Onyx Storm (The Empyrean Book 3)

What we know about dragonkind is nothing compared to what we don’t.

—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind

What in the actual fuck. I draw back and stare at the irid, the knife loose in my grip.

Dragons don’t speak to humans they’re not bonded to, yet that deep, gruff voice definitely does not belong to Tairn.

“What is going—” Ridoc starts, coming up behind me. “Oh shit.”

Half the dragon heads swing his way as he runs toward me, while the other half keep their eyes and enormous jaws pointed in my direction.

“Are we happy?” he asks as he reaches my side in his bare feet. “Are we scared?”

I nod.

“Why do you not answer me?” the dragon asks.

“Perhaps the human female lacks intelligence,” a high voice chimes in, and the dragon on the right lifts her head.

My jaw drops. Guess arrogance is a universal dragon trait.

“She’s just surprised.” Andarna rises, but she leaves her head level with the others. “And you’re in her face.”

To my complete and utter shock, all six dragons take a step back.

“Thank you,” Andarna says.

“You speak our language?” I ask the irids.

“We are magic,” the male replies like it’s the most obvious reason in the world.

“Did they just respect your personal space?” Ridoc whispers, then yanks his hands over his ears and flinches. “What was that?”

“It is rude to speak as though we cannot hear you,” the female says from the right.

Ridoc’s eyes widen.

“It is more offensive to lift a blade at us.” The snappy schoolteacher voice comes from the left, I think.

“I don’t know you, and I’m not going to let you hurt her.” I glare at the one whose scales flicker to green.

“And you feel a dagger is sufficient.” Her nostrils flare. “I believe you are right, Dasyn. The human female lacks intelligence.”

Rude. But she’s right about the first part. I sheathe the dagger.

“You are irid.” The male in front of us changes the subject, his giant head tilting as he studies Andarna.

Her scales change from black to the green of the jungle, then ripple to blue, mirroring the sky just like the male. “I am irid.”

“Holy shit,” Ridoc says. “Was that Andarna?”

“I think when they make that whistle sound, it connects you to the irids,” I mutter.

“Yet you choose black as your resting color?” the female asks Andarna from the right.

“It is acceptable in my ho—” She breathes out in a huff. “In Navarre.”

The one diagonally to my left lifts their head. “She is the criterion.”

The other five flinch and draw back.

“Is that a good thing?” Ridoc signs.

“I don’t know,” I sign back, my heartbeat easing slightly as they give us a little more space.

Wingbeats fill the air and the irids’ heads lift skyward as darkness falls on top of us. Tairn lands hard, shaking the ground like thunder, his back claws digging into the sand to the left of Ridoc and the right of Andarna.

My heart stutters, and I can’t decide if I’m more relieved that he’s arrived or increasingly terrified at the thought of losing them both should the irids attack.

Dragons aren’t exactly predictable, and I know nothing about the ones in front of us.

“My human,” Tairn warns, swinging his tail. Trees crackle and crash behind us as he snaps his teeth at the irids. At least, I think that’s what’s happening, but all I can see is his underbelly and the legs of the irids.

“No!” Andarna scrambles out from beneath him and pivots as though staring him down. “They won’t hurt her. They’re my family.” She turns in a circle. “She’s my human, too.”

My stomach twists. They might be her family, but she doesn’t know them, and there’s every chance they’ll kill us all. We’ve been so busy trying to find them that we haven’t given much thought to what would happen when we did.

“Are humans so rare in Navarre that you must share?” the female on the left snaps.

“Do you not have another one under there?” a different voice asks.

Something drips to the left, and my gaze jumps past a smiling Ridoc.

Aotrom slithers forward at Tairn’s side, saliva dripping from his exposed fangs as he emerges from the trees. He growls low in his throat, giving a warning I don’t need translated.

Mine.

“We have no interest in the humans,” the male declares. “And no quarrel with either of you. We’ve come only to speak to the irid.”

“Andarna,” Tairn corrects him.

“Andarna,” the female to the right says gently.

Tairn retreats step by careful step until Ridoc and I stand between his front claws, his back ones filling the space his tail just cleared.

“At least now we can see something before we die,” Ridoc signs, then shrugs.

“We’re not going to die,” I sign back. My longing for Rhi and Sawyer to be here to see this equals my gratitude that they’re not in danger.

Tairn’s head hovers just above us, level with Aotrom’s. Clearly, he’s with Ridoc on this one.

