Bound By Dragon Blood

Chapter 9: The Sky-Guards' Descent

The sky was no longer a sanctuary. As Ignis beat his massive obsidian wings, carving a path through the freezing mist of the Forbidden Range, the horizon behind them began to flicker with the rhythmic pulse of gold and white.

​"Sky-Guards," Valerius spat, his voice tight with a cold fury. He leaned forward, his chest pressing into Lyra’s back, his arms tightening around her waist. "My father isn't taking chances. Those are the Sun-Drakes—the fastest fliers in the Imperial fleet."

​Lyra looked back over her shoulder. Six streaks of brilliant white-gold light were closing the gap. The Sun-Drakes were smaller than Ignis, but they moved with a frantic, buzzing energy, their riders clad in mirrorshine plate that reflected the dying light of the sun.

​"They're faster than us," Lyra whispered, her heart hammering. "Ignis is carrying two of us, and he’s built for power, not a chase."

​"Then we stop running," Valerius growled. He didn't pull the reins. Instead, he closed his eyes, and Lyra felt the sudden, violent surge of his mental command. Ignis, dive.

​The world tilted. The stomach-churning drop was so sudden that Lyra’s scream was stolen by the wind. They plummeted toward the jagged canopy of the cloud-forest below. Behind them, the Sky-Guards let out a collective victory cry, their drakes tucking their wings to follow the descent.

​"Lyra, listen to me," Valerius shouted over the whistling air. "I can’t fight six of them and keep us in the air. You have to take the eyes. You have to be Ignis’s vision."

​"I don't know how!"

​"Don't think! Feel the silver!" Valerius reached around, his gloved hand covering hers where she gripped the dragon's harness. He funneled a spark of his amber fire into her, jump-starting the cold void in her chest. "Connect to him. Show him where the light is."

​Lyra gasped as the silver mark at her throat flared. Her vision fractured. Suddenly, she wasn't just sitting on the dragon; she was the dragon. She felt the wind rushing over her scales, the powerful ache in her wing-muscles, and the hot, churning fire in her belly. But more than that, she saw the Sky-Guards not as distant dots, but as heat signatures against the cold sky.

​There, she thought, and Ignis hummed in her mind, a vibration of pure acknowledgement.

​"Now!" Valerius roared.

​Ignis snapped his wings open with a sound like a thunderclap, pulling out of the dive so sharply that Lyra felt the blood drain from her head. The momentum change caught the Sky-Guards off guard. Two of them overshot, hurtling past Ignis.

​Valerius didn't use a sword. He stood up in the stirrups, his hands glowing with a blinding, incandescent heat. He unleashed a torrent of dragon-fire—not a stream, but a localized sun—that engulfed one of the passing drakes. The rider didn't even have time to scream before he and his mount were turned into a falling star of ash.

​But the remaining four were already repositioning, their long, dragon-glass lances leveled at Ignis’s vulnerable underbelly.

​"The left!" Lyra screamed, seeing the heat-trace of an incoming lance.

​Ignis rolled, the massive dragon performing an aerial maneuver that should have been impossible for his size. The lance grazed his scales, drawing a spark but no blood.

​Lyra felt her own power rising, fueled by the adrenaline of the kill. She reached out with her mind, finding the silver light that had settled in her veins. She didn't try to blast them this time. She focused on the air itself. She imagined the moisture in the clouds turning to jagged, crystalline needles.

​Freeze, she commanded.

​A cloud of silver frost erupted behind Ignis. The pursuing Sun-Drakes flew straight into it. The moisture in the air flash-froze around their wings, the delicate membranes becoming brittle and heavy. Two of the drakes began to spiral out of control, their frantic roars echoing as they fell toward the forest floor.

​"Again!" Valerius urged, his voice thick with a dark, predatory joy.

​They danced through the clouds for an hour, a brutal ballet of fire and ice. By the time the last Sky-Guard was a distant, broken shape falling toward the earth, the sun had vanished entirely, leaving them in a world of deep indigo.

​Ignis slowed his pace, his breathing heavy and ragged. He banked toward a hidden valley where the ruins of an ancient civilization began to emerge from the mist. Massive white-stone pillars, half-submerged in a dark, steaming lake. The Sunken City.

​They landed on a crumbling terrace that overlooked the water. Valerius dismounted first, then reached up to lift Lyra down. His hands lingered on her waist, his thumbs tracing the line of her ribs. He looked exhausted, his face smudged with soot, but his eyes were burning with a terrifying intensity.

​"You did it," he whispered. "You fought like a queen of the First Era."

​Lyra leaned against a stone pillar, her body shaking from the after-effects of the Flare. "I just wanted to live."

​Valerius stepped closer, his heat enveloping her in the chilly night air. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small, tarnished silver locket. He opened it, revealing a lock of hair that shimmered with the same silver hue as Lyra’s eyes.

​"This belonged to my mother," he said, his voice dropping to a low, painful rasp. "She wasn't a noble. She was a tribute from the northern wastes. She had the eyes, Lyra. Just like you."

​Lyra froze. "Was she... a Soul-Binder?"

​"The Emperor thought so," Valerius said, his jaw tightening so hard his muscles stood out in sharp relief. "He took her to the pits when I was five years old. He told me he was 'purifying' the line. He made me watch as he set his own dragon on her, to see if she could hold the fire."

​He looked away, toward the dark waters of the lake. "She couldn't. She burned. And I’ve spent every day since then waiting for the fire to consume me, too. Until I saw you in the arena."

​He turned back to her, his hand reaching out to stroke her cheek. The gesture was uncharacteristically tender, but his eyes were full of a dark, obsessive hunger.

​"I won't let you burn, Lyra. I’ll kill every god and king in this Empire before I let them touch you."

​The revelation of his past—the shared trauma of the pits—broke the last of Lyra’s defenses. She saw the little boy he had been, and the monster he had become to survive. She reached out, her fingers tangling in the front of his tunic, pulling him toward her.

​"Then show me," she whispered. "Show me the fire that doesn't burn."

​He didn't need to be told twice. He claimed her lips with a desperate, soul-shattering kiss that tasted of victory and ancient sorrow. He pushed her back against the cool white stone of the terrace, his hands frantic as they moved over her body.

​The Sunken City watched in silence as the God of War and his silver-eyed tribute surrendered to the only peace they knew—the violent, addictive heat of each other’s skin. In the shadow of the ruined gods, they forged a bond that would either mend the world or finish what the dragons started.