The Ballad of Falling Dragons Summary by Chapter | Sarah A. Parker

Raeve admits she has “decided to care” for Kaan and promises to take him to his mother’s retreat, though she is still driven by bloodlust. Kaan is proud of her but notices she still doesn’t know she has a daughter or that her family was poisoned.

Chapter 16: The High Treasury Thief

The group moves up to a rusty grate leading to the Citadel’s surface, observing Bothaim’s battalion in battle formation. Raeve reveals she learned about the moonfall from an intercepted lark, and Kaan provides white robes for disguises.

They enter the High Treasury, a vast chamber filled with relics, and Raeve spots the Fate Herder leading her toward a specific door where she finds the Book of Voyd. Roan confirms this is the book he was caught trying to read, and Raeve decides to steal it to help protect Kaan’s folk.

Chapter 17: The Magma Nest

Grihm perfects a makeshift nest in Gondragh using metal hooks and magma, using air-purifying runes to survive the toxic Sabersythe nesting grounds. He encounters Kilíth, who has escaped a destroyed hut with a rocking golden egg, and helps him hatch a dragon hatchling.

Grihm is revealed to be searching for a Silver Sabersythe egg as a second dragon bond, reflecting on his late dragon Inkah. He prepares to leave for the Vihn Peaks despite the high likelihood of death, carrying his silver dragonscale blade.

Chapter 18: The Wall’s Breach

Bothaim is in a panicked uproar as folk try to enter the Citadel for moonfall protection, and the group realizes they are trapped. Roan suggests using an experimental “melt” rune that requires dragon blood, and Kaan provides his blood to activate it.

The rune explodes with volcanic force, creating a large hole in the white wall, and Kaan collapses from the blood drain. They plan to make for the underground canal to lose any tails, but Raeve spots the Moving Mists cascading over the wall and shivers, knowing the mists house hungry waifs.

Chapter 19: The Iron Ambush

Kaan is unconscious as they flee through the hole in the wall into a tight alleyway, where a red Moltenmaw corners them and its rider orders them to be burned. Raeve challenges Clode to harden the air, creating a shield that holds back the dragonfire, but she is struck by an iron pin and loses her connection to Clode.

Kaan wakes up and tackles Raeve, taking several iron pins in his own body to shield her. As they are pinned and cornered, Rygun arrives with a mountain-sized presence and attacks the Moltenmaw, clamping down with primal ferocity.

Chapter 20: The Blazing Escape

Kaan and Raeve sprint through thickening mist toward Rygun, who has grounded the red Moltenmaw and is holding the burnt, dead rider in his maw—an act that will be seen as war. Pyrok’s dragon, Maell, arrives and carries him and Roan to safety.

Kaan orders Rygun to “burn it all,” and the dragon blasts a torrent of flame that melts storefronts and ballistae before they launch into the sky. Kaan knows that retribution from Bothaim will come if they survive the moonfall.

Chapter 21: The Solidifying Moon

Veya is freezing and wounded as Bharon flies her north, experiencing hallucinations of her mother Kovina and breaking down in the dragon’s grip. Bharon’s wings begin to falter, and realizing he won’t make it to The Burn, he tosses Veya into soft snow to avoid crushing her.

Bharon collapses nearby, his flame extinguished, and with his last strength, he leaps into the sky toward a Moonplume moon, tucks into a ball, and turns to stone. Veya is left alone, realizing Bharon gave her the reprimand of survival rather than the death she expected.

Chapter 22: The Chieftess of Beluhn

Raeve and Kaan fly south toward the border between The Burn and The Fade and are met by Siharna Farjór, the Chieftess of Beluhn, who resembles Kaan’s sister Veya. Siharna leads them through a “bubble” into the secret, colorful village of Beluhn.

Kaan is physically drained and slip as he dismounts, his wounds from the iron pins raging, and Siharna insists they stay at her family roost. Kaan confirms that Raeve is safe in Beluhn, but Raeve remains wary and scans the area for traps.

Chapter 23: The Lullaby

Raeve follows Kaan down the steep mountain stairway, noting his five bloody pin wounds, and realizes he wanted to stay near Rygun’s burrow. Inside the house, Kaan’s niece Korie is crying for her father, and Kaan, despite his pain, sings “Tune of the Lifting Star” for the child.

Raeve watches Kaan cradling the lute and feels an overwhelming sense of familiarity and sadness, her internal “icy lake” shattering as she flees the house into the snow. She realizes that Elluin’s “greatest mistakes” are doomed to haunt her.

Chapter 24: The Stitched Wound

Kaan enters his mother’s old house, the “green wing,” which smells of lullberry, and Roan and Pyrok prepare to remove the iron pins from his back. Pyrok suspects Raeve has fled with the Book of Voyd, but Kaan is confident she’ll return, and she does.

Kaan insists that Roan mend Raeve’s thigh wound first, but she takes the prongs and rips out her own iron pin without flinching, then stitches herself up. Kaan watches her with fierce concentration, realizing she is telling him something through her hard outer shell.

Chapter 25: The Vow of Vengeance

Raeve uses Ignos’s flame to cauterize Kaan’s wounds, enduring the smell of frying flesh, and Kaan tells her she is “stunning,” a truth he regretted not saying for over a hundred phases. Raeve makes it clear that if Kaan dies, she will “wreck the world” to avenge him.

They share a night of passionate intimacy on the furs of the pallet, but as Raeve is unlacing her boots, she experiences a sense of déjà vu. She is thrust back into a memory of someone else unlacing her ceremonial boots while she wished for Kaan, and snaps a blade to Kaan’s throat, not recognizing him in her trance.

