Chapter 4 Aug 19, 2025 Ceremonies were supposed to be sacred. Grand. Honorable. This one felt more like a public execution. The arena was a stone coliseum carved into the mountain's edge like some ancient god had taken a massive bite out of the cliff-massive enough to swallow an entire village and so quiet you could hear your own soul preparing to abandon ship. Mira stood hidden in the shadows beneath the eastern archway, her heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to break out and run for the hills without her. Unbonded cadets lined the sand in perfect, soul-crushing rows. Each one kneeling with their head bowed like they were praying to whatever deity handled public humiliation, waiting for the hatchlings to choose them or destroy their dreams in front of half the kingdom. The instructors stood at the edges like sentinels of judgment, eyes sharp as broken glass. The crowd packed into the stone stands above was no less brutal-upper-class families dripping with inherited arrogance, nobles who'd never worked a day in their lives, alumni who'd forgotten what failure tasted like, and soldiers who looked like they ate disappointment for breakfast. All here to watch magic make decisions that would determine who got to be somebody and who got to crawl back home with their tail between their legs. Tessan stood near the front, gleaming like a sword fresh from the forge and twice as deadly. Her armor was polished to such a mirror shine it could probably blind someone from three kingdoms away. Her hair was braided down her back like she'd stepped straight out of a tapestry depicting perfect princesses, and she moved with the kind of confidence that suggested she'd already picked out her victory speech. Her lips curled in that subtle smirk she wore like expensive jewelry as she knelt in front of a gleaming obsidian-scaled hatchling that looked like it had been carved from concentrated nightmares. The creature sniffed her once-a delicate, almost curious gesture-then turned and walked away like she'd personally offended its ancestors. The smirk died instantly, crumbling off her face like old paint. Gasps echoed through the arena like a symphony of secondhand embarrassment. Tessan's fingers twitched at her sides, probably fighting the urge to strangle something. One of the instructors cleared his throat with the awkwardness of someone who'd just watched a train wreck in slow motion. "Next." She rose slowly, jaw clenched tight enough to crack diamonds, and made an elaborate show of brushing invisible dust from her knee plates. Mira almost smirked. Almost. But her nerves were too busy eating her alive from the inside out to enjoy the moment properly. From across the ring, Bastian Roen stood with the already-bonded riders like he belonged there, arms folded across his chest in that way that screamed 'I'm better than all of you and we both know it.' He didn't wear armor. He was one of the elite now, his dragon had earned him that golden ticket to superiority. His expression was unreadable as always, cold as a winter grave, but his gaze tracked everything with the precision of a predator sizing up prey. Including Mira. Especially Mira. One by one, names were called like a death roll. Cadets stepped forward with varying degrees of confidence and terror. Some walked back glowing with new bonds and probably already planning their victory parade. Most returned to their places looking like someone had just told them their life was a joke and everyone else was in on it. The crowd clapped politely for the chosen and whispered cruel assessments about the unworthy with the casual cruelty of people who'd never risked anything themselves. When the second-to-last cadet stepped back, unclaimed and looking like they wanted to melt into the sand, Mira felt the air change. The silence deepened until it felt thick enough to choke on. All those eyes turned toward the shadows where she stood like spotlights hunting for their next victim. She didn't need to see them to feel the weight pressing down on her shoulders. "Initiate Mira Solvain," the headmaster announced, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade through silk. She didn't move at first. Her legs felt like they'd turned to stone, like her body had decided this was a perfectly reasonable time to stage a rebellion against her brain. The headmaster repeated, with the patience of someone used to dealing with terrified teenagers, "Solvain." Someone in the stands muttered with barely concealed glee, "Guess she'll run." Another voice added, dripping with false sympathy, "Can't blame her. Who'd pick that?" Mira stepped forward. The crowd rippled like disturbed water. Some whispered behind their hands like they were sharing state secrets. Others laughed with the casual cruelty of people who'd never been on the receiving end of public judgment. "Now the circus starts." "Maybe the dragons are hungry." "She probably bribed someone with kitchen scraps." Her fists curled tight enough to leave nail marks in her palms, but she kept walking. Her boots thudded across the sand with deliberate, measured steps that sounded like a funeral march. She reached the center and turned to face the hatchlings, her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. Dozens of small dragons milled around the space like living jewels-scales of every color imaginable, eyes glowing with ancient intelligence, wings twitching with barely contained energy. None looked her way. None stirred. Not even a twitch of acknowledgment. She stood completely still, feeling like a statue dedicated to public humiliation. A beat passed. Then another. Then a third that felt like an eternity compressed into seconds. Her stomach dropped through the floor and kept falling. The silence hurt more than the insults ever could, pressing against her skin like physical weight. She could feel the judgment radiating from every seat, every face, every pair of eyes that had already written her off. From the crowd came the inevitable commentary: "Guess dragons have taste after all." "She should bow and leave while she still has some dignity left." "She's wasting everyone's time with this pathetic display." And then-the tremor. It started soft, barely noticeable. A pulse beneath the ground like the mountain's heartbeat had suddenly accelerated. Then a gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere. Then heat that had nothing to do with the sun. A roar shattered the air-high and sharp and full of fury that made every person in the arena flinch. Something silver burst through the ranks like liquid lightning. A blur of flame and power and barely contained rage. A hatchling-no, the hatchling. The one from the cliffs, the one whose blood had mixed with hers in that moment of desperate rescue. Silver-scaled, gold-eyed, and blazing with heat that made the air shimmer. The crowd gasped in unison, a sound like the wind being sucked out of the world. "Is that-?" "It's going straight to her-" Liorith. The name appeared in her mind like it had always been there, waiting for this moment. The drake charged forward, flames spiraling off her scales in a cyclone of wild magic that made the air itself seem to catch fire. Instructors moved to intervene-and then froze like they'd hit an invisible wall. Mira didn't flinch. Didn't step back. Didn't do any of the sensible things a person should do when a fire-breathing creature was barreling toward them at top speed. The dragon rushed at her like a silver comet. Mira raised her hand-not in fear, not in defense, not in any attempt to protect herself. In trust. Pure, absolute, probably stupid trust. "Please," she whispered, the words barely audible even to herself. "Please don't stop." The flames wrapped around her arm like silk ribbons made of fire. Heat kissed her skin with the gentleness of a lover's touch. It should have burned. Should have stripped flesh from bone. It didn't. It shimmered and sang and felt like coming home. The bond seared into place-hot and ancient and alive, like lightning made of liquid gold. Her wrist glowed with light that had nothing to do with any earthly source. The mark from before ignited like it had been waiting for this exact moment, spreading up her arm like veins of molten metal under her skin. Liorith circled once, wings flaring wide enough to cast shadows across half the arena, and let out a low, satisfied growl that sounded like thunder purring. The wind howled like the world was ending. The magic erupted like a volcano made of starlight. Light burst from the center of the ring-white, silver, golden, colors that didn't have names. It blazed so bright it blinded half the front row and left afterimages burned into everyone's retinas. Gasps turned to stunned silence. Mira stood there in the aftermath, panting like she'd just run a marathon, her hand still outstretched, her heart hammering like a war drum that refused to slow down. The mark still pulsed on her wrist, bonded and burning, proof etched in flame and magic that she belonged here after all. On the steps above, Bastian took one step back. One single step. The first time anyone in the entire academy had ever seen him shaken, had ever seen that perfect composure crack even slightly. Tessan, still frozen in her gleaming armor like a statue of thwarted ambition, turned sharply and stormed out of the arena, her boots dragging deep furrows in the sand as she fled from her own humiliation.