Chapter 13

Allani - 

"What were you thinking, bonding to her when Tairn already did?" I asked, glaring at the little golden dragon. 

She turned her innocent gaze in my direction, her still feathered tail lashing. 

"I had claimed her long before Tairn came and took over."  Andarna argued. 

"You know that you're too young to bond. What if she accidentally takes too much, or drains you? What happens then?" I snapped back, my concern for the dragon that Athana cares so much about overriding every other thought. 

"She won't do that!" Andarna said, defending her new rider. 

"She doesn't have to do it on purpose. All she has to do is slip in her grounding, and it'll all go down in flames." I said, my voice quieter now that I had calmed down, trying to help Andarna more than anything. 

I was about to keep fighting her on it, but Athana distracted me. 

"We have to go. The Empyrean are calling a meeting for the Silver One's double bonding." Athana said, and then her bond grew sharper, more clear. "Codagh approaches." 

I turned, and, sure enough, saw the massive black dragon coming in our direction. 

"You have bonded the same person." Codagh said, growling as he lowered his molten gaze to glare at Andarna and Tairn. 

"And we will stand by our choice." Tairn said, growling right back at him. 

He shifted so he was covering Violet, who come over at some point when I was distracted arguing with Andarna. 

Codagh turned away, focusing on me. 

"Do you deem to come to this meeting?" Codagh asked. 

I rolled my eyes. 

"As though I have ever missed one since Athana bonded to me." I shot back. 

Athana, as the last of her kind, was sort of like the dragon's queen, her place in the Empyrean higher than the others. Often times, whatever she decided would influence the rest of them to agree, and resulted in her always getting what she wanted. Because of her placement in the Empyrean, I had all of the benefits passed on to me, allowing me to enter the private Empyrean discussions and talk to dragons that are not my bonded. It had made my relationship with most of the dragons better. For instance, Codagh. But other dragons were too temperamental, too set in their ways, and often to thirsty for blood for me to get along with them. Solas was a prime example. An orange daggertail missing one eye and bonded to Major Varrish, one of Navarre's prime interrogators. Athana had given him many of his scars, and Tairn was the one to remove his eye, after he had come too close to me one too many times. 

Codagh dipped his head slightly, not enough to be noticeable to anybody except people who were focusing on him, and took off, the wind from his takeoff making me falter slightly as I turned to walk back to Athana. 

Just before I reached my dragon, Dain stepped in my way. I shot him a glare, which made him flinch slightly, but he didn't move. 

"What do you want?" I asked, moving around him to keep walking. 

"I know that you have some sort of influence on what takes place in the Empyrean meetings." he started, and I grabbed his arm, dragging him out of the clearing and Athana moved, her wings unfurling slightly to cover us. 

I cut my hand, and expanded the blood that flowed out, adding a sound shield that I made with my blood to keep Xaden's shadows out. 

"What do you know about that? And how." I asked, more of a statement on the last part than a question. 

He had the sense to look afraid, and looked down for a moment. 

"I don't know much, only that you can talk to all of the dragons and most of them like you. I only know what I've seen from figuring it out myself. Cath didn't tell me, if that's what you're worried about." Dain said. 

I nodded. "Athana, check in with Cath please? And be nice, I like him." 

Athana made a slight hum of agreement down the bond, and I focused back on Dain.

"And what did you want?" I questioned. 

"You have to get the Empyrean to only let Violet bond with Andarna." he burst out. "Tairn's too dangerous for her, and he'll get her killed. With Andarna, she's too small to carry a rider into battle, so Violet will stay in the Quadrant once she graduates, and just become a permanent professor here, like Kaori." 

I stared at him incredulously, before letting out a sharp laugh. 

"Oh, you're serious, aren't you." I said, laughing. 

I stopped laughing, but a smile was still on my face. "I won't be doing anything. They are their own creatures, and I fully support both Tairn and Andarna's decision. Of anything, I'll be telling them to allow them both to bond the little silver haired wraith." 

Dain had the nerve to look angry, and tried to lunge, but Athana shifted her wings, the clawed tip of one of her wings hitting him in the chest, blood welling along the long, thin scratch that she gave him. 

She fully adjusted, the shade provided by her half unfurled wings disappearing in the same moment that my blood shield did, and I stepped away from the man. 

"Keep that in mind. The next time you try to hurt me. I'm never alone, and you're always the opposite." I said, mounting Athana, and taking off. 

Xaden - 

I watched Violet's eyes widen as she realized what I was saying. We're tethered now, and Allani might be entangled in this web as well, since Tairn is Athana's hatchmate, making them closer than normal dragons. 

"That's why Tairn told me to stay with you." Violet whispered as she fully took in the results of today's Threshing. 

I nodded. "The unbonded are going to try to kill you in hopes they'll get Tairn to bond them. It's happened before, in both my case with Sgaeyl, and on a larger scale with Allani and her bond with Athana, to the point that three-quarters the Quadrant went after her, even though they were bonded, they still wanted the most powerful dragon on the Continent, and probably beyond it if the Isles had any dragons. Now that our bonds are unbreakable, especially Allani's, you'll be target number one for the unbonded."

I held up one finger to get my point across. Violet snorts. 

"And Tairn thinks that you'll play bodyguard. Little does he know that you'd rather kill me than help me." 

