[Draven’s POV]

A force vibrates through bone and blood, through the dragon bond that connects me to Khaira. My body locks in place mid-flight, muscles frozen, breath caught in my chest.

Below me, warriors on both sides stop moving. Weapons lower, and blades hang in mid-swing.

“Khaira, what is this? What is happening to us?”

“The Watcher speaks, and we must listen. Every dragon on this field must do this.”

“I can’t move… My body won’t respond to my commands.”

“None of us can move. The word carries authority that supersedes flesh and will.”

The dragon trembles beneath me — not fear, but recognition. Something ancient in the bond acknowledges the Watcher’s authority the way a body acknowledges gravity: absolutely, without choice.

“You recognize this thing? You know what it is?”

“The Watcher is older than houses and the bond itself. When it speaks, dragons obey, there is no alternative.”

“What does it want from us?”

“I do not know, but the word has been spoken: the violence must end.”

The sky above the battlefield is wrong. A vast draconic shadow fills the space between clouds — something that is not a dragon but the idea of dragons given form, ancient and terrible.

Eyes like dying stars look down at the carnage below, at the ships and the bodies and the blood soaking into the rocks, and their judgment weighs on my chest like a mountain.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the pressure eases. The Watcher’s presence recedes, pulling back like a tide withdrawing from shore.

The sky lightens degree by degree, the shadow thinning, the eyes fading. The battlefield remains frozen for a heartbeat longer, then releases.

Warriors stumble, dropping their weapons. Men who were locked in combat stagger apart, staring at each other as if they’ve forgotten why they were fighting.

“Khaira, take me down! I need to find Evelyn.”

“I sense Aspis on the eastern shore. She is distressed beyond anything I have felt from her. Something terrible has happened to her rider.”

“Take me there, now!”

“Banking toward the eastern cliffs. Hold tight.”

Khaira descends and I see the aftermath. Aldric’s flagship has grounded on the rocks, hull torn open by the reef it struck when the helmsman froze at the Watcher’s word.

Mintian warriors stand among Black Dragon defenders, weapons lowered, staring at the sky with expressions of stunned incomprehension.

We land and I dismount before Khaira has fully settled.

“Where is she exactly?”

“Near the stone outcropping. Draven, the bond between Aspis and her rider is screaming with grief. Prepare yourself for what you will find.”

I push through the confusion — past warriors who don’t seem to know if they’re supposed to be fighting or surrendering, past medics rushing toward the wounded.

Aspis is visible ahead, her white scales dim in the strange light, her damaged wing dragging against the stone as she positions herself protectively around a small figure.

Evelyn…

She’s kneeling at the cliff edge, hunched over something in her arms. Moonlight flows from her in waves: uncontrolled, wild, bending the air around her like heat shimmer, warping the light itself.

The power is beautiful and terrifying, and I can feel it pushing against my skin even from twenty feet away.

“She cannot hear you. The grief has consumed everything else.”

“The prophecy is fulfilled. The cycle is broken.”

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