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When I was a child, I used to dream of riding Arleeon’s mighty drakkons.

Dreamed of soaring over her vast mountain ranges and golden plains upon drakkon back, the wind streaming my long hair behind me, the sun in my face and joy in my heart.

The reality was colder, wetter, and far more dangerous, especially on days when storms crowded the peaks, the wind was high, and any abrupt shift in direction by the drakkon underneath me could launch me from her back.

But there was no denying the joy and exhilaration that filled my heart, and it far exceeded those childish dreams.

Of course, the only reason they’d come true at all was through tragedy.

As a nation, Arleeon had hunted the drakkons to near extinction and, even now, centuries after the ballistas had fallen silent, they remained wary of humans and rarely flew over highly populated areas.

While I’d spent the last fifteen years doing all that I could do to learn about them, I’d done so from the dangerous heights of the Black Glass Mountains—the rugged and often deadly range that lined the far reaches of East Arleeon, and whose foothills were a three-hour ride from Esan, my home city and the fortresses that guarded the eastern gateway into Arleeon. Zephrine, our sister fortress, guarded the western gateway.

Kaia had, of course, featured prominently over those fifteen years, but it had taken a long time to gain her trust.

It helped that I was a strega witch—a rather derogative term given to those of us gifted with magics of the mind rather than the more highly prized mastery over earth, air, or even healing.

While the term had once umbrellaed abilities such as the creation or manipulation of fire, the movement of objects, and mind reading, these days it was generally only directed at those of us who could understand the thoughts of animals and control their actions.

I’d inherited the gift from my mother, but it remained something of a mystery where my ability to call forth fire had come from.

There was nothing on my father’s side of the family that suggested any sort of magical skill, be it strega or not, but then, he’d come from a long line of kings who’d valued practical skills and human ingenuity over magical abilities that were often limited by the strength of the practitioner.

I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they’d actively worked on erasing any sort of magic or mind skill out of the line—it would certainly explain why a number of “spares” had inherited the throne over the heir in centuries past.

Kaia and I hadn’t really conversed all that much over the decade and a half I’d watched her, but the few times we had allowed her to see I meant no harm to either her or her two drakklings.

That was the only reason she’d come to me in Esan, seeking help for her young, both of whom had been attacked by those we now referred to as the gilded riders—armor-wearing warriors of unknown origin who rode huge birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch with deadly force at their foe, and acidic dung that could burn through flesh, wood, and rock with equal ease.

They’d attacked the three drakkons with little warning, in what we now knew was one of several “minor” skirmishes meant to test what forces Arleeon could bring to bear against them.

The little male had died by the time we’d gotten back to him, but I’d managed to patch up the larger female—in the drakkon world, females were always larger than the males—enough to allow her to fly again.

Gria, along with Rua and Tane—the mated pair of red drakkons who’d come to our rescue when Kaia and I had been attacked by gilded riders on our way back from Jakarra—now resided in the abandoned aerie high above Esan.

In the three days that had passed since our dramatic return to Esan, Damon—the man tradition and treaty had forced me to marry—had raised barriers via blood magic to prevent anyone—aside from a few necessary exceptions—using the two external entry points into the aerie.

The gilded mages were probably capable of breaking those protective spells, but it would take time and effort, and that would give us the time to retaliate.

Kaia banked right and swept over the grasslands.

This area was sparse, skimming the foothills of the Black Glass Mountains for hundreds of miles before sweeping down to the sea and the port of Hopetown.

It was mainly inhabited by herders, their semi-domesticated bovine, and wild longhorns, the latter being large, hairy ruminants with horns that stretched at least three feet on either side of their blunt heads.

While they were by nature intractable, farmers had for centuries crossbred them with the much smaller bovine to produce an animal that could be used for multiple purposes—neutered bulls to pull carts and plowing equipment, and cows for their fat-rich milk.

The sheeting rain made it impossible to really see anything other than faint shadows on the ground below, and, even then, it was the flick of hunger that burned through Kaia’s mind that told me those shadows were indeed longhorns rather than bovine.

Hairy ones sweet , came her thought.

Good to eat.

Their meat is way too tough for me , I replied, amused.

My teeth sharper.

Sharp enough to bite a human in two with ease, in fact.

Thankfully, drakkons apparently considered us poor eating, which was why, on the few occasions they had attacked human settlements, they generally just spat us back out.

