Dawn came bloody.
Not figuratively. The sunrise over the capital was the color of an open wound — deep red bleeding into orange, streaking across the sky like something had been cut open above the city and left to drain. Caldan stood at the window of the war room and watched it happen, his reflection staring back at him from the glass — silver hair, molten eyes, the face of a man who hadn't slept and had stopped pretending he might.
Serexi's song still lived in his bones.
Hours later and he could still feel it. Not hearing it — feeling it. A vibration in the marrow, a hum behind his teeth, a resonance that made his skin crawl because it was beautiful. His brother's dragon, the beast everyone had declared dead, had sung last night from somewhere beyond the walls. And every dragon in the capital had answered.
Every single one.
