It was at this precise moment that Maelor realized both mages behind him had turned around.

He spun, furious. Hyran was watching the wall with academic detachment. Aeron had his journal open and was sketching with an enthusiasm that bordered on feral.

"You absolute scoundrels," Maelor snapped.

Neither of them looked at him.

Maelor smoothed his robes with the furious precision of a man assembling a list of people who would be hearing about this later.

Then he saw the rest of the group and every grievance evaporated, replaced by something closer to bewilderment. Gold eyes on Dexmon. Gold eyes on Fin. Silver on Hale. Silver on Elara. Pink on Serena. Every wolf in the corridor blazing with light that had no business existing outside of pre-Accord scripture.

"All the wolves," Maelor said slowly, turning a full circle to take it in. His gaze landed on Gavriel, and his expression shifted to something that looked suspiciously like sympathy. "Except for one."

Gav stared at him. "I’m going to need you to redirect that pity immediately."

Maelor opened his mouth to respond, but the egg cracked at that moment.

A single fissure split the shell from crown to base. Then another. Then a web of fractures raced across the surface, light spilling through each one, blue and silver bleeding into the air.

A baby dragon poked its head out of the shell. Its eyes opened for the first time, finding Hale’s face with the unerring precision of a creature that already knew exactly who it was looking for.

It blinked once. Twice. Then it chirped, roughly translated to: "there you are."

"Avalon." The name left Hale’s mouth before thought could claim credit. It came from the same place the silver in his eyes came from, a place older than memory, deeper than instinct.

Then it cautiously crawled out onto Hale’s arm, revealing light blue scales and a silver pattern. Its wings were folded tight against its body.

Avalon chirped once, high and bright, then wrapped its tail around Hale’s torso the same way Onyx wrapped around Fin, pressing close, anchoring itself. Avalon was smaller, still damp from the egg, maybe thirty-five pounds of desperate, trembling need curled against the chest of the man it had been waiting for.

Maelor’s hand drifted to his chest. He caught himself and dropped it, but the damage was done. Aeron saw it. Aeron would remember.

Fin spoke in Draken-Vorah. "Three lives, and you still fight like you forgot the shovel. Three lives, and I would still follow you into every one of them."

Dex gripped Fin’s forearm. He answered in the same tongue. "If you make me cry in front of our cousin, I will end you in every life after this one."

Fin’s mouth twitched. He gripped Dexmon’s forearm harder, matching him. "Wouldn’t dream of it, brother."

The gold in both their eyes flared one final time. For three full seconds, neither moved. Then the gold faded.

They blinked. Looked down. Their hands were locked in a warrior’s grip, forearms clasped tight, and neither of them had any memory of reaching for the other.

Dex let go first. Then Fin. Both shook their heads at the same time, the synchronized disorientation of two men resurfacing from a trance they didn’t remember entering.

They said nothing else about it.

Hale’s silver eyes dimmed, the glow receding like a tide pulling back, and he returned fully to himself. He looked down at the cracked shell fragments in his free hand, then at the dragon curled against his chest, its tail cinched around his ribs, its face buried under his jaw.

The grin that broke across his face was the biggest, most boyish, most unguarded thing Gavriel had ever seen on a man built to punch through walls.

Gav exchanged a glance with Hyran. Hyran returned it with the faintest acknowledgment, the kind of look shared between two men who understood they had just witnessed something that would require processing at a later date and preferably with alcohol. It was the first time they had ever agreed on anything.

Serena spoke in Glaciovox. Elara’s eyes still burned silver, and she translated in Draken-Vorah, her voice carrying the same ancient layering as before.

Hale responded in Draken-Vorah, careful and deliberate, and handed Avalon to Serena. The hatchling chirped in protest but went, tiny claws hooking into her training suit, tail curling around her forearm.

Maelor looked from Hale to Elara to Serena. Then at Fin and Dex, who were speaking a dead language five minutes ago and had apparently forgotten having done so. Then back at Hale, who was answering in Draken-Vorah as if he’d been raised on it.

"I assumed," Maelor said, his voice strained, "that at least one of you would have the decency to be as uninformed as I am." He looked directly at Hale. "I had my money on you."

Hale shrugged. "Fair."

Hyran allowed himself one small, private moment of satisfaction. Maelor had finally met a group that made him feel how everyone else felt around Maelor.

Serena spoke again in Glaciovox. Avalon’s eyes flared silver in her arms, glowing to match the runes on the wall.

She pressed her palm against the ice.

The baby dragon opened its mouth and blew ice onto the wall. Elara looked at Serena and spoke in Draken-Vorah, still in a trance.

"Ice from the lungs on his first day. Already freezing armies." Her trance-locked expression softened. "Look at his little wings."

Serena’s possessed head nodded in agreement.

Two women. One possessed. One in a blood-oath trance. Both pausing an ancient ritual to admire a baby dragon. Dex looked at the sky and breathed.

Gav’s eyes slid to Hale. Hale stared straight ahead. "Whatever you’re about to say, I already know, and I need you to not."

The ice cracked inward, splitting apart to reveal a dark tunnel entrance behind it. The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for one person to walk through comfortably, and the darkness inside was total.

Silver runes blazed to life along the tunnel walls, racing down the passage and vanishing into the black, illuminating just enough to prove the tunnel went deeper than anyone could see.

Serena handed Avalon back to Hale. The hatchling settled immediately, tail rewrapping around his torso, face pressing into his neck. Then it closed its eyes, completely unbothered by the ancient tunnel, the silver runes, and the possessed women. Thirty minutes old and already the calmest person in the group. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Then she ran. Alpha speed, no warning, swallowed by the silver-lit dark before anyone could draw a full breath.

"Serena," Fin called, running after her, Dexmon on his heel.