The lift rose with a grinding, deliberate slowness.
It was a wide platform of pale, weather-beaten stone, enclosed on three sides by low rails but entirely open at the front, offering a dizzying view of the Spire's open shaft. Four runestones anchored the corners of the platform's base, heavily scored with ancient symbols. At the rear, a guard rested one palm against the central control stone. As he channeled his magical essence into the rock, the carvings flared with a deep, jade-green luminance, which was a direct reflection of the guard's own core.
The platform ascended. The city of Athosea fell away beneath them.
Caelan leaned against the front rail, letting the chill wind bite his face. From this vantage point, the city unfolded like a map: the streets radiating outward from the inner district, the sweeping curve of the harbour wall, and the dark, restless water beyond. Even from this height, the decorations for the Prypetha were vibrant. Strings of paper lanterns threaded between the tightly packed buildings, glowing like lines of gold and crimson script.
"Remind me how this works again?" Faris scratched the back of his neck, eyeing the glowing stones rather than the sweeping view.
Merida rolled her eyes. This was supposed to be foundational theory, the kind of thing drilled into them since childhood.
"The runestones act as a reservoir," Caelan explained, gesturing to the glowing jade lines. "The guard pushes magic from his core into them, and the stones convert that raw essence into a localized gravity well. The mechanical gears in the shaft just guide us."
Faris frowned at the glowing rock. "But we can't do that yet."
"Not yet." Caelan swallowed the dry taste in his mouth. "Some people never can."
Faris shot him a quick, guarded look before turning back to the stones. He kept his mouth shut.
Beside them, Merida rested her forearms on the rail. The updraft tearing through the shaft whipped her chestnut hair around her face. "Lady Elara keeps reminding me," she murmured, watching the shrinking city. "She says it's less about learning the principles of magic and more about learning to listen to it. Like it's an ambient noise that's always there, and you just have to pay attention so that you can hear it."
"Then I must be fucking deaf," Caelan grumbled.
Faris let out a low chuckle. "Come on, don't say that."
Merida's hazel eyes softened as she looked at Caelan. It wasn't pity. Pity would have sparked his temper. It was a quiet understanding of the suffocating pressure tied to his family name.
The platform continued its relentless climb. Through the open maw of the shaft, the massive perimeter walls of Athosea shrank into mere ridges on the landscape. Beyond the city, the sprawling expanse of the Kelmoran woods bled into the jagged spine of the Ardent Mountains, the great natural barrier separating them from the rival port city of Valenost.
The Spire itself was ancient. Not decaying, not obsolete, but settled deep into its own bones. Leonel Blackthorne had raised the original tower in the years following his return from World's End. The histories described World's End less as a physical location and more as a threshold, one found only through blood, will, and a specific Blackthorne amulet whose origins still triggered shouting matches among scholars. It was there Leonel had breached the sanctuary of the dragons, bonded the first of their kind, and dragged the secret of that union back to humanity.
He hadn't returned alone. Six guards had followed him to the edge of the map on blind faith, surviving their own grueling trials in the cliffs so Leonel wouldn't be a solitary rider. They became the foundation of everything that followed. Faris and Merida carried their blood in their veins.
The Spire was built as an anchor for the dragons. A place for them to roost when they chose to brave the human world. The lower levels were strictly utilitarian, packed with saddles, reinforced armor, and the massive stores required to maintain apex predators. The middle rings housed the guard barracks and archives. But up here, the walls vanished entirely, surrendering to the open air.
"I've been thinking about the bonding," Merida announced over the howling wind.
Here we go. Caelan clamped his jaw, fighting to keep his irritation off his face.
"The timing of it," she pressed on, oblivious or choosing to ignore his silence. "My mother says it usually happens around our age. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Sometimes later."
"My father was sixteen," Faris noted, puffing his chest out slightly.
Merida smiled. "That's early. Though Lord Blackthorne was thirteen, if I remember the histories right."
Faris scoffed. "Yeah, well, that's Lord Blackthorne."