Andarna swings to face us, her eyes dancing with palpable excitement. “See? They won’t hurt you.”

“I see.” I nod, not wanting to kill the moment for her.

“Oh my.” The female on the right gasps.

“What have you done to your tail?” The one on the left reels back.

Andarna cranes her neck to check her scorpiontail. “Nothing. It’s fine.”

My gaze jumps from irid to irid, my stomach sinking lower as I count from one to six.

They’re all feathertails.

“Tell us what they’ve done to you,” the male in front of us demands.

“Done to me? I chose my tail.” Andarna’s tone shifts defensively. “As is my right upon transition from juvenile to adolescent.”

The irids fall silent, and not in a good way.

The male in the center lies down and wraps his tail around his torso. “Tell us how you came to choose it.”

Andarna lifts her head to her full height as the irids lie down one by one.

“Is this really about to be story time?” Ridoc signs.

“You know as much as I do,” I sign back.

A corner of his mouth quirks as his hands fly. “First time for everything.”

Wood crunches as Tairn and Aotrom take the same position, leaving us standing between Tairn’s outstretched claws.

Andarna sits just ahead of us to the right, her tail swishing across the sand. “I blinked in and out of consciousness in my shell years—”

“We’re going to be here awhile,” Ridoc signs, then plops his ass down in the sand.

I slowly lower myself to do the same as she tells her story to a captive audience.

It’s only when she describes Presentation that the irids begin to throw questions at her.

“Why would you present yourself to a human?”

“No, they present themselves to us.” Andarna’s tail flicks. “So we can decide if we should allow them to continue on to Threshing or turn them into char marks.”

The irids all gasp, and Ridoc and I share a confused look. I’m guessing they don’t bond to humans.

“Seeing as I’m the eldest of my den in Navarre, there was no other to object to my Right of Benefaction,” she continues with excitement and more than a little pride, which makes me smile. “And so Threshing began.”

It’s fascinating to hear it from her point of view.

“Why would you participate in harvest?” the female on the left asks.

“It’s just what we call it when we select our humans for bonding,” Andarna explains. “So I went into the woods—”

“You bonded as a juvenile?” the male to the right shouts.

Tairn cranes his neck forward and growls. “You will not raise your voice to her.”

Andarna turns her head and narrows her eyes at Tairn. “Do not ruin this for me.”

Hurt stabs through the bond and Tairn recoils, his head drawing back to cover Ridoc and me.

Ouch. My chest tightens, but there’s nothing I can say to him and no way to say it without chancing the rest of them hearing me.

Andarna continues with our story. She tells them about Jack and Oren, about how I defended her, about Xaden and the rebellion.

“So naturally, I slowed time,” she tells them when recounting the attack in my bedchamber.

“You used your juvenile gift for a human?” the female on the left questions.

“I don’t like her,” Ridoc signs.

“Me either,” I respond in kind.

“For my human.” Andarna tilts her head. “She is part of me, as I am of her. You undervalue our connection.” That last bit reeks of adolescent snark.

“My apologies,” the female says.

“Damn, this breed apologizes,” Ridoc signs, lifting his brows. “Maybe we should have held out.”

I roll my eyes.

“Do you not bond humans?” Andarna asks, and I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees.

“We do not live with humans,” she answers.

“Is it just the six of you?” Andarna’s head swivels to look at them.

“There are hundreds of us,” the male to the left replies, speaking for the first time. “Please continue.”

The swirl pattern in his horns reminds me of Andarna’s. Maybe they’re from the same den.

More than an hour passes as she conveys every detail, as if forgetting one facet might alter whatever is about to happen.

When she starts to tell them about War Games, then Resson, my muscles tense, and I fight my own memories from interceding, fight the inevitable wave of grief that rises when she speaks of Liam and Deigh.

“And so I flew into the battle!” She pounces up on all fours.

There’s more than one set of narrowed golden eyes.

“And Violet channeled my power—”

Two of them inhale sharply, and my stomach full-on knots.

“I don’t think this is going as well as she thinks it is,” I sign to Ridoc.

“Why? She’s incredible,” he signs back. “Brave. Fierce. Vicious. Everything the Empyrean respects.”

But the way the irids look at her says otherwise.

“And we slowed time so that she could strike!” Andarna tells the story with an enthusiasm that belongs onstage. “But it was too much magic to channel, and I was still small. My body demanded the Dreamless Sleep…”

By the time she brings the irids to the present day without mentioning how we’re trying to cure Xaden, several hours later, they’ve all stopped asking questions. In fact, they lie in eerie silence as she finishes.