How much farther have we got to go?

Twenty sweeps past Ebrus’s ashes.

Given I had no idea where the ashes of her young male currently were in relation to the grasslands I really couldn’t see below us, that wasn’t much help.

She arced to the left and began a descent, the four main phalanges on each wing shimmering like flame in the wet shadows of the day.

At well over eighty feet long with a wingspan more than double that, she was big for a drakkon, and I doubted I would ever escape the awe that rose every time I sat astride her neck.

Of course, part of that came from the fact she wasn’t just a drakkon. She was a queen. The queen, the one they all obeyed, if you believed what she said—and, having witnessed the deference the two younger drakkons had given her, I certainly did.

The sharpness of our descent increased, and I instinctively tightened my grip on the spine directly in front of me even though a slip wouldn’t actually send me falling to my death.

When Kaia had consented to me riding on her back, I’d made a makeshift harness to help keep me attached.

It was little more than a series of courser breast plates looped around her neck and simple U-shaped harness to anchor it—and me via the climber’s harness I was wearing over my oilskin jacket—to one of her spines, meaning if I did slip, I’d at worst end up dangling via the ropes from her neck.

I’d asked the saddlers to come up with a better solution and given them both Kaia’s and Rua’s measurements, but I was well aware it was going to take time to construct something more serviceable.

Overhead, thunder rumbled, an ominous sign the storm was getting worse rather than better.

Anyone with any sense would not have come out on a day such as this, but in many respects, its ferocity gave us the perfect cover, as the gilded birds appeared to avoid full daylight or indeed inclement weather.

Of course, given how little we still knew about them, we had no real idea whether it was actually a restriction or a choice on their part.

Needing to find at least some answers was one of the reasons we’d come out here today.

Kaia had torn a rider free from his bird when they’d attacked her and her drakklings and cast him to the ground.

While we had no use for his body—we now knew what they looked like even if we had no idea where they came from—we desperately needed to know what common weapons could pierce the armor they wore.

Hot enough flames could certainly melt both it and the feathers that protected the birds they rode, but fire-capable stregas were not plentiful here in Esan, and our effectiveness was restricted by just how long our physical strength held out.

Weapons made of Ithican glass also worked, but then, there were very few substances in this world that it couldn’t pierce.

It, however, came with two major problems: one, only those of us tasked with scouting Mareritten for any sign of activity or armed build-up possessed such weapons and, even then, their scarcity meant they were shared between detachments.

And two, it was impossible to use a sword or knife on drakkon back or indeed on foot against a winged foe simply because their use, by necessity, meant getting too close.

I did own both an Ithican knife and sword—my father had gifted them to me when I’d first gained my captain’s pips—and Mom, who’d been weapons master on Jakarra before she’d married my father, had recently given me her bow and a quiver.

Though it was far more useful against winged foe, of the dozen or so arrows she’d brought over, only nine now remained.

And Jakarra, the one place we could have easily gotten more from, had all but been destroyed by the gilded riders and its people made refugees in their own lands.

My parents had reached out to Ithica with a request to purchase more of the “waste” shards the arrowheads were made of, but as yet, we’d had no reply.

But even if they did come back with an affirmative tomorrow, the supplies would still take time to get here.

And I very much suspected time was the one thing we didn’t have much of.

Kaia’s flight straightened again, the very tips of her wings lightly brushing the tops of the wind-flattened grass stalks.

Though we were flying low, we weren’t intending to land.

We simply wanted to know if the rider’s body remained where she’d flung it, and more importantly, if the armor was intact or had been scavenged by one of the herders who called this place home.

If the armor did remain, then we’d swing back here and pick it up on our return to Esan.

Nearing , Kaia said.

I leaned sideways to get a view past her spines, and the wind hit me full force, the hail hiding within the rain slamming into my face and drawing blood.

I swore and tugged the collar of an undershirt farther up in an effort to gain more protection.

Not bright move, Kaia said, her mental tones dry.

No , I agreed with a smile.

It was not.

Perhaps need sleep not mating.

My smile grew.

But mating is fun.

And however much I might not have wanted to marry Damon, the man was certainly made for fun.

Our compatibility in the bedroom was the one bright spark in the sea of desolation and sadness that hit whenever I thought of my impending move to his home city, Zephrine.

It wasn’t only the fact that I would no longer be the captain of a scouting team—a position I loved—but also leaving my family, my friends, and, perhaps worst of all, the drakkons.