"Do you know what type you want?" Merida asked, shifting her gaze between the two boys, genuinely curious.
Faris considered the question with the solemn intensity he reserved for tactical matters. "Something fast," he decided. "I don't need a bruiser. I want speed. Something impossible to read in a fight." He nudged Merida. "You?"
"I haven't decided. I think I need to meet it first. Look it in the eye before I know if we fit." She paused, wrinkling her nose. "That probably sounds strange."
"It sounds exactly like you," Faris replied easily.
She turned her sharp hazel gaze on Caelan. "What about you?"
"I haven't thought about it."
The wind rushed into the silence between them.
"You haven't thought about it at all?" Merida pressed gently.
"No. It isn't something we choose."
She studied his face for a long moment, reading the tension in his jaw and the rigid set of his shoulders, before turning her attention back to the horizon. She didn't push. It was one of the traits Caelan valued most in her; she knew when a door was locked and never tried to force the handle. Faris, to his credit, suddenly found the guard's boots fascinating.
The shaft abruptly gave way to the open sky.
The wind hit them from three directions at once, a sudden, violent embrace. The main landing platform was a sprawling expanse of pale stone, worn smooth by centuries of talons and harsh weather, rimmed only by towering, open arches.
In the center stood the dragons.
Three of them waited in a loose, casual formation, unbothered by the gales that ruffled their armored scales.
The nearest, and smallest, though still the length of five draft horses, was a breathtaking Gale-Weaver. His scales were the deep, vibrant green of a primeval forest, shifting to spun gold where the sunlight caught the edges. His amber eyes locked onto the lift with alert stillness. This was Zekyr, Lord Garrick's mount. Of the three, Caelan had always found him the most unnerving, his thoughts utterly alien despite Caelan having grown up in their shadows.
Beside Zekyr crouched a hulking Everwinter. Her dark blue plating seemed to swallow the light, radiating a bitter, biting cold that dropped the ambient temperature sharply for a dozen paces in every direction. Her eyes burned like dark rubies. Indrin. Lady Elara's dragon.
And looming behind them both, dwarfing the others with effortless menace, was Arcaragon.
He was a void against the sky. An Infernal. Completely black, devoid of iridescence or variation, his scales were a canvas of brutal, jagged scars. His eyes were pools of liquid silver. As the lift locked into place, those silver eyes drifted over to pin Caelan in place. For a breath, they stared at one another. Then, Arcaragon looked away, dismissing him with the indifference of a mountain ignoring a pebble.
Near the far wall, the riders and their retinues were deep in conversation with two high-ranking military officers. Caelan spotted his father immediately. The broad shoulders, the heavy dark cape, the close-cropped iron-grey hair, and the massive ancestral broadsword strapped to his back. Everyone always told Caelan he was the spitting image of Lord Blackthorne. Caelan had stared into mirrors for hours trying to find it, only ever walking away with a knot in his stomach.
Lady Elara stood closest to the group. She was tall, lean, and carried the same chestnut hair and hazel eyes as Merida, though her hair was cropped brutally short for flight. She stood on the balls of her feet, thrumming with the relaxed readiness of someone who lived half her life in the sky.
Lord Garrick, broader and more imposing than Faris, anchored the group. He shared his son's dark hair and storm-gray eyes, but carried an immovable stillness that Faris hadn't quite grown into yet.
Seeing the lift arrive, the three adults broke away from the officers.
"Lady Elara," Caelan bowed deeply as she approached.
She returned the gesture with a quick nod before her attention snapped entirely to her daughter. "There she is." Elara crossed the distance in two strides, pulling Merida into a fierce, brief hug. Stepping back, her eyes immediately dropped to Merida's stance. "You fell."
"Coming down off the plateau," Merida deflected, brushing her breeches. "At night. It was fine."
"It was not fine. You're favoring your left knee."
"I caught myself!"
"Eventually." Elara scrutinized her daughter's face for another heartbeat before letting out a soft sigh and stepping back.