Chapter 27: The Love of Elluin

Raeve pulls back from Kaan, horrified that she nearly killed him in her trance, and asks if Elluin bound to someone else, which he confirms. She tells Kaan that Elluin loved him with every bit of her heart, despite the other male, and Kaan is gutted by this admission.

Kaan decides not to push her for more truths and holds her while she sleeps, reflecting that Elluin’s dismissive lark was a lie intended to protect him from something worse. He realizes she still loved him when she returned to The Shade to bind with his brother.

Chapter 2: Kyzari (Continued)

Kyzari names her parchment lark “Nee,” after the letters on its abdomen, and touches the Aether Stone, vowing to survive. She creates a makeshift lockpick from a scavenged bone fragment and begins grinding bone shards against the floor to hone them.

Nee flutters about her playfully as she works, and Kyzari repeats her survival mantra over and over, determined to find her way free of this “warren of misery.” She hopes Slátra will understand her connection to the Moonplume moon.

Chapter 29: The Return of the Moonplume

Raeve wakes beside Kaan, unable to sleep as Elluin’s memories storm her mind, and hears a distant screech. She moves to a bridge and sees Líri, her small Moonplume, punching through the clouds, chased by three Moltenmaws.

Líri prepares to attack Raeve with blue flame, but Rygun launches to intervene, herding Líri toward the burrows. Raeve realizes Líri is rattled and aggressive toward her, and Kaan warns that regaining Líri’s trust will be difficult.

Chapter 30: The Choice of Freedom

Raeve encounters the three riders who escorted Líri, who warn that the dragon is wild and will likely kill her if she enters the burrow. She finds Líri looking exhausted and like a fading star, and Kaan explains that Líri feels abandoned.

Líri begins building an ice pillar in the center of the village, and Kaan tells Raeve she must free Líri from the saddle and choice-less existence she’s lived. Raeve decides she must remove Líri’s saddle while in the air, preparing to risk her life to give the dragon the gift of choice.

Chapter 31: The Sabersythe’s Warning

Kaan watches Raeve rummage through a basket of soft boots for her climb and warns her that bonding with a mature dragon can expose one’s darkest mental baggage. He takes her to his mother’s old room and gives her Mah’s special climbing boots.

Raeve makes Kaan promise not to intervene during her attempt to reach Líri, and he agrees but is terrified of losing her again. He goes outside and vomits in the snow from sheer stress, then prepares a hearty meal for Raeve before she leaves.

Chapter 32

Arkyn, the Scavenger King, hosts Einar from the Tri-Council at the fighting pits in Bhoggith, hiding his resentment for Einar’s dismissal of his bastard status. Einar receives a lark informing him of the approaching moonfalls and that Kaan Vaegor has been outlawed for attacking Bothaim.

Arkyn claims he already knew of the moonfalls through his miskunn and offers refuge to those who bow to him. Einar strikes a deal to support Arkyn’s rise if Kaan is delivered, and Arkyn aims to seize the bronze throne and see Kaan’s blood spilled.

Chapter 33

Raeve prepares to scale the hexagonal ice pillar that Líri built in the village center, and Kaan approaches her, expressing his eternal adoration and reshaping the destroyed bridge to give her a seamless path. She pockets her iron ring to better hear the Creators, noting the eerie silence of Clode and Rayne.

Every pull and shift of her limbs is calculated to keep her focus sharp as she begins her ascent, reflecting on her promise to prove herself worthy of the dragon. She aims to reach the top without failing the beast she loves or being “masticated.”

Chapter 34

Raeve reaches the top of the pillar and finds Líri sleeping majestically amidst translucent clouds, observing the puckered scars on her membranes from Rekk’s torture. Líri awakens and roars, lashing out as Raeve tumbles sideways and barely grabs the saddle ropes.

Raeve manages to reach the buckles and yanks out the last pin, releasing the girth belt and falling away with the saddle into the clouds. Just before she hits the jagged peaks, Líri swoops down and snatches her, tossing her into deep snow and curling around her protectively.

Chapter 35

A massive Moltenmaw buck and his family approach Raeve and Líri in the snow, and Líri postures defensively, growling at the buck’s poisonous tail prong. Understanding Líri’s signal, Raeve mounts the dragon’s back without a saddle, gripping her tendrils for stability.

They land on a high plateau where Líri curls into a knot, whining, and Raeve approaches her with a calming song. Slowly, Líri accepts the touch, and Raeve senses that accepting this bond means acknowledging something was emptied from her to make room for Líri.

Chapter 36

Kyzari uses bits of bone to pick the lock on her iron shackle while Nee flutters around the room decorated with moon drawings. The Scavenger King enters, bringing a message from King Tyroth that her maid Marci is dead and threatening Surí if she does not return.

Arkyn demands Kyzari hand over her lock-picking tools and forces her to give up Nee, then brutally tears the lark in half. Kyzari falls to the floor, screaming and cradling the lifeless pieces of her only companion, while Arkyn leaves without a word.

Chapter 37

Kaan is deep underground in the newly forged bunkers, exhausted from daes of shaping dwellings for the villagers and suffering dizzy spells. Siharna, heavily pregnant, descends a thousand steps to bring him food and news, expressing her fear of finding the village flattened after the moonfalls.

Kaan reflects on the past and the heavy burden of power, and Siharna mentions that Raeve and Líri have been hunting nearby but haven’t returned to the burrows. Kaan worries that Raeve might be turning “wild” to escape her pain, haunted by the revelation that Elluin supposedly went “willingly” back to Arithia.

