Page 33 of The Shattered Rite
And then the light began.
It did not burst so much asunmakethe darkness. Vaeronth’s form unraveled deliberately, like a tapestry coming loose thread by thread. Strands of molten gold unwound from his scales, drifting upward in slow arcs. They curled through the air like smoke and spun around her in long ribbons of light, catching in her hair, tracing her skin in lines warm as breath.
The storm of embers didn’t burn. It enfolded her, weightless and patient, carrying with it the scent of ancient skies and scorched stone. She felt him thinning, not vanishing, but folding himself into something smaller—into her.
When the last threads streamed into the pendant, it pulsed once—warm, steady—as if it had borrowed the rhythm of his heart.
And for the space of a single breath, she saw.
Not with her failing eyes, but with his.
A sky the color of hammered iron. Riders wreathed in golden armor astride dragons vast as cities. Wings cutting through storms of ash. Battlefields lit by rivers of flame. A black citadel shattering into nothing beneath a roar that could tear the heavens apart. And far beyond it all, a single name—unknown to her—etched into the horizon in letters made of living fire.
Then it was gone.
She stumbled, her knees threatening to fold. Her voice cracked before she could stop it. “What… what was that?”
Memories,Vaeronth murmured in her mind.Not all are mine. Some belong to the bond all dragons share. And now, they belong to you.
She blinked, breathless. “Oh, well, thanks. Just what I wanted. More trauma.”
He rumbled laughter deep in her thoughts, a sound like mountains grinding under molten stone.
I am with you, Eliryn. Always.
Her throat tightened. “That… is not making this less weird.”
Would you prefer I leave?
Her lips twitched. “Nah. It’s much too late. All these new tattoos I’ve got wouldn’t make sense without you.”
Correct.
Somehow, that made the silence that followed feel less like absence and more like anchor.
Together, they climbed.
Each step up the long, spiraling corridor was heavier than the last, the air growing sharper, brighter, morealive. The stone thrummed faintly underfoot, as if remembering the touch of dragon talons from ages past. Her muscles burned, but her legs remembered their strength. Her mind hummed with the weight of him inside it—both comforting and strange, like carrying a sword that had not yet learned how to be balanced.
You will find your stride,Vaeronth assured.
“I’m struggling just climbing stairs out of this haunted crypt. You might be overestimating me.”
Your sarcasm is becoming tiresome.
She smiled faintly. “Then I’m doing it right.”
At last, the great stone doors loomed ahead, carved with runes that no longer looked like mystery to her. Her fingers brushed them.
When they opened, silence crashed down like a blow.
The Hall of Holding stretched ahead: a cathedral of dust and defeat.
Survivors crouched in exhaustion, their faces hollow-eyed. Some bore burns. Others bled from wounds too deep for quick healing. One girl was sobbing quietly into her hands.
But it was the empty spaces that stole Eliryn’s breath.
Not everyone had survived the night.
