Page 9 of The Shattered Rite (The Sightless Prophecy Trilogy #1)

“The bond is not salvation. It is surrender.” —Inscription found at the Shrine of the Bound

When she woke, the silence felt wrong.

It wasn't a quiet peace, it was a stillness that spoke of a draconian aftermath.

Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears. Slow. Heavy. Her body ached—not from wounds, but from something deeper. Change.

She sat up stiffly, her breath tight as she touched her throat.

Her fingers traced strange patterns along her skin.

Lines of smooth, raised symbols curled over her collarbone, spiraled her wrists, and looped down her ribs.

The marks weren’t scars. They shifted faintly beneath her fingertips, alive.

Her skin caught the low light, runes glimmering black and gold, scales rippling faintly at her sides like the breath of something sleeping.

“I… don’t recognize myself.”

No, Vaeronth answered, his voice rich as iron and old as ruin. Because you are no longer the girl who entered the dark.

Her throat caught.

“I don’t know if that’s reassuring.”

It is truth.

She smiled faintly, brittle and fragile. “You know that that's not comforting, right?”

I have waited for three hundred years. Comfort might take some building up to.

That silenced her.

The hush stretched long. The weight of his words settled against her skin, heavier than the runes.

“You’ve been… waiting? That long?” She pause. "For me?"

His presence pulsed. Not warmth, not pride. Something deeper. Endurance.

I waited for you before your mother’s mother took her first breath.

Vaeronth’s voice filled the cavern like smoke. Not cruel. Not cold. Just… absolute.

“Great,” Eliryn muttered, pressing a trembling hand to the wall as her knees wobbled. “No pressure, then.”

His scales shifted in the dark—too large, too real for her mind to process clearly. Her blurred sight caught only fragments: molten veins of gold, ridges like black iron, wings that seemed to shudder the air itself. Her brain tried to fill in the blanks, but the image her mind painted was too vast.

“I can’t even see you properly,” she admitted, voice catching. “After all that waiting, you get stuck with the blind girl.”

There was a pause.

And then Vaeronth’s voice rumbled low and quiet.

Your eyes are not your weakness.

“At least you're not pretending I don't have any weaknesses. But, I thought dragons chose their riders.” She swallowed. “Wasn’t that the whole… legend?”

Once, we chose.

A pause thick with something heavier.

And once, we burned.

Eliryn gripped the stone, her humor faltering. “I’m guessing those two are connected.”

A long silence.

Yes.

Her throat worked, but no words came. Not until her voice cracked small and hopeless:

“So why are you here in the Undermire?”

Because I am the last.

That silenced even her sarcasm.

I watched the world forget my name. Watched my kin die one by one. And still I remained. Not for glory. Not for revenge.

“For me,” she whispered, the realization slicing clean through her. “You waited for me.”

I've been awaiting the start of the prophecy. Waiting for fate. And when you were born, I felt you. The beginnings of a bond ignited. From your first breath, I knew.

Eliryn sagged. “Gods.”

You were not what I expected.

She almost laughed. “That makes two of us.”

Vaeronth’s exhale stirred her hair, carrying the scent of old fire and dust.

I was meant to find a warrior. A leader. Not a girl who trips over her own feet.

“I do not trip.”

Silence.

She huffed. “I don’t trip that often.”

Another silence.

“Try flying without your vision and come talk to me after you hit a couple trees.”

A sound like distant stone cracking… not quite laughter, but close.

“Okay. Fine.” She rubbed a hand over her face, exhaustion gnawing at her. “So you’re stuck with me. A half-blind, slightly-cursed, vaguely traumatized healer who can’t tell her left from her right some mornings.”

You are my bonded.

“I don’t know how to be that.”

You will learn.

Her voice broke, her self-deprecation cracking into something raw.

“I don’t know how to be what you need,” she whispered, her voice crumbling. “I’m not… enough.”

A long pause. Then Vaeronth’s voice, low and certain as mountain stone:

It isn’t about what we need.

She frowned faintly, her hands tightening into fists.

It was never about choice. Or readiness. Or want.

“What, then?”

We are two halves of one flame. I carry what you lack. Together, we fulfill the shape the world cannot name yet.

She swallowed. “Because of the prophecy.”

Because of fate.

He shifted closer, the ground vibrating softly beneath her boots.

Neither of us chose our destiny, he said. Neither of us wants to be the last of our kind. But the gods named us to mend what has been left to rot. To tear the sickness from the kingdom’s heart before it kills all that remains.

Her breath hitched. “Well… how are we supposed to do all that?”