Chapter 38

Raeve and Líri hunt in a wide gully, their senses honed by their growing bond, and she reflects on how her savage urges are simpler than thinking or remembering. After Líri kills a bhar, she rips off a flap of meat for Raeve, who accepts it with gratitude.

Raeve notices Kaan bathing in a waterfall nearby and feels a possessive, hungry thrill at the sight of his powerful back. She snarls at Líri, demanding submission so she can charge toward the spring with her offering of meat, drawn by Kaan’s smooth, charming song.

Chapter 39

Kaan watches Raeve approach with the savage hunger of a predator, covered in blood and with almost entirely black eyes. He hums a soft tune to soothe her, hoping he can still reach the woman beneath the feral exterior, and she strips naked and joins him in the steaming water.

They clash in a passionate embrace, though Kaan realizes Raeve is trying to use him as a distraction from her pain. He pins her against a mossy cliff and begs her to “come back,” and she finally cracks, admitting the bond with Líri hurts because it dredges up her past.

Chapter 40

Kaan and Raeve engage in an intense physical encounter in the spring, their bodies aligning in feral dominance, and Kaan’s eyes glow with fire reflecting Rygun’s savage side. He declares his undying devotion, telling her they are together “until the end.”

During the encounter, Raeve is hit with déjà vu, picturing a different room with black walls and a male unlacing her ceremonial boots. After they finish, Kaan notices her distress, and Raeve goes inside her mind to build a stony pyre over a silver splinter—a memory she isn’t ready to face.

Chapter 41

Raeve wakes in Kaan’s makeshift camp to find him cooking the meat she brought, and he has rinsed and folded her clothes in an act of honor. He admits he never took another lover in over a hundred phases because his love for Elluin “clung to him like a weight.”

Raeve offers him an uhloo—a thin braid of her own hair—to return the honor of him wearing her málmr, and Kaan is visibly moved. Their peaceful moment is interrupted by a lark announcing that Siharna has gone into labor, forcing their immediate return.

Chapter 42

Kaan watches Siharna struggle through labor from a distance, checking on Korie and praying for Siharna’s safety. Borg, the smog-filled waif, emerges from his jar to demand more memories in exchange for news and tells Kaan that his brothers have information on Elluin’s past.

Borg demands a particularly painful memory, and Kaan relives the day Mah died giving birth to Veya and his father cold-bloodedly handed him the baby. After Borg finishes his feast, he tells Kaan that Elluin went “willingly” back to Arithia, unrestrained, devastating Kaan.

Chapter 43

Raeve and Kaan sit together waiting for news of Siharna’s labor, and Kaan shares the story of how he bonded with Rygun after finding him in sinking sand, fighting off multiple clans for two days to protect the dragon. Raeve is moved and weaves her uhloo into his hair.

Kaan presents Raeve with a gift: custom riding leathers, boots, and a cloak runed against frostbite, lined with Rygun’s scales and pearl oxide. Pyrok enters, pale and exhausted from listening to Siharna’s screams, bringing a Skripi board and spirits to scrub his brain from the tension.

Chapter 44

Veya is alone in a dark tunnel, suffering from fever and a throbbing shoulder wound, desperate to reach Kaan and tell him he has a daughter. She recalls being forced to murder the Neván family under the influence of a Mindweft.

To survive the cold and predators, she finds refuge in an ancient, forgotten tunnel and uses Kaan’s weald to cauterize her own wound. She begs Bulder to snap the cave shut to protect her from circling crowls, hoping she won’t die before revealing the truth.

Chapter 45

Raeve wakes to the feel of an incorporeal blade slitting down her spine—Sereme using the blood bind—and finds Pyrok and Roan passed out from drinking. A lark from Kaan informs her that Siharna birthed a healthy boy.

Raeve puts on her new gear and is followed by a black-robed stranger, whom she pins against a tree. He reveals himself as an Elding Squire, sent by Sereme to deliver a time-sensitive mission: she must kill a fae with silver hair and eyes.

Chapter 46

The Elding Squire delivers a map of Bhoggith and orders Raeve to kill a fae with silver hair and eyes, using emotional manipulation and blaming her for the deaths of recruits. When she questions the mission, the squire uses a special vial and quill to inflict crippling pain via the bind.

After the squire leaves, Líri swoops down and kills him, ripping him in two in a red rain. Siharna witnesses the kill and urges Raeve not to keep her secrets from Kaan, telling her he deserves the truth.

Chapter 47

Raeve paces her slumbersuite, preparing to brave her Other’s den to find more of Bulder’s language, and is hit by another wave of pain from Sereme’s bind. She is ripped back and stuffed beneath the ice of her internal lake, finding her Other waiting above.

Raeve dives toward the cluster of pillars and notices her Other has divided her silver memory stones across several nests—a trade station where she must absorb bits of the Other’s past to get Bulder’s language. She finds a shard of black memory stone and closes her hand around it.

Chapter 48 (The Other – Past)

The Other (Slátra) watches as her hatchling, Allume, struggles to balance because of a misshapen wing, feeling a heavy sadness. Young Elluin enters the burrow, appearing angry and hurt after her hair was chopped, and The Other uses their bond to discover Elluin’s icy gush of sorrow.

Elluin reveals that her brother Tyroth told her he wished she had been left to die, and The Other senses that Tyroth has grown distant and cruel. Slátra binds tightly around both Elluin and Allume, savoring the penance of love amidst the early family fractures.

