Roen had never been afraid of heights.
He'd been born in the upper towers. Nursed in rooms where the windows had no glass and the wind came in sharp enough to cut. His mother used to hold him on the balcony when he was small — my golden boy, my sun — and point at the city below like it was a gift she'd wrapped for him and was waiting for him to open.
He'd grown up looking down at the world.
Today, the world was on fire.
Aenythar banked hard over the eastern wall, and Roen pressed his knees into the saddle and felt the dragon's fury through the rider bond — hot, electric, a hunger that matched his own so perfectly it scared him sometimes. The Ember Glaive was young. Vicious. Built for speed and violence, not patience. Every muscle in the dragon's body was a coiled spring, every beat of those burnt-red wings a declaration of war.
Good. We're not here to be patient.
Below him, the capital was bleeding.
