[Evelyn’s POV]
The panic doesn't leave. It just learns to hold a pen.
I bury myself in the eastern wing before dawn, pulling folios from shelves with hands that won't stop trembling. The repetition becomes medicine—each document slotted into place like a brick in the wall between myself and the names Draven read last night. Cassandra. Kael. Coming here. Walking these halls.
"You're spiraling," Aspis says through the bond. "The fear is eating your edges." Sometimes I hate that she feels the same, because then I have no choice but to confront the things that disturb me.
"The fear is keeping me realistic. My sister is about to walk into this compound, and the only thing between recognition and death is hair dye and a prayer."
"Then stop praying and start thinking. You've survived worse than politicians and a sister who underestimates you."
"Surviving and hiding aren't the same thing. Right now I need to be perfect at both." My tone is sharper than I intended it to be, but Aspis understands.
"Then be perfect. You have me. That changes the equation." She's right. I pull another folio from the shelf, the binding cracks with age, spilling loose pages—old vellum, ink faded to dried blood. I scan the headers and stop.
‘Year of the Shattered Gate. A white dragon appeared over the Ashenvale border three days before the First Coalition collapsed.’
I keep digging. Another reference in a trade dispute two centuries earlier: ‘A white hatchling reported in the eastern marches. Within six months, the border alliance reformed and the Stormreach Accords were signed.’
Another, older still: ‘The appearance of the white coincided with the fall of the Old Compact and the rise of the current house system.’
The pattern assembles itself. White dragons don't just appear. They appear before—before wars, before alliances shattering and reforming. Every reference carries the same weight: a white dragon is the match struck before the fire.
"We are not omens," Aspis says, her voice moving through me like light through water. "We are not curses wrapped in white scales. We are answers. The world breaks, and we arrive to rebuild. That is what we are for."
I press my palms flat against the table. The trembling has stopped.
Boots in the corridor—too relaxed for Draven. Riven rounds the corner with supply ledgers under one arm, grin faltering when he finds me buried in documents instead of on patrol.
"You're off rotation," he says, dropping into the chair across from me. "Checked the board twice. You requested archive duty yourself, on a day when we need every warrior on the walls. Why are you hiding in the dust?"
"I'm not hiding. I'm organizing records that haven't been touched in decades. There's surveys from the Third Accord that need sorting, if you'd rather help than interrogate." I slide the pile toward him.
He catches the top folio, scans three lines, closes it. "Thrilling. I can see why you'd choose this over a sword." He picks up the next one anyway, starts sorting with surprising care. We work in silence for several minutes.
"The tournament," he says. Not a question. "I've been turning it over since that night. You were good before—better than you let people see. But during the final bout, something changed. You moved differently. Faster. And the light—I saw light around your arms. Pale, almost white, like veins of fire beneath glass."
I keep my eyes on the document. Through the bond, Aspis goes still.
"I've seen that before," Riven continues, leaning forward. His brown eyes hold no accusation—just sharp intelligence beneath the easy smiles.
"Bonded riders channel their dragon's strength. Changes their movement, speed, reflexes. I grew up watching it every day beside my brother. I know what I'm looking at."
"You're looking at a woman who fought hard and got lucky. Adrenaline does things in combat that look supernatural—you know that."
"I do know that. Which is exactly why I know the difference between adrenaline and what I saw in that arena." He leans back, arms crossed, watching me with the patience of someone who's already decided to wait as long as it takes.
"That wasn't a surge of desperation, Evelyn.” His eyes narrow. “That was channeled strength. Controlled. Precise. The kind of thing you can't fake and can't train into your body without a bond feeding it."
"Riven—"
"I'm not trying to corner you. I'm not going to report anything. I just need you to know that I saw what I saw, and I'm not stupid enough to pretend otherwise." He holds my gaze—same iron core as Draven, different surface.
"Whatever you're carrying, I'm choosing not to ask. But don't pretend there's nothing to ask about."
Aspis sends warmth through the bond—not instruction, just presence. I'm here.
"Thank you. For choosing not to ask, and for not being stupid."
"Family trait, unfortunately. Don't tell Draven—he thinks he's the only observant one." His grin softens. "You're safe with me. Whatever I think I know stays where it is."
Riven finishes his folio and leaves with an easy and warm smile. But it doesn’t settle me as it’s supposed to, so after my shift in the archives is done, I seek out Draven.
His study is dark except for fire and two candles, shadows carving his face into hard angles. He listens without interrupting. When I finish, his jaw works once.
"I'll speak to him," he says, clipped. "Before he draws conclusions that put us all in danger. If I bring him in now, on my terms, I control what he knows."
"And if you do that, you make it real." I step closer. "Right now it's a feeling. A suspicion he's sitting with because he trusts you. The moment you confront him, you turn a feeling into a fact, and a fact demands action. He can't unknow what you confirm."
"He's my brother. If he's already pieced it together, the damage is done."
"No. There's a difference between suspecting and knowing.” I insist. “A man who suspects can look the other way. A man who's been told directly by his lord carries a burden he can't set down. You'd be forcing his hand."
Draven stares at me. The fire pops, sparks spiraling upward. "You think like a strategist," he says quietly.
"I think like someone who's been hiding her whole life.” There’s steel in my voice. “When every truth you speak can be a weapon against you, you learn which truths to hold and which to let land. Riven is holding back because the truth is still soft enough to carry without it breaking him. Don't harden it before you have to."
"And if he hardens it himself? Decides suspicion is enough to act on?" He insists.
"Then we deal with that when it comes.” I cut him off. “But your brother sat across from me today, told me he saw something impossible, and chose to leave it unnamed. That's not a man looking for a reason to act—that's a man looking for a reason not to."
The silence stretches, and Draven studies me—not with desire, not with the charged electricity when we stand too close, but something quieter. Respect, maybe.
"Then we wait," he says. "And we watch."
"And we trust that your brother is exactly as smart as he just proved himself to be—smart enough to know when knowing is enough." His mouth curves—not a smile, but its ghost. He nods, and the conversation folds closed.
I leave his study with three secrets against my ribs—the dragon, my name, and the certainty that the walls are closing faster than any of us can shore them up.
"He listens to you," Aspis says through the dark corridor. "That matters more than you realize. Men like him don't listen easily, and they listen to almost no one twice."
"It matters exactly as much as I think it does. Which is why it terrifies me."