Chapter 49

Kaan and Pyrok share a meal in the treehut while Kaan avoids sleep to watch Raeve’s locked door, and Pyrok comments that Kaan is giving everyone permission to leave. Roan returns with Kaan’s cloak and Borg’s jar, looking chewed to bits by the waif.

Roan shows Kaan the Book of Voyd, revealing that the runes are infinite and otherworldly, and that Tyroth’s protégé, who can read the book, is currently in Bhoggith. Kaan decides they must find the protégé and retrieve a moonshard located near the center of the bog.

Chapter 50

Raeve prepares Líri for their journey, feeling stabs of pain from Sereme’s bind that force her to fold against the ground, and Líri senses her pain and nudges her with intensity. Raeve secures a new bridle on Líri that is easy for the dragon to tear off if needed.

Kaan, Pyrok, and Roan launch from the ledge on their dragons, heading south, and Raeve mounts Líri and joins them. She is determined to shoulder her trivial torture sessions on her own so Kaan remains focused on the mission as they fly toward Bhoggith.

Chapter 51

Grihm prepares for a dangerous final ascent in Gondragh, searching for a Sabersythe egg and hearing that the Great Silver Sabersythe has turned rabid. He meets Kilíth, who has bonded with a golden hatchling despite the chaotic conditions.

Kilíth warns Grihm that he will likely die if he tries to scale the peaks where the rabid dragon dwells, but Grihm is undeterred. He leaves a lark with Kilíth to be sent to Kaan if he does not return in seven cycles, then fists his silver dragonscale blade and steps into the darkness.

Chapter 52

Veya is dragged through a winding tunnel by masked guards and brought before Arkyn, who sits on a throne of scavenged treasures. Arkyn reveals he knows she is a brown bead and has taken Kaan’s weald, and asks about their father, whom Veya describes as cruel and void of empathy.

Arkyn tells her a story about a young bastard rejected by his father in favor of a legitimate heir—himself—and reveals the Elding Bird, the mythical beast that saved his life. He shows Veya his melted face, proof of the Sabersythe attack he endured, then orders a Mindweft to rifle through her mind.

Chapter 53

Raeve and her companions move through the Forest of Harthor, using mud to mask their scents in the boggy bruise of a forest filled with steaming mud and black insects. Líri follows through the canopy, her icy flood of concern bombarding Raeve via their bond.

Raeve experiences another wave of torture from Sereme’s bind, sinking into the mud while hiding her pain from Kaan. They reach a treehut shaped by Kaan, and he confronts her about her unusual posture, asking if she was injured, but she deflects.

Chapter 54

Raeve and Kaan discuss the nesting grounds of Bhoggith, which are currently being raided by Cadok’s militants who are grounding the sires to fill bloodstone coffers. Raeve is disgusted by the cowardice and the grieving dams left behind.

They spot the nest containing the silver moonshard, roosted on by a pink-colored dam, and Raeve is suddenly certain this shard is the most important treasure in the bog. Pyrok points out that the dam’s mate is slumbering directly above her in the sky, and Kaan prepares for the perilous mission.

Chapter 55

Kaan waits for the pink dam to leave her nest at rising so he can retrieve the moonshard, but the air suddenly chills and Líri’s eyes snap open. Raeve is no longer in her nook but charging out into the forest toward the nesting grounds, and Kaan chases after her.

Raeve snarls at him, a blue flame churning at the back of her throat, and Kaan realizes her Other has taken over. The Other ignores Kaan’s warnings, knowing the wild ones won’t maim “that which has already passed.”

Chapter 56 (The Other)

The Other (Slátra) leaps across stepping stones in the bog, heading toward the pink dam’s nest while Kaan follows. Using Bulder’s words with the perfect dialect Elluin once honed, she shapes a path through the mud and reaches the nest.

She finds the silver piece of her own wing among the feathers and a pink egg that is empty of life, having been left too long without warmth. Feeling kinship with the mourning dam, Slátra bestows a silver thread of mystical fiber from herself into the egg, which turns silver.

Chapter 57

Veya is dragged back to her cell after a session with the Mindweft, her brain feeling like a swollen lump, and Arkyn taunts her about Kaan. He threatens to have the Mindweft be gentle if Veya convinces her cellmate to eat, and Veya realizes the prisoner in the next cell is Kyzari.

Kyzari is in filthy tatters but her eyes return to vibrant blue when she sees Veya, and she confesses that Tyroth used her as a bounty and the Grand Chancellor repeatedly abused her. Veya gives Kyzari her mother’s diary, and Kyzari begins reading about her parents’ love.

Chapter 58

Raeve returns to consciousness, her mind busting against the jagged bits of the memories she just absorbed, and finds a note from Kaan saying they have gone to find the protégé. She discovers the silver moonshard under her cloak—a beautiful gift Kaan obtained.

Raeve notices a pink feather on her muddy boot, proof she was out in the bog during her trance, and Roan tells her they left just after the aurora fell. She resolves to complete her mission for the Ath—killing the target fae—before she can face Kaan, and heads out into the fog with Líri.

Chapter 59

Raeve descends the garrison wall with Bulder’s help, shaping hollows to enter the building, and finds herself in empty slumber quarters. Using a peeping hole, she observes over a hundred soldiers waiting in a sunshine-yellow room and realizes they are set to ambush Kaan Vaegor.

She engages a lone soldier in the corridor and kills him after a lung-mulching struggle with Clode, then charges into the yellow room filled with icy rage against Sereme. She uses Clode’s language to turn the soldiers’ arrows against them, painting the room in gory bouquets of blood.