By becoming what they fear most, Vaeronth rumbled. By being exactly what the prophecy promised—and more.

His voice softened, but it was no less absolute.

Whatever comes, we face it as one. Dragon and rider, bound to heal a realm dying by the Sovereign’s hand.

Her throat cinched. “I’m scared.”

At last, something in his voice shifted. Gentler. Like thunder made soft. You seem it.

She laughed, cracked and wet. “Oh, you’ve got jokes.”

I assure you, I do not.

She blinked. “I’m not sure if that’s comforting or depressing.”

Neither am I.

Her laugh came easier this time. Small. Fragile. But real.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted softly, curling her arms around herself.

“My mother used to tell me about the prophecy… about how it would be me in the end. Like I was meant to win the trials and wear the crown. To fix everything.” Her voice thinned.

“But standing here, it all feels… impossible.”

You are the last Dragonrider.

She let out a short, almost bitter laugh. “Yeah, and according to her, that title is supposed to change the world.”

She saw what I see, Vaeronth rumbled. The shape of what you will become. The magic that you will unlock. She knew it as surely as I do.

Her breath hitched again, but no tears came now. Only the steady, quiet ache of a heart too tired to break.

“Alright,” she whispered. “We'll do it together.”

In the silence that followed, she felt him—a constant immovable presence.

Not her savior.

Her tether.

And for the first time since leaving her village, Eliryn didn’t feel lost.

She felt… found.

And Vaeronth, ancient as the mountains themselves, shifted closer, lowering his head until she could lean—slow, clumsy, shaking—against his snout.

She whispered into the warm iron of his scales:

“I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”

He rumbled softly.

The prophecy is worth waiting for.

And Vaeronth added, quieter now:

So were you.

She pretended not to hear him.

“And what happens when we reach the surface?”

His tone shifted—grimmer, resigned.

I cannot walk with you in the world above.

“Why?”

Because my true form is too large. My wings cannot stretch beneath the ceilings of the castle. My shoulders are broader than their gates. I am shaped for sky and stone… not for corridors and courts.

Eliryn blinked slowly, almost dazed. “Oh.”

I will shelter within the vessel at your throat, the pendant forged to bind me. You will carry me. But know this: I am not diminished. I am waiting.

“For…?”

For whatever we may face.

She sat in silence for a moment, the runes faintly pulsing down her arms like they were trying to keep her heart beating.

“You know,” she said at last, “you really do sound ancient.”

I am.

She huffed a faint laugh. “And here I thought I was bonded to a mysterious young rogue.”

If you wish for flattery, you have chosen poorly.

Her mouth twitched. “Gods, Vaeronth, you could at least pretend to lighten up.”

I cannot. There is too much at stake.

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Figures.”

A pause.

“You sound tired too,” she said more quietly.

I am that, as well.

Her throat tightened. She tried to swallow it down. Failed. “Great. Ancient, tired, and now you’re stuck babysitting me.”

I am not a babysitter, he said, and when she opened her mouth, he added, and you are not a child. You are the rider the gods named. If you cannot believe in yourself, then believe in what they saw—the future they set in motion. It will not matter if you doubt, so long as you move toward it.

Her breath caught. “That’s… a lot of faith to ask for.”

Faith is not given. It is built. And I will build it with you.

She managed a small smile. “Guardian, then. Mentor. Overly dramatic, scaly life coach.”

A long silence. Then: I accept guardian.

She blinked, then barked a laugh. “Oh. So you do have a sense of humor.”

No.

“Liar.”

Another pause. His voice shifted, lower. Closer.

You really are afraid.

“I—” Her breath caught. “Yeah.”

Good.

She froze. “Excuse me?”

Fear will keep you alive.

She stared at nothing, then let out a broken sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, you’re a joy.”

I am honest.

“Sure. Honest. Terrifying. A little judgy.”

You walk into walls.

“That was one time.”

It was four times.

She laughed again. It cracked this time. “Have we established that I'm going blind? You don't have to rub it in.”

Well, now you are bonded. His voice softened, like stone crumbling. So at least you are not alone.

Her breath hitched.

“Even if I trip over my own feet?”

Especially then.

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, managing a whisper. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

She rose to her feet, body aching but steadier than she expected. Her sight blurred, light bleeding where it shouldn’t. She reached out instinctively, finding the curve of his snout.

He bent to her touch. His breath washed warm across her face.

We walk to the surface now.

She hesitated. “And after that?”

Then… you continue with the trials.

She huffed once. “That’s vague.”

Prophecies often are.

She smiled, cracked and tired.