“That’s why we’re here,” she says. “To ask if you’ll come home to fight with us. To see if the knowledge was passed down of how the venin were defeated during the Great War, or if you know how to cure them.” Her tail flicks with expectation. “And I’d like to know about my family.”

The male in the center narrows his eyes on me. “And you allowed her to channel as a juvenile? You took her into a war?”

My mouth opens, then shuts as guilt settles on my shoulders. He’s not saying anything I haven’t questioned of myself.

“It was my choice!” Andarna shouts.

The female to the right sighs, blowing sand down the beach. “Show us your wing.”

Andarna tenses for a moment, as if deciding, then flares her wings. The left one buckles, and she forces it to extend, but the gossamer webbing trembles under the effort. “It doesn’t usually shake. I’m just tired from flying.”

The female glances away, the sun catching on her curved horns. “We’ve seen enough.”

“I can fly!” Andarna snaps her wings shut. “I’m just missing a second set of muscles and can’t carry Violet. The elders said it has something to do with the delicate balance of wind resistance and tension on my wing, and her weight on the spinal discs that run under my seat. But that’s all right because we have Tairn and he works with me every day—and the elders, too. And when I get tired, he carries me, but only on long journeys.” She glances down at her harness and shifts her weight nervously.

“Please permit the effrontery of our need for a moment of privacy,” the male in the center says.

They’re so rudely…polite.

Andarna sits, the irids’ voices slipping out of my head.

The six of them walk into the water, their scales changing to colors only a shade darker than the ocean.

“I think we’re blocked,” Ridoc signs.

“I think so, too,” I reply.

Andarna’s head angles toward us, and I offer what I really hope is a reassuring smile.

A moment later, three of the irids launch straight from the water, then disappear into the sky.

“That’s not good,” I sign.

“Maybe they’re just going to get the others,” Ridoc signs slowly.

The three left are the quiet male with the horns similar to Andarna’s, the one from the center, and the female from the right. They walk toward us, their scales changing back to shades of pale blue as they emerge from the water.

My chest constricts. They could have the answer to everything…or they could be as clueless about our history as we are.

“Did I pass the test?” Andarna asks.

The slide-whistle sound plays again, and I wince as it screeches so high I’m sure my ear is going to bleed.

“Test?” the male in the center asks, peering down at Andarna.

“You were just testing me, right? To make sure I’m fit to visit our den? Where is it, anyway?” The hope in her voice would cut my knees out if I were standing.

“You were never the one being tested.” The female sighs and looks over at me. The hair rises on the back of my neck. “You were.”

My head rears back and my stomach drops clean out of my body. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be.” The female flexes her claws in the sand. “You failed.”

Tairn growls, and this time Andarna doesn’t stop him.

“Violet has never failed me,” Andarna argues, thumping her tail against the ground.

I slowly rise to my feet. “I don’t understand.”

The trio blatantly ignores me. “The fact that you defend her actions is a testament to their failure as a society,” the male says to Andarna.

Ridoc stands and folds his arms beside me.

“Violet loves me!” Andarna shouts, her head swiveling between the three of them.

“She uses you.” The female’s eyes fill with sadness, and the scales of her brow scrunch. “She took advantage of a vulnerable child. She used your power as an instrument of warfare, forced your premature growth—and look what you have become.”

I fight to swallow past the rock that suddenly fills my throat.

“You think I’m broken,” Andarna hisses.

“We think you’re a weapon,” the male responds.

My lips part, and a rumble works its way through Tairn’s chest.

“Thank you.” Andarna’s scales flicker to mirror theirs.

“It wasn’t a compliment.” His words sharpen. “Our breed is born for peace, not violence like others.” He spares Tairn a single glance before returning to Andarna. “You were left behind as the criterion. The measurement of their growth, their ability to choose tranquility and harmony with all living things. We’d hoped you would return to tell us the humans had evolved, that they had blossomed under the wardstones and no longer used magic as a weapon, but instead you have shown us the opposite.”

I wrap my arms around my waist as he slices her—us—to the quick.

“And dragonkind has not learned their lesson, either. While you”—the male in the center’s gaze jumps to Aotrom—“gifted your human with ice”—he dares to shift his focus to Tairn—“you armed yours with lightning.”

“That’s not how signets work,” Ridoc argues.

“And you”—the male lowers his gaze to Andarna—“our very hope, have handed this human something far more dangerous to wield, haven’t you?”