Chapter 60

Raeve enters the sunshine doors at the outpost and finds Ahvi, a silver-haired child, sitting in a crater of a room. Ahvi reveals he is a Mindweft and already knew she came to kill him, telling her that none of them understand like her Other does.

He has obtained a Moltenmaw egg with the help of a kind guard and is waiting for it to hatch. Ahvi tells Raeve to run before he activates his silver shield and drops a flaming weald into his nest, which erupts in dragonfire and triggers the hatching.

Chapter 61 (Ahvi)

Ahvi explains to Raeve that time is more stretchy than folk realize and that he can undo her blood bind, though removing it is like pulling a spine from a body. He describes the runes he uses as a cage that momentarily manipulates time.

He reveals he was trained at the Citadel but hated it, and insists on repaying his life debt by saving Raeve from Sereme’s control. Raeve is reluctant to put him in danger, but Ahvi points out that the bind almost got her killed twice.

Chapter 62

Raeve and Ahvi sprint through the garrison’s corridors, dodging rubble and dead limbs, fueled by cold rage as she realizes Kaan is walking into an ambush. They reach the outside and are met by Líri, who carries them through thickening mist toward the companions’ location.

Kaan and Pyrok are trapped in nets laced with iron fibers, suspended above the mud, and Raeve uses Clode’s language to suffocate the advancing soldiers. She cuts Kaan and Pyrok free, and Kaan is stunned to see her covered in so much blood it looks like armor.

Chapter 63

Kaan watches Raeve engage in a swift and messy slaughter of the Fade soldiers, describing her as a Fire Lark in her element, her manifestations tearing through the balconies. After being cut free, he lands on a soldier and implodes the enemy’s head in volcanic rage.

Raeve is momentarily knotted in pain, likely from her bond with Slátra or a stab wound, but quickly regains composure and tells Kaan they are safe. She uses a busting sentence to command Bulder to soften the mud, swallowing over a hundred soldiers.

Chapter 64

Back at the treehut, Kaan uses pliers to shape a metal hook for Borg’s jar, decorating it with his father’s beads, and Borg offers him a memory of revenge in exchange for information. Kaan relives the day he killed his father, Ostern Vaegor, after defeating his Sabersythe, Grohn.

He remembers ripping the beads from Ostern’s ear and hacking off his father’s head with a blunted handsaw, feeling a hole in his chest. After the memory, Borg tells Kaan that a sterile egg in Bhoggith is being roosted on by a pink Moltenmaw with a moonshard.

Chapter 65

Raeve scrubs her jacket in sudsy water, feeling the explosive rage of Sereme’s note, and watches Ahvi bond with his hatchling, Gruffin.

Kaan enters and tells her they need to talk, leading her upstairs where she blurts out that she is blood bound and was ordered to kill Ahvi.

Kaan reveals he already knew through Borg and insists it’s an “us problem,” asking for the binder’s name. Raeve lets “Arkyn” slip, and Kaan is filled with volcanic heat, vowing to hunt Arkyn down. Ahvi interrupts to say he can undo the blood bind if they go to the Undercity near Gore.

Chapter 66

Arkyn stands before Kyzari’s cell, flicking Tyroth’s weald open and closed, and orders his guards to find the diary Veya smuggled. After it is found, he mocks Kyzari, telling her hope only leads to pain, and reveals his deep resentment for Kaan, whose existence snuffed the life of Arkyn’s mah.

In a fit of bloodlusting rage, he strikes Kyzari’s temple so hard a cracking sound fills the tunnel, continuing to beat her until she is barely clinging to life. Arkyn disappears into the dark, leaving Veya to sob and scream in despair.

Chapter 67

The group travels in Noeve’s cart along the Path of Daes toward Gore, and the air is unnaturally quiet as Clode holds her breath for the moonfalls. Pyrok is drunkenly collapsed, and Raeve pelts his flasks out of the cart, deciding his sobriety is more important than his mood.

Noeve mentions that Raeve looks like someone she escorted fifty cycles ago—referring to her mother—and Kaan deflects her curiosity. She reveals she last saw Veya thirty cycles ago and that Veya had a silver bangle, which riles Kaan to learn Veya lied about disposing of it.

Chapter 68

The group reaches the gates of Gore, guarded by Fade soldiers demanding bloodstone for passage, and Raeve stays above the floorboards with Kaan, refusing to hide. The soldiers search the cart, and a guard recognizes Raeve, yelling that he watched her get eaten.

Chaos ensues as Raeve uses Clode to slap a soldier off the path and Kaan joins the fight, hacking into any guard who approaches. Raeve shapes spears of stone from the ground, and they kill all the guards, preparing to enter Gore with Ahvi promising he can break the gate.

Chapter 69

Raeve leads the group to an abandoned wind tunnel that serves as a secret entrance to her quarters, using Bulder to remove a plug of stone from a trash chute that releases the scent of buttermin loaf. She warns Pyrok the climb will make him vomit.

Raeve instructs Pyrok to stay in the suite with Ahvi and Gruffin while she and Kaan continue, giving him one rule: do not go through the hatch in the ceiling. She feels a surge of icy grief as she glimpses Hae’s Perch in the sky and reflects on the memory of Fallon.

Chapter 70

Pyrok successfully navigates the vomit hole and enters Raeve’s living quarters, finding them painted black and discovering over thirty buttermin loaves in the kitchen. He slathers a loaf in golden butter and groans at the nutty deliciousness.

