Page 140 of Of Empires and Dust

Aeson had seen many dragons in his lifetime, and he had watched Valerys grow from a hatchling that could fit in Calen’s lap to the great beast he was now.

But this was different.

For the first time since Lyara had been taken from him – ripped from him – he would once again sit at the nape of a dragon’s neck, feel the power beneath him, the air crashing against his skin.

To ride a dragon, to feel that shared trust, that freedom, was among the most intimate of things. It should have filled him with joy, but instead the thought carried with it fear, sorrow, anxiety, and a numbness in his chest. It made him all the more conscious of the shattered pieces of his soul.

Lyara had been his, and he had been hers. Until the oceans dried and time broke. But she was gone, and he was alone.

As though sensing the pain in Aeson’s heart, Valerys twisted his neck and lowered himself, his forelimbs bending, his jaw scraping the stone. As the dragon’s eyes fixed on Aeson, a chill swept over him, his heart suddenly racing.

Valerys craned his neck forward, a low thrum in his throat.

Aeson reached out, the din of the preparing army rising to a crescendo in his ears. He couldfeelValerys’s soul. It wrapped around him like a shroud, flowing over him and through him, just as Cukulkan’s had in Valacia.

Valerys pressed his snout into Aeson’s outstretched hand. Aeson gasped, warmth spreading from his fingertips, through his hand, and into his bones. Myriad emotions flooded him, each tied to a moment in time as memories rushed through his mind. Images of Erik and Dahlen, then Valerys’s egg, images of Cukulkan, of Aeson, of Calen.

Each breath trembled as Aeson drew it, his stare lost in the lavender of Valerys’s eyes.

In all the lifetimes he had lived, Aeson had felt nothing akin to this.

All fear, all anguish and darkness fled him. Valerys did not need words for Aeson to understand him.

Aeson’s jaw tensed as more of his own memories came to the fore: Lyara hatching. She had been so tiny. On that first night, she had slept with her belly on his forearm, those thin blue wings wrapping around his wrist.

Again and again, memories flashed through his mind; some his own, some Valerys’s. In each the story held through: Aeson and Calen watching over Lyara and Valerys. And in the last, the roar of two dragons filled him and he knew what Valerys was trying to tell him. Valerys was not Lyara, but he would protect Aeson as though he was. Just as Aeson had protected Valerys’s egg, just as he protected Calen.

In that moment, the memories stopped and everything shifted. A portentous, swirling rage flowed from the dragon into Aeson as a deep, boneshaking rumble sounded in his ears.

The black slits in Valerys’s eyes sharpened, his lips peeling back, enormous, jagged teeth bared.

“If I hurt him,” Aeson whispered, brushing his fingers across Valerys’s warm scales, “you’ll burn me alive.”

The aroma of burning wood accompanied the warm breath that left Valerys’s open jaws, that deep growl unceasing.

A hush rose at Aeson’s back, and he suddenly became aware that the clamour of the preparing army had stopped. One last time, he stared into Valerys’s eyes, brushed the dragon’s scales with his thumb. “I will protect him always.”

Aeson turned. Thousands of warriors filled the yard, organised into blocks of fifty, burnished plate glinting in the combination of the sun and the Blood Moon. Enormous purple banners flapped in the wind, the white dragon adorning the centres. No doubt those were a ‘gift’ from the Triarchy. Others rippled also, some in the black and silver of Vaelen with a seven-pointed star at their centre, and others in the deep green of the Triarchy with three white trees painted across their fronts.

Across the eastern and western edges of the yard, hundreds of Dvalin Angan stood by a horde of wagons, waiting to act as beasts of burden.

Aeson’s gaze settled on the yard’s northern edge, where the stillness was heaviest. Blocks of warriors had pushed back, leaving a wide path to the plateau where Aeson stood with Valerys.

Calen walked the centre of that path, every eye upon him.

Tarmon stoodat the base of the plateau near the courtyard’s rear. His left hand rested on the pommel of the sword at his hip, his right thumb tucked into a loop on his belt. On the outside he was sure he looked the picture of calm, his armour polished to a mirror finish, his hair combed and tidy, his face clean-shaven.

The inside, however, was another story. Tarmon had never had children – he’d never had the joy. But he imagined the pride he felt at watching Calen march through the blocks of warriors, the runes in his armour glowing with a deep purple light, was the pride of a father. The only stain on that feeling was the guilt that he was the one there to feel it and Vars Bryer was not.

Even Dann, with his white wood bow strapped to his back, looked the part. And if Tarmon was being honest, after the way the young man had acquitted himself in the battle for Aravell, he could certainly play the part too.

On Tarmon’s right, Erik pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly, clasping his hands behind his back. “This is it then. We march today.”

“Nervous?”

“A little.”

Tarmon looked out over the blocks of warriors, all lined up in perfect formation, all standing to attention as Calen made his way to Valerys.

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