[Draven’s POV]

Blue Dragon banners stretch taut in the wind. Catapults on the foredeck crews load and angle toward our cliff batteries.

The sound carries across the water: shouted commands, the groan of loaded siege engines, the rhythmic drum-beat of oarsmen driving the warships forward.

I sweep Khaira across the southern line. Low pass, close enough that the downdraft from her wings sends spray across the nearest deck.

Ballista bolts chase us — two, three, whistling past Khaira’s flank — and she rolls hard to avoid the fourth.

The bolts are designed for dragons, heavy iron shafts with barbed heads that could punch through scale at close range.

“They brought dragon-killers,” Khaira says. “Aldric came prepared.”

“Stay above their range. We need to draw fire, not absorb it.”

Below, warriors man the southern walls. Cliff batteries return fire — catapult stones arcing toward the fleet, exploding against hulls and water in plumes of white spray.

The harbor chains hold across the narrows, forcing the lead ships to slow. Theron commands from the western battery, his voice carrying over the chaos with the steady authority of a man who was born to hold fortifications.

It’s a theater, convincing, necessary theater. Every eye on the southern fleet, every defender visible on the walls, every catapult firing at maximum rate.

Aldric needs to believe his feint is working — that we’ve committed everything to the harbor defense.

The real war is east.

“Khaira, eastern approach. What do you see?”

Through the bond, her vision sharpens — dragon eyes cutting through distance and mist with a clarity that makes human sight feel like blindness.

The Shattered Coast resolves in razor detail: rock channels, churning surf, and there — threading through the gaps between reef teeth — movement.

“Boats, small and shallow. Twenty — no, more. They follow a lead vessel through the channels. The pilot knows the path.”

Aldric’s secondary force. Two hundred elite warriors in shallow-draft longboats, sliding through the rock maze guided by their smuggler pilot.

They think they’re invisible and the fleet has pulled every defender south. But Riven is waiting for them.

I bank Khaira east. The turn is hard, pulling blood from my head, and I flatten against her spine as the horizon tilts.

The southern fleet falls behind us — still firing, still advancing, still playing its role in the performance.

Ahead, white scales catch the grey light.

Evelyn on Aspis, paralleling my course from the eastern cliff. The white dragon flies with the savage grace of a creature born for exactly this — wings slicing the air, body streamlined, every movement precise and predatory.

Evelyn rides low against Aspis’s spine, silver hair streaming from beneath her helmet, and even in the chaos, the sight steals my breath.

Black and white, side by side.

The Alliance will hear about this, and the world will hear about this. Whatever happens today, the image of these two dragons cutting the sky together will rewrite what every house in the realm believes is possible.

“Together,” Khaira says.

“Together,” Aspis answers through the bond — the first time I’ve heard the white dragon’s voice directly, resonant and fierce.

We strike the eastern force.

Khaira dives first. Shadow-fire erupts from her jaws — not flame but something darker, a concentrated blast of energy that hits the lead boats in a wave of black heat.

Wood splinters, and men scream. Two longboats shatter on impact, warriors thrown into the churning water between the reef teeth.

Aspis follows. Through Evelyn, moonlight power channels into a blinding shockwave that detonates across the channel — white light erupting in a sphere that turns the grey morning into noon for three savage seconds.

“They’re reaching the beach,” Khaira reports.

“Now,” I tell Khaira.

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