A stranger, Essi, appears and warns him not to lean out of a big hole in the wall etched with lethal prototype runes. Pyrok is struck by her beauty and realizes she is the Bloodlace friend Raeve spoke of, and Essi becomes boneless with relief to learn Raeve is alive.

Chapter 71

Raeve experiences a vivid and painful dream of her original escape across the Ergor Plains with Fallon, both cold, bleeding, and exhausted as they seek shelter in a snow hut. Fallon gives Raeve an iron key she obtained after killing a guard, which silences the overwhelming voices of the Creators.

Fallon urges Raeve to promise to keep living and push the hurt away so she doesn’t break, a traumatic memory of the day Fallon died that Raeve has been hiding beneath her icy lake. She wakes in a stone hut Kaan shaped for them, overcome with tears, and asks him to hold her tight.

Chapter 72

Pyrok explores Raeve’s living quarters in Gore, noticing an uncanny resemblance between a portrait there and someone in his own family’s library. He is particularly taken by the variety of buttermin loaves and the rich colk butter he finds, eating greedily.

Essi warns him about the lethal prototype runes, and Pyrok realizes she is the Bloodlace friend Raeve mentioned, struck by her otherworldly beauty despite her scars. They discuss the protégé Ahvi and the possibility of removing Raeve’s blood bind, and Essi reveals she has smelled Pyrok’s family blood before when she etched runes for his sister, Queen Dothea.

Chapter 73

Raeve, Kaan, and Ahvi travel through the dark, dusty tunnels of the Undercity toward the site where Raeve’s blood bind was first sewn, passing fossilized dragon bones and hidden predators. They reach a cavern where the ceiling has collapsed, flooding the space with moonlight and snow.

Kaan uses Bulder’s language to shape a palace-like staircase for their descent, and Raeve reveals she walked across the Ergor Plains alone after her escape. Ahvi begins preparing the ritual to break the bind, which involves creating a time-manipulating cage using Raeve’s blood, explaining that removing the bind is like pulling a spine from a body.

Chapter 74

Ahvi continues the ritual to unthread Raeve’s blood bind, using her blood to paint a circle of jagged runes on the ground and binding her essence to the Book of Voyd. Raeve is terrified as she stands within the cage, realizing she was almost dead when she originally dripped her blood into Sereme’s vial.

The cage ignites with silver light, and Raeve is hit by agonizing convulsions as her body begins to emaciate, her cheeks hollowing. Kaan watches in horror, but just as she seems to draw her final breath, the runes sputter and fade, and her body plumps back to its healthy form—the ritual a success.

Chapter 75

Grihm makes a dangerous final ascent in Gondragh to find a Sabersythe egg in the burrow of the Great Silver Sabersythe, Ahra, finding the burrow littered with thousands of silver scales and smashed eggs. He is overwhelmed by sadness, realizing fate has seemingly failed both him and the dragon.

Ahra returns to the nest and tosses him against the wall before coiling around her broken clutch, and Grihm, fueled by suicidal rage, leaps onto her back and goads her to kill him. Ahra takes flight toward an active volcano, and in a moment of mutual grief, their souls clash and then merge, accepting a symbiotic beat.

Chapter 76

Raeve wakes in a dark cell, initially believing she is back in the past with Fallon, but finds a frail, white-haired female tucked against her—Princess Kyzari, barely breathing with the Aether Stone diadem attached to her brow. Veya is in the adjacent cell, looking broken and defeated.

Veya explains that Arkyn beat Kyzari to the brink of death and knows all their secrets, and Raeve feels a surge of protective cold-blooded rage. She gives Kyzari Kaan’s málmr and covers her with her own cloak, preparing for a bloodbath as bronze-masked guards approach.

Chapter 77

The ancient silver Sabersythe, now bonded with Grihm, soars across the Loff with scales that glint like a thousand stars, a silver ribbon of energy—the God of Aether—trailing in her wake. A lookout perched on a peak gasps as the massive beast and her white-haired rider slash through the air like axes.

Grihm stares south through eyes like cuts of ice, beginning to process the magnitude of his new bond. The silver ribbon hopes that Grihm understands that everything in the world has a purpose and a place, emphasizing that this bond was always meant to be.

Chapter 78

Pyrok returns to the dwelling in Gore with a sack of rodent carcasses for Gruffin, finding Essi asleep atop her books, exhausted from cycles of constant etching work. He carefully removes her etching stick and is disturbed to find the tip soaked in her own blood.

Gruffin is awake and demanding food, forcing Pyrok to strip meat for the beast to avoid getting bitten. After the hatchling is gorged and asleep, Pyrok collapses on a pillow from the seater, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep after counting only to twenty-two.

Chapter 79

Raeve relives the true, horrific memory of Fallon’s death in their cell while she was out fighting in the pits, recalling Arkyn refusing to give her the bloodstone she earned because Fallon had already passed. She had buried the memory beneath her icy lake to survive the grief.

Back in the present, Raeve finds herself in the cell with Kyzari, finally realizing the princess is her own daughter as the scent of vurillo flowers and the sight of the Aether Stone trigger deep sensory connections. She gives Kyzari Kaan’s málmr and vows to protect her, unleashing a brutal attack on the guards who come to take her away.

Chapter 80

Raeve wakes at a long stone table heavy with food and candelabras, shackled to a heavy chair, while across from her sits Kaan, gagged, beaten, and bound in flickering, runed chains. Arkyn, wearing his macabre crown of teeth, mockingly serves them a meal and calls Raeve his Fire Lark.