But I’d married Zephrine’s heir.

There was no other choice for me.

Body two sweeps away , she said.

I leaned out again, this time a little more prepared for the wind blast.

Though we were close to the ground—or as close as a drakkon her size could be without actually landing—I wasn’t seeing much.

Is the armor intact?

Instead of answering, she dipped slightly to one side, then tucked her wing back to give me a better view of the ground and the body that had obviously become a meal for the scavengers that roamed these plains.

The armor was nowhere to be seen.

I swore softly, though in truth its absence was unsurprising.

Gold was rare in our part of Arleeon, and though the armor wasn’t actually made of that valuable metal, it certainly appeared to be.

It would have been handy to have a full suit rather than the bits and pieces we’d managed to retrieve from the remains of the riders that had chased us into Esan, but it appeared the goddess of good fortune was not favoring us today.

Fly on? came Kaia’s thought.

Yes.

We still needed to check the rest of the coastline for new sentry points and then sweep past Hopetown to ensure our main fishing port was making the necessary preparations.

My father had sent orders to anchor the fleet well out to sea and to prepare for attack, but there’d been obvious incredulousness in the initial missives we’d received back from them.

That had definitely changed once the port’s governing body had received the news of Jakarra’s destruction, but I suspected they’d have a hard task convincing those within the city to evacuate.

Especially given we had no idea if moving inland would be any safer.

Kaia did a lazy turn and then rose, heading once again for the forbidding sweep of mountains that were visible even in conditions such as this.

The higher we got, the more intense the storm became, until it was constantly buffeting us sideways.

She didn’t seem to care—in fact, the happiness rumbling through her thoughts suggested she rather enjoyed the wind’s fierce play across her wings and was making something of a game out of keeping us in the air and on track—but I was getting colder and wetter by the hour.

I could of course ramp up the inner fires to keep the chill from my skin and dry out the increasing dampness of my clothes, but I was wary of doing too much in case we were once again spotted and chased.

No matter how unlikely that might be in these conditions, Túxn did like throwing out challenges to those wishing good fortune rather than bad, and she’d certainly seemed intent on sending more than a few such challenges our way recently.

We followed the mountain’s spine for who knew how many hours, but given the unhappy rumbling in my stomach, it had to be well after midday when we got the first inkling of trouble.

It was little more than a flicker of red and gold in the dark heart of the expansive if barely visible sea far to our left, but it nevertheless had my pulse rate leaping.

In weather this bad, that fire had to be pretty fierce to be seen from this height.

Go check? Kaia asked.

I hesitated, my gaze scanning the sharp mountain shadows that pierced the swirling gray of the storm surrounding us, and caught site of a landmark the fleet—be they from Esan or Hopetown—used as a navigation marker in better weather.

We were near the Sinopa Pass, the valley that split these far reaches, and whose long right “leg” ran down to the very edges of the sea, providing a sheltered harbor for Hopetown while protecting it from the worst of the winter storms that crossed the eastern seas.

Which meant these boats were roughly at the midway point between Hopetown and Kinara, the only island on this side of Jakarra.

We’d lost contact with all five islands when the gilded riders had swept in, and so far had only been able to reestablish it with Jakarra and Zergon—the latter being the smallest, and the closest to Jakarra—and only then because they were within easy reach of our cutters.

Sending out galleons was pointless, because they did not have the speed to reach the islands within daylight hours, and that made them an ideal target for the riders who’d set up camp within the ruins of Illistin, Jakarra’s capital.

We were currently in the process of evacuating both those islands during the day, but with the cutters being the only practical option, it was a painfully slow process.

Survivors on four of the five islands did at least have shelter in the form of volcanic caves that riddled their mountainous regions, though as far as I knew, this was the first time they’d ever been used as refuge against an attack rather than a tropical storm and tsunami.

If what burned out there in the sea were boats from Kinara, then either something truly bad had happened on the island to drive them out of the caverns, or they’d simply decided help wasn’t going to get to them soon enough to ensure survival.

Yes, I replied eventually , but keep high, in case it’s a trap.

No see gilded ones.

Yeah, but would you, in this weather?

Not old, sight good.

She sounded more than a little put out that I would think anything else.

A laugh escaped, though it was seriously muffled by the wet undershirt collar protecting the bulk of my face.

I really needed a better solution to keeping my face warm and dry.

