POV: ELARA
We rode north under stars that felt too distant to care about what happened below them.
The army stretched behind us for miles—the largest unified force assembled in five hundred years. Dragons flying in formation overhead, their scales catching moonlight. Human cavalry and infantry marching in disciplined columns. And scattered throughout, the Reborn. Neither fully dragon nor fully human, but something new. Something Vaerix wanted to erase from existence.
I sat astride my horse beside Kael, who alternated between his human form for strategy discussions and partial shifts when he needed enhanced senses to scout ahead. Through the Merge, I felt his constant vigilance, his awareness of every element of our forces.
Two weeks of hard marching. Two weeks of pushing our people to their limits.
And along the way, we found the graves Vaerix had created.
