Read Chapter 32: The Celebration

The great hall blazed with torchlight and the shimmer of dragon scale banners newly hung from the rafters. Elara stood at the center of it all, still not used to the way eyes followed her—some warm, some wary, all expectant. She wore the formal blue and silver of the academy, a sword at her hip that was not Kael’s, though she had kept a strip of his leather grip wrapped around her own.

Aurelia dozed in the courtyard beyond the tall windows, coiled like a mountain of pale gold, her breathing a slow rumble that vibrated through the flagstones. Every few minutes, a student or rider would stop and simply stare at the queen, as if afraid she might vanish if they blinked.

“You’re brooding,” said a voice at her shoulder.

Elara turned. Cedric stood there, a cup of wine in each hand. He offered her one. His smile was careful, uncertain in a way she had never seen from the academy’s golden boy.

“I’m strategizing,” she said, but took the cup.

“You’re brooding,” he repeated. “You always get that little crease between your brows when you’re thinking about something heavy. You had it in the stables every time you thought I wasn’t looking.”

She snorted. “You were looking?”

“Always.” He held her gaze a beat too long, then looked away, suddenly interested in the wine. The noise of the hall swelled around them—laughter, a string quartet tuning up, the clink of goblets—but between them it went quiet.

“I owe you an apology,” he said. “Several, actually. For the way I treated you when you first arrived. For assuming you were just a stable hand who got lucky. For… a lot of things.”

Elara watched him. He looked different now than the boy who had mocked her in the courtyard—softer at the edges, humbler. Losing his dragon bond, even temporarily, had carved something out of him and left room for something else.

“You were wrong about me,” she said. “But you’re not wrong now. That counts for something.”

“It counts for everything, from you.” He shifted closer, lowering his voice. “Elara, I need to tell you something I should have said a long time ago. I thought I’d get another chance, and then you were falling into ravines and bonding with queens, and I kept missing my moment.”

“Cedric—”

“I love you.” The words came out steady, surprising even him. “I’ve loved you since the day you stood in the yard and refused to bow to the lordling who called you gutter-born. You were covered in muck and you looked ready to fight the entire world, and I thought—that’s her. That’s the one.”

Elara’s heart stumbled. She opened her mouth, but no sound came. Somewhere deep in her chest, the queen-bond hummed, and in the courtyard Aurelia stirred, a single great eye cracking open as if listening.

“You don’t have to answer,” Cedric said quickly. “I’m not asking for anything. I just—I couldn’t keep it inside anymore, not after everything. If we die tomorrow defending that hatchery, I need you to know that someone in this world loved you without condition.”

“We’re not dying tomorrow,” she said automatically.

“No. But I wanted you to know.” He set his cup down and took her hand, warm and calloused, no noble’s softness left in it. “I’ll be beside you either way. Even if you never feel the same. That’s not a debt, Elara. That’s a choice. I choose you.”

She looked down at their joined hands. The grief for Kael was still raw, still a wound that ached when she moved too quickly. But it didn’t feel like a betrayal to feel something else blooming alongside it. Kael had given his life so she could reach Aurelia. He wouldn’t have wanted her to stop living.

“I’m not sure what I feel,” she said honestly. “I’m not sure I have room to feel anything right now, with everything that’s coming. But I don’t want to push you away either.” She squeezed his hand. “Give me time.”

His eyes lit like a struck match. “I have all the time in the world.”

The moment stretched, fragile and golden. Then a cough broke it apart.

Aldric stood a few paces away, expression unreadable but tinged with urgency. Cedric released her hand smoothly, stepping back into his role as though he had never stepped out of it.

“Elara,” Aldric said. “A word. Privately.”

She followed him to a shadowed alcove by the eastern pillar, away from the music and the laughter. Aurelia’s awareness brushed against her mind—warm, watchful, awakened.

“What is it?”

Aldric’s face was grim. “I’ve had riders out since dawn, scouting the approaches. The loyalist force is still three days out, but they’re not our only problem.”

“Tell me.”

“Word of Aurelia has spread faster than we anticipated. Two hours ago, I received a raven from a sympathetic household in the south. They report a group of noble families convening in secret at the Delacroix estate—families who made their fortunes trading in dragon parts. Scale armor, bone charms, blood elixirs. They saw the restoration of the bonds as a threat to their livelihood.”

Elara’s stomach turned. “They want the dragons dead.”

“Worse.” Aldric’s voice dropped. “They want them bound. Controlled. Broken. They’ve been funding the collared dragon trade for years, and with the queen here, they’re terrified their monopoly will collapse. So they’ve pooled their resources.”

“To do what?”

Aldric met her eyes. “To steal eggs from the hatchery. They’ve hired a crew of professional egg-thieves, the best in the kingdom—they call themselves the Hollow Claw. They’re known for hitting defended hatcheries and vanishing without a trace. If they get even one clutch, they’ll have decades of leverage. They can force-bond the hatchlings to their own heirs, raise them collared, weaponize them.”

Elara’s hand went to the leather grip at her sword hilt, a nervous habit she had developed over the past days. “When? How many?”

“The raven came with some delay. If I had to guess, they’re already on the move. They won’t wait for the loyalist army to soften us—they’ll strike while we’re focused on the threat from the outside.”

“Then we don’t wait for them.” She straightened. “I’ll take a party of riders. Track them, intercept them before they reach the hatchery.”

“Elara, the loyalist force is still approaching. If you split your strength—”

“The hatchery has walls. The loyalists are three days out. The thieves could be here tonight.” She looked back toward the window, where Aurelia’s eye reflected torchlight. The queen’s ancient fury hummed beneath her skin, hot and familiar. “We can’t fight a war on two fronts from behind a wall. I’ll go to them. Put the fire out before it reaches the forest.”

Aldric studied her for a long moment, and something shifted in his expression—pride, maybe, or the recognition of a force he could not contain.

“I’ll have your riders ready by midnight,” he said. Then, quieter: “Your mother would have made the same call.”

Elara’s fingers brushed the locket at her throat. It was warm against her skin, warmer than usual, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

“I’m not her,” she said. “Not yet.”

“You are more like her than you know.” Aldric turned to go, then paused. “Cedric will want to come with you.”

“I know.”

“He’s a good man. And he’s proven himself. But if you bring him into danger because of what he said tonight, that’s a different kind of bond than a dragon’s. Be careful what you let him become.”

Elara looked back toward the hall, where Cedric was laughing at something a young rider said, his ease unfaked.

“I will,” she said. “But I’m not leaving him behind. He’s earned the right to choose his own battles.”

Aldric nodded once, then was gone. Elara stood alone in the alcove, the celebration roaring on without her.