I never meant to imply you’re an ancient one.

Though in truth, she wasn’t exactly young either and had at best only one breeding cycle left.

Which still meant she’d likely be around long after I was dead, given how long drakkons lived.

She harrumphed, though amusement ran through the sound.

Flicker is fire. Smell.

In this weather?

Nose good.

Smell bad.

Any idea what burns?

Watercraft.

Flesh.

She paused. Three.

Three boats?

Yes.

I couldn’t help hoping they belong to the gilded riders rather than the islanders, even if I knew that hope would turn out false.

Which begged the question, why only three boats? Even with overcrowding, three boats would not have carried all those who’d lived on Kinara.

Unless, of course, they were simply carrying all that had survived....

But again, would they really risk their lives leaving in such a storm?

Similarly, it couldn’t be a fishing fleet—aside from the fact the sheer height of the white caps dominating the seas below made casting nets impractical, the ferocity of the storm deepened the risk of waves swamping the boats.

But perhaps they had air mages aboard.

Just because Jakarra had been bereft of their services didn’t mean the other islands were.

Are all three on fire? I asked.

Two.

One stands apart .

She paused. People in water.

Túxn help them , I thought, though if they were in the water, then it was likely that Vahree—the god of death, and taker of souls—had already claimed them for his own.

Any sign of the gilded ones?

No.

Which didn’t mean they weren’t out here, of course, just that they were currently out of Kaia’s sensory range.

Something must have attacked these boats, though, and it wasn't likely to be pirates.

Aside from the fact Esan’s patrols normally kept them away, it made no practical sense for them to burn their prize.

So why were two of the boats on fire? When the gilded riders attacked us near the Throat of Huskain—the nigh on impassible mountain that dominated the northeastern edge of Arleeon—they’d used both the gilded birds’ feathers to kill our mage and their acidic droppings to sink the boat.

Fire had never been a feature of their attack.

Did that mean this was yet another weapon in their arsenal?

We’d find out soon enough.

Kaia tipped low enough for me to see without our presence being obvious and glided over the one boat that wasn’t on fire.

The tattered remains of the flag fluttering lightly from its mast told me these boats were from Kinara.

They’d hung thick nets over the starboard side of the boat and the people in the water—men, women, and, Túxn help us, children—were clambering up them, more than a few of them injured and burned.

A thin strip of calm water connected that boat with the other two, while the storm’s fierceness and the worst of the seas was being deflected away from them.

Somewhere down in that chaos, there was at least one air witch, if not two, alive, giving those still aboard the burning vessels and those already in the sea a better chance of survival.

Of course, for many down there, it was already too late.

We had to help the survivors.

Had to do something to get them and the remaining boat to safety.

We couldn’t simply leave their fate in the hands of a fickle goddess.

As the boats disappeared in our wake, Kaia swept around, the wind’s ferocity easing as we flew with, rather than against, it.

As we drew near once again, the mast on the closest boat gave way, falling with slow grace into the sea, shattering what remained of the port side in the process and dangerously tilting the entire boat.

People ran to the starboard side in a futile effort to balance it, but most were washed away by the waves that swept in through the breach.

The small bubble of calm that had surrounded that boat burst, and the sea surrounding claimed its prize, sinking the boat so swiftly it was there one minute, gone the next.

Nothing remained.

Not debris, not survivors, not even steam rising from the now extinguished fires.

The bubble remained around the other two boats, but for how long? An air mage, however strong, could not battle the elements for hours on end, and these mages had obviously been doing so for at least five hours now, given where they currently were.

It would take another four, if not more, for the remaining boat to reach Hopetown, especially given how overcrowded it was and how low it was now sitting in the water.

Which meant they would not reach safety before the gilded riders were aloft once more.

We swept past the burning boat and circled around again.

What do? Kaia asked.

That is a damn good question.

Help?

Yes, but how? It’s not like you can carry them all, and towing isn’t exactly practical, given the sheer weight of that boat and the fierceness of the storm.

What towing?

I sent a mental picture of her skimming the waves, ropes in her claws, hauling the vessel through the rough seas.

How far tow?

Hopetown.

There’s no safe port between here and there.

Eastmead might once have been a possibility, but Eastmead had been erased.

She continued to circle as she contemplated my reply.

Could do, if air master helps .

My heart began to race.

Are you sure?

She did the mental equivalent of a shrug.

Can try. May fail.