He reveals a copper weald and confirms he is The Elding, meaning Raeve has been funneling people to her torturer for phases. Arkyn sets Raeve’s hair on fire to demonstrate his absolute control, then produces Elluin Neván’s diary, retrieved from Veya’s cell, making Raeve’s blood turn to ice.

Chapter 81

Arkyn reads aloud from Elluin’s diary, exposing the devastating secrets of her arranged binding to Tyroth: she was already pregnant with Kaan’s child when forced back to Arithia. Tyroth had threatened to kill Slátra if she did not comply with the marriage to maintain the Vaegor alliance.

Kaan is shattered to learn he has a daughter he never knew about, while Arkyn taunts him about breaking Kyzari. Raeve’s internal dragon Slátra rises to the surface, and she vows that the world will rupture beneath her fingertips before she allows their family to be destroyed.

Chapter 82

Arkyn moves through his suite surrounded by piles of scavenged treasures, checking on his captive miskunn which tremors in its cage. He enters his office and finds Sereme waiting, having tidied his desk and prepared a presumptuous meal.

He dismisses her attempt at domesticity and confronts her about failing to keep him informed of Raeve’s survival. Sereme admits her fear of Raeve and urges Arkyn to put her down permanently, but Arkyn tells her there is only room for two on his throne and leads her out into the snowy night where Cliár, the Elding Bird, dives toward her.

Chapter 83

Pyrok wakes to the slap of a rodent carcass and finds Gruffin tearing through his bag of carcasses, along with a lark from Essi saying she has gone out to find more food. He is immediately panicked, knowing Essi is not a fighter and that crowls hunt the plains in large packs.

He spots Essi in the distance, limping and dragging a snow wyrm toward the wall, with two sleek white crowls skulking in her wake. Pyrok is out the window and sprinting across the plains before reality fully sinks in, running harder than he ever has to reach her before the predators strike.

Chapter 84

Pyrok reaches Essi just as a crowl lunges, hacking the beast in two with his sword, and helps the bleeding Essi to her feet as seven more crowls emerge from the thickening Mists. Essi admits she is bleeding heavily and there is no point in trying to run.

Pyrok uses his fire weald to ignite a ring of flames around them, and a red Moltenmaw suddenly spears through the smoke, snatching one of the fiery crowls. Pyrok tries to coordinate a retreat, but Essi steps away from his grip and walks directly into the intense barricade of fire, and Pyrok falls to his knees screaming.

Chapter 85

Pyrok is devastated by Essi’s apparent death, feeling twelve phases old again as he relives his mother’s suicide. A massive purple Moltenmaw buck dives at him, and Maell charges into the fray to protect him, but is quickly overwhelmed.

Pyrok is struck by the buck’s poisonous tail barb, which leaves a gory slash across his abdomen, and he realizes he is paralyzed and dying as the venom branches through his veins. Just as he prepares to die, an Elding Bird made of pure flame erupts from the spot where Essi disappeared, and she returns from the smoke, insisting she is not dead and forcing him to drink her blood.

Chapter 86

Kaan is suspended in a holding cell, forced to watch razah brutally kill prisoners in the blistered fight pit, and Arkyn enters to taunt him. Arkyn uses a small blade to slit Kaan’s chest and punctures his right lung, explaining that this revenge is penance for Kaan snuffing the life of their mother.

Arkyn orders that Kaan wear no mask in the arena so the crowd can witness his execution by the Fire Lark, telling him his daughter and sister will only survive if he puts on a show. Kaan is forced to agree to fight the love of his life, and is ushered into the arena.

Chapter 87

Veya desperately bashes her pan against the bars, screaming that Kyzari is dying from her wet lung rattle, and a lark from Kaan arrives pleading for forgiveness and Kyzari’s location. Suddenly, Uno emerges from an invisibility shroud and begins picking the locks with a ring of keys.

Uno reveals that multiple moonfalls are coming and they must flee or die, and as they escape, they are confronted by the Fate Herder, a silver creature that nudges Kyzari and licks her face. The beast herds them toward a specific tunnel, and they emerge onto a snowy plateau where Veya witnesses a moon strike the ground, shaking the world.

Chapter 88

Kaan and Raeve (as Slátra) face off in the arena, surrounded by a screaming crowd demanding blood, and Kaan uses his waning strength to maintain a wall against Rygun, who is desperate to break in. Raeve’s manifestations tear through the razah while the mountain melts around them.

Kaan manages to catch her off guard, pinning her to the ground and whispering his undying love before she can strike. Arkyn watches from the balcony, dipping his head to signal the final execution, but Raeve tells Kaan to put his arms around her and raises her hands, looped in silver ribbons, to unleash the full fury of the Creators.

Chapter 89

Raeve belts commands to both Ignos and Bulder, shaping them into massive molten champions that dominate the pit, and offers Ignos a meal of yummy stone in the deep gorge, causing all the embers in the arena to blink out. Kaan realizes Raeve is ignoring the official script to fuck Arkyn up and save their family.

Raeve commands the Creators to bludgeon Arkyn’s balcony until it is a dripping, gaping wound of melted stone. Above them, Rygun punches through the ceiling, raining rock and snow into the arena, and Raeve’s manifestations snatch the screaming crowd from the balconies, treating them like bugs.

Chapter 90

Veya watches from her outcrop as the God of Aether, Caelis, manifests on the plateau and embraces the dying Kyzari, healing her with an ooze of silver light. Her blue lips return to a healthy color as she melts into his arms, and Veya is flung across the plateau by the force of their connection.

