Episode 27: “The King’s Move”
471 Words
We didn’t make it another day before the sky went dark.
Not with clouds. With dragons.
Vaelric saw them first, circling high above the riverbed. “Copper,” he said, shifting mid-step. “And gold. The king’s guard.”
Nyxar’s frost rolled out, sharp and cold. “He knows.”
I stood between them, the cuff burning. The Sanctuary mark on my palms ached like a fresh burn. “How many?”
“Twenty,” Vaelric said, wings spreading. “Maybe more.”
The first dragon dove.
Vaelric met it in the air, copper against gold. The clash shook the riverbed. Nyxar grabbed my arm and pulled me back as ice burst from the ground, catching a second dragon’s wings.
I didn’t run. I stepped forward.
The bond roared. Red-gold, ash-black, copper, white. The Fourth Color poured out of me, not as fire or ice, but as light.
The attacking dragons froze mid-air.
Not from Nyxar’s frost. From the memory in the white.
They saw it—the ghosts, the failures, the ash. They saw what happened when dragons tried to break a bond.
One by one, they banked away.
Except one.
The largest, gold-scaled, with a crown of horns. The king’s son.
He landed hard, shifting in a burst of heat. “Lyra Veyne,” he said. “Stand down.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at Vaelric, then at Nyxar. “My father wants the girl. He doesn’t care about you.”
Vaelric bared his teeth. “She’s ours.”
The prince’s eyes flicked to my hands. To the grey scales. “The Sanctuary mark. You’re tainted.”
“I’m bonded,” I said.
He shook his head. “Then you die with them.”
He shifted back, gold wings flaring. The other dragons followed.
Vaelric lunged. Nyxar’s ice exploded. And I—
I pulled the Fourth Color all the way out.
White light filled the riverbed. Not blinding. Revealing.
The prince saw it. Really saw it. The ghosts behind me. The bond holding steady. The future where he burned trying to break it.
He hesitated.
That was enough.
Vaelric hit him first. Nyxar’s frost locked his wings. And I walked up to him, human and small and glowing.
“Go back,” I said. “Tell your father the bond isn’t breaking.”
The prince stared at me a long second. Then he shifted, launched into the sky, and didn’t look back.
The other dragons followed.
When it was quiet, Vaelric shifted back, bleeding from a cut on his shoulder. Nyxar’s hands were cracked from cold.
I sagged between them.
“You did it,” Vaelric said.
“I know,” I said. My voice was mine again. Just mine.
The cuff pulsed. Four colors, steady.
The Sanctuary mark on my palms stopped spreading.
For now.
- Writer