Lord Garrick reached them next. "My young lord," he offered a crisp, formal bow, which Caelan returned, before turning a thoroughly assessing glare on his son. He gripped Faris's shoulder, a firm, grounding weight. "Boy, you look like you slept in a ditch."
Faris flashed a lopsided grin. "We slept in the woods. Close enough."
"Training?"
"Survival. Caelan got picked up by a mountain eagle."
Garrick's eyebrows shot up. His gaze flicked to Caelan, moving rapidly through surprise, calculation, and finally, deep amusement. "Is that so, my lord?"
"It was highly educational," Caelan deadpanned.
Garrick threw his head back and laughed, clapping Faris on the back. "I'll want the full casualty report later. All of you. Over supper tonight." He shot a quick, deferential glance toward Caelan's father before winking at the trio. "We'll carve out the time."
Lord Blackthorne had finished dismissing the officers. He closed the distance with unhurried, terrifying deliberation, his heavy cape settling around his boots as he stopped.
Faris and Merida snapped into rigid, formal bows. Blackthorne barely acknowledged them. His eyes were already locked on Caelan. The patriarch's gaze was forensic, cataloging the angry red cut on Caelan's cheek, the haphazardly bandaged arm, and the stiff posture that betrayed bruised ribs. He processed the damage and filed it away without a flicker of empathy.
"Caelan."
"Father."
"Training is progressing." It wasn't a question. His voice held the flat, deadened inflection of a man who already knew the answers and was simply checking to see if he would be lied to.
"Yes."
"The rope work needs improvement," Caelan forced himself to add. "Alfor noted a lot more work is needed."
"Alfor is most likely right." Blackthorne's eyes swept over him one final time, stopping at Caelan's chest. "Your core. Any progress?"
Caelan dropped his gaze to the weathered stone at his boots. "No."
The silence that followed was absolute. Lord Blackthorne's expression didn't change, but the temperature between them plummeted. It was as if a heavy iron door had slammed shut behind his father's eyes.
"I do not require you to become a mage," Lord Blackthorne said, his tone precise, stripped of all warmth. "But your core must awaken. Every Blackthorne who has taken to the sky has managed at least that much. It is not a unique gift, Caelan. It is the barest threshold. Without it—"
He stopped. The empty air where the rest of the sentence belonged was infinitely worse than whatever threat he might have spoken.
"I know," Caelan whispered.
His father stared at him for a second longer, then turned on his heel toward Arcaragon.
As he walked, Caelan caught it. The subtle hitch in his father's stride, the slight tilt of his head, the sudden, glassy distance in his eyes. To an outsider, it was invisible. But Caelan knew what a telepathic bridge looked like. His father was physically here, but his mind had vaulted across the platform. Arcaragon's massive silver eyes were locked unblinking on the Lord.
Blackthorne snapped back to reality, giving the great black beast a single, sharp shake of his head. He turned back.
"Dinner tonight," Lord Blackthorne commanded. "Everyone will be present."
"Yes, sir."
His father walked away.
The wind tore across the platform, rippling the dragons' scales. Far below, the city of Athosea went about its evening, entirely blind to the quiet devastation that had just occurred above the clouds.
Merida stepped closer to Caelan. Not close enough to draw attention, just enough to be a presence at his shoulder.
"He means well," she offered quietly.
Caelan's head snapped toward her. "He means exactly what he says," he bit out. "That's entirely different."
"Caelan—"
"I know." He closed his eyes, the brief flare of anger dying into exhaustion. "I know. It's fine."
Faris stepped up to his other side, bumping their shoulders together. For a long, fragile moment, the three of them stood at the edge of the world, watching the sun draw closer to the ocean. The wind up here was ruthless and clean. Down in the harbor, tiny merchant ships cut white wakes through the dark water, and the lantern lights of the outer district were beginning to blaze to life.
Caelan looked back toward the center of the platform. Arcaragon had lowered his massive, scarred head to the stone, his silver eyes shut tight against the wind.
Caelan turned his back on the beast.
"Come on," he said, stepping toward the lift guard. "We should go get ready before dinner."