Caelis’s immense silver wings stretch wide, looking like windows to other stars, and their catastrophic love causes the moons in the sky to jiggle from their perches. Veya huddles in the snow, breathless as she watches the first moon strike the plains, shaking the mountain, while Kyzari’s song becomes desperate and strained.

Chapter 91

Raeve continues to belt commands until Kaan manages to pull her from her trance, telling her “you got him” and that they are safe. The ground tremors as a smaller moon plummets, dragging a flaming gash through the sky, and Kaan offers Raeve the chance to hunt down Arkyn’s forces.

Raeve chooses her daughter instead, and Kaan is filled with primal pride as she chooses love over death. Raeve sprints for the tunnels while Kaan, his lung punctured and bleeding, mounts Rygun to chase Arkyn toward the sun.

Chapter 92

Raeve sprints north through the crumbling warren of dungeons, her lungs laboring through the dust and smog of the moonfalls, as violent jolts cause fissures to explode through the tunnels. The cells are full of prisoners screaming for help, and Raeve tells a young null that the moons are falling but doesn’t slow down.

She is haunted by the fear that Arkyn moved Veya and Kyzari or that the collapse has already killed them. She finally reaches the northern section where the dungeons are scarcer, the Fire Lark in her frothing for Arkyn’s face, but the mother in her screaming for her child.

Chapter 93

Rygun and Kaan hunt the trail of embers left by the retreating Elding Bird through the frigid, moon-pitched sky, and Rygun roars a battle cry, ignoring Kaan’s orders to hold ground. Kaan tries to charm the nearby moonstrike explosions for heat, but the Creators remain silent.

Rygun snaps at the bird’s tail feathers, and the smaller beast flips, slashing its claws into Rygun’s tender underbelly. Despite the injury, Rygun gnashs with rage and dives headfirst into the Moving Mists after his prey, and Kaan is crushed by fear, picturing his dragon getting bogged in the ground again.

Chapter 94

Raeve reaches her old cell and finds it empty, nearly collapsing from poisonous defeat until she spots a pink button from Uno’s tunic in the straw, realizing a rescue occurred. Her hope is shattered when she finds the broken remains of her lark, Nee, ripped down the middle.

Cradling the lifeless parchment, Raeve is hit with the devastating realization that Nee was Kyzari’s message to her mother all along, and she cries over the three dainty letters. Clode and Bulder begin to hail her, screaming that “she needs you,” and Raeve pockets the broken lark and chases the haunting hail.

Chapter 95

Rygun and Kaan continue their aerial struggle with the Elding Bird, and the bird perches on Rygun’s neck, beginning to peck out his eyes with its golden beak. Kaan stabs his sword deep into the bird’s plumage and yanks Arkyn back against his chest, and Arkyn stabs Kaan in the gut with a dagger.

Rygun finally bites down on the Elding Bird, the sound of breaking bones filling the air, and they crash into the snow with a thunderous impact. Kaan manages to pummel Arkyn’s face until his brains mulch free and then decapitates him, ending the tyrant’s line, but realizes served vengeance has only left a bigger hole in his chest.

Chapter 96

Raeve skids to a stop at a mountain exit and watches Hae’s Perch wobble and then plummet from the sky, joined by Líri who catches her as she is tossed off the cliff by a violent gust. She sees that Kyzari and Caelis are the epicenter of the energy ripples dislodging the moons.

Raeve finally reaches her daughter, noting that Kyzari looks plump with life and has Kaan’s features, and Kyzari recognizes her and faints into Raeve’s arms after whispering, “You came.” Raeve cradles her daughter for the first time in a hundred phases, realizing she missed everything but is finally there to catch her.

Chapter 97

Kaan, bleeding and near death, searches the smoggy wreckage for his dragon and finds the Elding Bird’s corpse near Arkyn’s body before hearing a rumbling exhale from a nearby crater. He finds Rygun frosted over and eye-less, his scales like ice as he draws his final breaths.

Kaan kneels beside his dying soul and attempts to pass his life-flame back to Rygun, but Rygun blocks him out with a scaled wall and feeds him a final memory of their bond. As a gentle darkness takes Kaan, he sees a silver-scaled shadow soaring above them, cleaving the silence with a roar, and falls unconscious believing they are dying together.

Chapter 98

Raeve wakes in a recovery suite and checks on Ahvi, who is curled safely in the silver Fate Herder’s fluffy nest, then checks on Kaan and Kyzari, both unconscious on a massive pallet while a Fleshthread tends their lethal wounds. She reflects that Arkyn is dead but Sereme is still missing.

Kaan wakes up and they share a silent, tearful moment of relief over their daughter’s survival, and he tells Raeve that Slátra’s heart still beats with hers. Raeve goes within her mind, disassembles the stony pyre over her silver splinter, and swims down to Slátra’s luminous den, finding her massive Moonplume bundled on her perch, realizing they were never truly lost to each other.

Epilogue

Sereme moves through the frigid smog, using a contraption to find Arkyn’s unmarked grave, and uncovers his frozen, mutilated body, mocking him for being a lying, useless sack of colk shit. She uses a silver weald to set Arkyn’s body on fire, waiting for him to be transformed into something with otherworldly devotion.

As she watches the flames, a weather-beaten male with scruffy jaw and white hair stumbles toward her, and Sereme recognizes him as the revived prince, Haedeon Neván. She offers him a piece of dried meat, acting as his savior according to a special miskunn, and the cycle of power continues in the broken world.

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