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About to collect my mount and head out now.

Where meet?

I don’t want to spook the city’s inhabitants, so I’ll ride about an hour out and meet you on this hill.

I sent her an image of one of the many foothills that surrounded Hopetown—one that stood out thanks to the rather large round boulders that encircled its crest—and she came back with an affirmative.

Then a rush of hunger filled the link, suggesting she’d spotted her next meal.

I quickly shut the link down, leaving her to enjoy her hunt in peace.

The guard led me out into a yard, then up a series of stairs that led us past the wide but flat grassy area behind the admin buildings.

It had once housed the port’s poorer folk, but a past administrator had decided she wanted a better view out of her windows and had relocated all the old tenants to “newer” accommodation at the far edges of the town before demolishing the centuries-old buildings and regreening the entire area.

Subsequent councils had not reversed the decision, suggesting they all considered their view remained a higher priority than the need for additional housing in the increasingly crowded town.

We continued on up the steps, heading for the military section situated against the curtain wall.

It housed the mounted force as well as the infantry, while the other, smaller military zone positioned next to the harbor housed the sailors who manned the war galleons—none of which were here, suggesting the council had at least moved the main fleet out.

Hopetown might primarily be a fishing port, but in times past, it had come under plenty of attacks, both internally and externally. Arleeon hadn’t always been a peaceful continent.

We walked into a long range of stables that hunkered in the shadows of the city’s wall, directly opposite what I presumed was the barracks.

Coursers stomped and snorted, but most were dozing, dreaming of the long grasses and longer fields they very rarely saw aside from the times they were under saddle.

The courser I was given was a lovely dappled gray mare who’d already been saddled up.

I ordered the removal of the tack, which earned me a dour look even as the stable hand obeyed, and lightly connected with the mare’s mind.

She snorted, tossing her head uneasily over both the light caress of my thoughts through hers and my musky scent—she’d smelled the drakkons once before when a yearling when they’d attacked the city’s breeding herd—but, like most animals I communicated with, she calmed down after a few gentle words. Animals were, in my opinion, far easier to deal with than most humans.

I leapt onto her back, gathered enough of her mane to hold me steady until I’d adjusted to her gait, then glanced at the guard.

“The gates will be open, I take it?”

He nodded.

“Safe journey, Captain.”

As he stepped back, I nudged the mare forward, moving at a trot through the stable’s exit and down the road to the gate.

The guards stationed there saluted and, once we were through, the gates were closed and locked behind us—the latter something I heard more than saw.

I urged the mare onto the softer grass crowding the sides of the road, then into a canter, moving easily with her as the miles went by and the sunrise slowly began to paint the sky with a pastel palette.

Arrive , Kaia said. Fly high.

Remain there until I dismount and send the mare back.

No eat?

No, I said dryly. No eat.

Shame.

They tasty.

Didn’t you just feast on a longhorn?

Yes. Point?

I laughed, the sound echoing across the still morning.

Somewhere off in the distance, in the shadows of the Black Glass Mountains, something stirred.

Something that had the small hairs across the back of my neck rising.

I narrowed my gaze and scanned the distant blots of black, but couldn’t see anything untoward.

My long viewer, like practically everything else, was in the pack tied onto Kaia.

You seeing anything over near the mountains?

She didn’t answer immediately, but I had a sense of her lightly circling as she studied the area.

A male flying.

Aerie there.

There is? I asked in surprise.

New.

A young queen, two females, and their mates there.

Why?

No room in others.

Which was becoming a major problem as drakkon numbers grew and the vast breeding areas above Esan and Zephrine, which had once held hundreds of drakkons, remained beyond the use of most.

Is it not a risk for them to be this close to Hopetown?

No choice.

Safe breeding places few.

Which was basically what I’d thought.

I studied the distant mountains and the drakkon I couldn’t see for a few seconds, the inner niggle continuing to strike.

Keep an eye on him, Kaia, just in case.

Her full attention snapped back to me, the weight of it briefly buckling my knees.

You sense winged ones?

I hesitated.

No.

It’s just a bad feeling.

No like bad feelings.

Me neither.

We fly along wildlands not mountains. Safer.

Agreed.

And at the very least, we’d have a good long time to spot any of the gilded riders before they ever got into attacking range.

I stopped the mare near the top of the hill, then slid off her back and gave her a good ear scratch.

She snorted in soft appreciation and lowered her head to graze, but I caught her thoughts again and impressed the need for her to return to the city.

She rather reluctantly did so, and only after I’d pointed out the presence of a drakkon.

Once she was a good distance away, Kaia swooped in, extending her rear legs so that she could land before lowering a front leg, providing a scaly ramp for me to climb.

I scrambled up and across her shoulder, using the decidedly wicked-looking spur that jutted out from the wing’s thumb to steady myself before settling on her neck.

After clipping my harness onto the ropes, I slung the bow back over my shoulders, then dragged the long viewer from my pack and focused it on that distant drakkon.

There was something about the way he was flying—an odd sort of desperation—that had that inner unease ramping up some more.

I tucked the long viewer back into the pack and tied it down again.

“I think we need to fly over that way and see if he’s okay.”

Maybe hunting.

Good eating there.

“He doesn’t look to be cruising for his next meal to me, Kaia.”

She studied him for a second and then hunkered down and launched hard into the air.

We check .

She arced gracefully around, then flew upward at such a sharp angle that the ropes snapped taut.

I couldn’t see the drakkon past her spines and head, but there was an odd sort of cloud now forming around one of the Black Glass Mountains’ ragged peaks.

Aerie , Kaia said.

Roosted there last night .

And now it was surrounded by a strange cloud, and one of their males was winging his way toward us at a speed drakkons rarely use except when fleeing...

Was there any sign of the gilded riders when you went in or left?

No. Checked.

Which was something, but still...

I flexed my fingers, trying to ease the spiraling tension, sending tiny sparks of fire spinning into the air that were quickly caught by the sheer force of our speed and extinguished.

Kaia bugled, a long and demanding sound that was almost deafening.

The male replied with a strange mix of bugles, growls, and whistles, and the anger that surged through Kaia just about fried my mind.

What? I immediately said.

Aerie attacked , she growled.

Three gilded riders.

Others melt rock and close entry. We help?

We help , I replied.

And hoped like hell Túxn felt like throwing luck our way.

Because two against five were not at all good odds.

We’d already learned that the hard way.