"Tairn know exactly how much time you've spent think about those-" I slam my shields down with enough force that I felt my mental space shake. 

"He knows just how much I value my life. And Allani will possibly be killed if you die as well, but she can't help you here, she's busy fighting to let you keep your dragons." I told her. 

I noticed her expression, which was honestly so much more calm than I expected of someone who just got told that every single one the unbonded would be gunning for her in hopes that after her death, Tairn would bond to them instead, and I said as much. 

"It's a typical Wednesday for me" she shrugs, and I look over her. "An honestly, being hunted by forty-one people is a lot less intimidating  than constantly watching dark corners for my own wingleaders.

Sgaeyl's mental shields fall, letting me in again, and I walk away, leaving her to talk with her newly bonded dragons, since I was sure that Tairn would be setting the field ablaze if something went wrong. Not to mention the amount of influence that Allani and Athana had in the Empyrean would've been more than enough to support Violet's bonding if they chose to back her up, and to turn the tides against her if they chose not to. 

"How did the meeting go?" I asked Sgaeyl, fully aware that she wouldn't tell me anything. 

Allani was the only human ever privy to the dragon's secrets. I didn't know how much influence she had with the dragons, but I knew that it was a lot. 

"Why do you ask this time and time again? And you already know what I will say." Sgaeyl answered. 

I rolled my eyes, and faced the front of the dais, where the ranking officers stood, about to start the normal speeches for Threshing. 

Allani - 

I shut the door of my room, locking it before looking down at the letter in my hands. There wasn't a sender name, so it was probably from Syrena, giving me updates on my brother, Lance, who was presumed "dead", just like Violet's older brother, Brennan. I tried not to think of him often, otherwise I wouldn't stay in this hell of a kingdom and fly out to see him, consequences be damned. Syrena and him had a close relationship since he faked his death, quickly clicking and becoming close friends. 

I let out a breath, ripping open the letter, my emotions dropping as my eyes scanned the words. 

Allani,

I'm sorry that I have to inform you of this over letter, but I think that you would rather get the news as fast as possible.

The other day, we had a run in with a venin, while he was helping us with a patrol right outside of Aretia's borders. He was filling in for the place of a gryphon rider that was supposed to be on the patrol instead, but they had gotten held up. 

Here, the writing started to get shaky, and the ink was smudged, a few tears staining the page. 

While we were in the middle of the patrol, Ange told him that he spotted movement in the distance. Obviously, he had listened to his dragon without any doubt, and told us that he was going to check it out, barely giving us any time to react to his words before he was already taking off. The red daggertail was much faster than out gryphons, and by the time we were close enough to realize that it was a venin he was facing, he had already engaged in the battle. 

Lance, being the crazy, brave person he is, jumped into battle immediately, throwing his first dagger at the venin's head. The dark wielder stopped it, and that is when we noticed a horde of wyvern approaching. Lance called for us to keep the most wyvern off his back, but the venin had already teleported to his wyvern, and the approached us rapidly. We were all busy fighting, and one of the wyvern had latched onto Ange's flank, but he was fighting it off pretty well. 

He didn't realize that there was another wyvern coming in from behind him too focused on removing the wyvern from his dragon. I called out the warning too late, and the wyvern had already knocked his off Ange, before starting to fight the dragon. We all dived to try to catch him, but none of us were close enough, and Ange wasn't able to fight off the wyvern fast enough. 

By the time we landed, he was already too far injured for Brennan to heal, not unless he had somehow developed a distance wielder signet that none of us knew about. Ange had followed him into the realm of Malek a few minutes later. 

I'm sorry we weren't able to keep him safe. 

No. That was the only word that made its way into my mind. 

No. No. No. No. I collapsed to the ground, tears already staining the letter. 

"You promised." I sobbed. 

"You said that I would see you at the next drop." I screamed. 

I flipped the letter to the back, desperately grasping at the last strands of hope, that this was all a dream, any minute now, I would wake up, breaking free from the nightmare that my treacherous mind had woven. Lance would be alive. Ange would be fine. They would both be fine. 

"I'm sorry." Athana said, and I latched onto her voice, using it as a thread tying me to reality. 

I shifted my position, leaning against the door, the paper falling from my fingers, drifting to land on the floor in front of me. 

Lance. My brother. My other half. He was gone. I would never see his violet eyes light up as he laughed, never hear his warm voice. My power erupts, blood appearing from the wound that I had cut earlier, rapidly expanding and erupting. I felt a tug in my gut, signifying that I had raised something large, but far away. I didn't care. Not about the fact the my room was getting ripped apart. Not that I was losing control. 

He was gone. And he was the only thing keeping me from ripping apart this world. 

Here's another chapter for you guys. And Lance is a new character that I added because I ran out of ideas and wanted to give Allani a little nudge to push her over her breaking point. After all, are you really an author if you don't give your characters a shit ton of trauma? He'll be mentioned many times later, now that Allani has nothing to lose by thinking of him. He'll never make an appearance though, for obvious reasons. Quick overview of his character, his dragon is a red daggertail called Angerona, and he's two years older than Allani. Anyways, how did you guys like this chapter? I'll probably be able to update faster now, because I found a proxy to unblock stuff on my Chromebook, so I can work on this in school too.