Midnight wraps the compound in velvet and shadow. Silver lanterns sway from the old trees, their flames flickering like captured stars. The bonfires burn blue tonight, fed with magewood and river salt, sending sparks spiraling into the sky like blessings.
Tonight is Veylan'tar — the Night of Shadowfire. A celebration not just of dragons, but of those who carry them. Of bond, blood, and becoming.
Drums echo low across the yard. The crowd has gathered — warriors and children, elders and bondriders. All dressed in their finest. Scaled cloaks, fire-brushed silks, runes inked onto bare skin. But none of them shine like her.
Rose.
She stands at the top of the steps near the fire circle, lit from behind by silver torchlight. Her dress is midnight blue, scattered with pale flecks like stars caught in fabric. It flows with every step, whispering along the stones. Her dark curls are braided back with threads of silver and deep amethyst beads. A circlet rests on her brow — delicate, but sharp at the edges.
She cannot shift. No dragon answers her blood.
But when she walks through the crowd, heads bow. When she smiles, people stand straighter.
Because Rose is proof that power isn't always fire or wings.
Sometimes, it's presence.
"I thought she couldn't—" a young rider murmurs beside me.
"She can't," I say, my voice soft. "She leads anyway."
The music swells. Flames leap higher. And in the sky above, the first dragon shifts. Then another. Then dozens more — streaks of silver and obsidian and emerald coiling into the clouds. Their wings beat in time with the drums.
I feel my body call to the rhythm. My blood burns. I shift — smooth and practiced now. My silver form lifts into the night, joining the others in a ring around the firelight.
Below, Rose lifts her arms to the sky — not to call a dragon, but to honor them. And somehow, in that moment, every eye turns toward her.
The dragons roar. A chorus of shadow and flame.
And Rose — lit by moonfire and pride — lifts her chin.
She may not fly tonight.
But she is our heart.
And no heart has ever burned brighter.