Ethan's gaze drifted upward, not with urgency or fear, but with that gentleness he reserved only for them. His golden and silver eyes softened, and the brutal battlefield reflected inside them like a half-forgotten nightmare.
His voice slipped out like warm gravity, subtle yet impossible to disobey.
"Come to me."
High above, Barki, the colossal orange-scaled dragon whose wings had once cast shadows over continents, stirred. Her blazing lava eyes flickered in immediate recognition of his tone, her great heart thrumming like the heartbeat of a mountain.
She nodded.
A dragon nodding, an entire omen in itself.
Barki began her descent, wings folding in as she spiraled downward with impossible grace. The wind bowed around her. The ruined sky parted for her. The ground trembled in reverence.
