tell if it was from anger or fear—“he’ll sever our bonds and just take our dragons for himself.”