Chapter 29: The Silent Call

The night was heavy with tension, the stars hidden behind thick clouds of ash that drifted from the Firebone Mountains, casting everything in a sickly orange hue. Elyra's dragon, barely able to fly in its weakened state, glided through the air as though every beat of its wings were a struggle. Her grip on the saddle was tight, every muscle in her body coiled like a spring. She hadn't seen Kael since they split in the sky. The plan had been simple—draw the rogue riders away from each other, split them up, and survive. But survival was starting to feel like a distant hope.

They were no longer just fighting for their lives; they were fighting for something far darker—something that had stirred beneath the earth for centuries. And it was only now, in this infernal sky, that the true magnitude of the threat began to claw at Elyra's mind.

Her heart pounded as she flew, weaving through jagged rocks and twisting paths that led her ever closer to the Bloodroot Hollow, where Kael had promised they would regroup. But the closer she got, the more she felt the weight of the world closing in.

The rogue riders had scattered after her ambush, but they were regrouping now—moving like shadows in the smoke, like predators closing in on their prey. She could hear their voices—barely more than whispers in the wind, but they were there, cutting through the howl of the wind. Elyra's pulse quickened as she pressed on, her dragon's wings thundering beneath her as it fought for air, every beat of its wings a desperate push toward survival.

There were no sounds of Kael's wyvern. No sign of Vespera's silent figure. The trio had broken into different paths, and Elyra couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong—deeply wrong. Had they been captured? Had Kael failed to draw them out, too? Or was this something far worse?

A low growl rumbled in her chest, the fear clawing at her throat as she looked over her shoulder. The rogue riders were back. Three of them, circling, closing in with an eerie grace that sent a shiver down her spine. One of them—she recognized his face from before—had fire in his eyes, a cold, remorseless rage. The others flanked him like wolves, their dragons moving in perfect synchrony, wings stretched wide like the claws of a great beast.

Elyra's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't fight them all—not alone. Not without Kael and Vespera.

Then, as if in answer to her thoughts, a sharp cry echoed from above, and her heart nearly stopped. The sky darkened as a new figure appeared, dropping from the clouds like a ghost—a massive shape, covered in shadows, flanked by two others. The rogue riders were not alone.

Kael. The thought hit Elyra like a bolt of lightning. But there was something wrong—something darker in the air around him.

The figures descended rapidly, slicing through the smoke with deadly precision. Elyra's stomach twisted as she saw Kael's wyvern first, its rider standing like a dark silhouette against the molten sky. But the rider wasn't Kael. The face was different, twisted in an eerie grin as he looked down on her, and the wyvern's eyes—burning bright, almost with a bloodlust of its own.

Behind him, two more dragons flew in formation, their riders indistinguishable in the haze of smoke and ash.

Elyra's pulse surged. Kael was gone. These were not the riders she had come to trust. These were strangers—dangerous ones.

She turned sharply, her dragon's wings flicking as it tried to evade the incoming assault. She had to move. She had to survive. Her instincts kicked in, and she banked hard to the left, dodging the swooping dragons that seemed to be everywhere now.

"Kael!" She screamed, the word ripped from her throat, but the winds stole it away. The riders didn't answer. They didn't need to.

Another cry split the air—sharp, pained. Elyra whirled around to see the source: one of the rogue riders from before, struggling with his dragon, flames trailing behind them both. He was losing control, spiraling out of the sky as his dragon screeched in agony. The rider was falling, tumbling toward the jagged rocks below, his form a dark blur in the ash-filled sky.

Elyra's breath caught in her throat. That wasn't Kael's doing. Whoever this was, whoever had come to intercept them, wasn't playing by the same rules. And the silence, the emptiness where Kael should have been, only heightened the unease gnawing at her. Was he dead? Or had he betrayed them?

Her heart pounded louder, faster. There was something about the scene unfolding in front of her that didn't sit right. A feeling deep in her gut, a whisper in the back of her mind that something far more dangerous was drawing near.

Another rider fell from the sky. This time, it wasn't a rogue dragon rider. It was Vespera.

Elyra's breath caught in her chest. The dragon—Vespera's dragon—was in freefall, wings crumpled and battered, flames licking the air as it fought against its descent. Elyra's dragon shuddered beneath her as she twisted around, desperation flooding her veins.

"Vespera!" she shouted again, but Vespera didn't respond. Her mount crashed into the rocky spires below, and the earth shook with the impact. Elyra's heart stopped, a cold dread filling her. The ground cracked beneath them both, sending a violent tremor through the mountain range. The sky above was silent for a heartbeat, the calm before the storm.

Elyra's dragon roared, breaking her from her stupor, its wings beating with frantic desperation. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She had to act.

Through the smoke, she saw movement. Figures, dark and foreboding, weaving through the shifting clouds. They weren't coming to help. They were coming for her. The rogue riders. The strangers. All of them closing in like a pack of wolves, their eyes trained on her.

Elyra felt the cold sting of panic, but underneath it, something else flickered. Something far colder. She wasn't alone in this sky. She had a destiny to fulfill—one far beyond her understanding, one Kael had known, one that he had hinted at before.

The ground trembled beneath her again, but this time, it was not from the fallen dragons. It was the awakening—the thing Kael had warned her about. The deep, ancient power beneath the earth, stirring from its slumber. The dragon riders' movements became erratic, their once-precise formations now disjointed, panicked.

The earth cracked wide open.

The scream that filled the air was not the sound of a dragon, nor a man. It was something far older. Something that had been waiting. And it had risen.

Everything stopped. The sky turned a sickening shade of red. The rogue riders were still circling, but now they were on the defensive, unsure of what had just happened. Elyra's dragon reared back, its wings flapping wildly, its instinct screaming to flee. But Elyra held her ground, staring into the maw of what was coming.

Then, from the depths of the world, a dark shadow rose, coiling like a serpent—a monstrous thing. Its eyes glowed with an unnatural light, and the ground beneath them began to tremble with its very presence. Elyra's heart skipped a beat.

"Kael…" She whispered his name, the cold realization dawning on her. "It's too late."

The weight of the past, the secrets Kael had kept, were about to collide with the present.

And Elyra was in the center of it all.