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Tairn had known loss before. He had known the cold silence of death, the sharp sting of a severed bond, the ache of an empty sky where once a wing had flown beside him. But this—this was not death.
This was worse.
Sgaeyl stood next to him, her beautiful cobalt scales catching the last dying light of the setting sun, gilding her in fire and shadow. She was magnificent. She was his.
And she was asking him to let her go.
“Tairn,” she murmured, stepping closer, her great tail coiling around his, entwining them as if sheer will alone could hold them together, as if the strength of her love could defy what they both knew must come to pass.
She pressed her snout to his, their scales sparking with the heat of contact. Slowly, she exhaled, a soft, hot plume of smoke unfurling from her maw, rich and deep, tangling with his own. His breath met hers, dark and smoldering, the mingling vapors weaving together in a slow, intimate dance; an unspoken vow, an aching farewell. Their very souls had always known how to find each other, had always merged in the quiet of the skies, in firelit battles, and every moment stolen between war and duty.
“Do not ask this of me,” he growled, his voice a low rumble that trembled the earth beneath them. “I cannot—Sgaeyl, I mustn’t.”
She pressed her nose firmer against his, inhaling him, as if trying to take him inside her, to carry a piece of him into the darkness she was about to face. Their kiss was all heat and hunger, smoke and soul, and they clung to each other as if letting go might break them.
“You can,” she whispered against him, her voice as steady as it was broken. “You must.”
“You think I would survive losing you?” he demanded, pulling back just enough to look at her. “You think I could fly these skies without you by my side?”
Sgaeyl’s usually unshakable voice splintered with emotion, a raw fracture in the strength she had always carried. “Xaden cannot do this alone. The only way to end this war is from within, and he is the only one who can get close enough. If I stay bonded to you, I will feel you, need you closer—I will want to turn back. And you will feel me, and if something goes terribly wrong—” she faltered, her smoke quivering in the air like a breath on the verge of breaking. “If I suffer, you will suffer too. If I fall—”
“Don’t.” His snarl cut through the space between them, sharp and aching, but there was no anger in it. Only grief.
Sgaeyl closed her eyes for a brief, shuddering moment before forcing herself to continue. “If I fall,” she repeated, softer now, as if speaking it aloud made it real, “you will follow me into ruin. And I will not allow that, Tairn. Not when Violet and Andarna still need you.”
Her smoke curled into the air, ghosting over his, searching, pleading. “We just got Andarna back, and she still needs you to tell her right from wrong. She needs you to keep her steady.” Sgaeyl stepped closer again, her wings brushing softly against his. Her voice was barely more than a whisper now. “If any dragon can survive this, it is you. You have always been the strongest of us.”
Tairn squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the bond pulsing between them, an ancient, unbreakable thing. A golden tether of magic and love forged over decades. It had survived battles and fire, losses and bloodshed. It had survived time.
But it would not survive this.
“I will feel nothing,” he whispered, a terror unlike any he had ever known taking root in his soul. “Sgaeyl, if I cannot feel you—”
She pressed herself against him, and he felt the tremor in her scales, the way her own fear vibrated beneath the surface. “I will come back to you,” she swore, voice raw. “I am yours, Tairn. I have always been yours. This will not change that.”
But it would. They both knew it would.
For the first time in decades, they would not exist as one.
“I love you,” he rasped, lowering his head so their foreheads touched, their horns curving around each other like a cage. “I love you beyond time, beyond war, beyond any magic in this world.”
Sgaeyl closed her eyes. “Then trust me. Let me do this. Let me save us.”
A long, heavy silence stretched between them.
And then, with a broken roar, Tairn gave in.
The air cracked, the magic between them twisting and writhing as they reached for it together. It resisted—of course it did. Bonds like theirs were not meant to be severed.
Sgaeyl let out a keening cry as the first snap of magic lashed through them, tearing away something vital. Tairn felt it too—a sharp, gutting pain, as if his very soul was being ripped apart. He held her tighter, his wings enveloping her as if he could somehow protect her from the unbearable pain.
A second snap. Then a third.
Their cries became screams, raw and agonized, shaking the ground, the sky, the very fabric of their existence.
And then—
Silence.
Tairn gasped, his chest heaving, his body trembling as he reached for her—reached for the bond that had always been there.
And found nothing.
His eyes snapped open.
Sgaeyl was before him, but she was not his. Not anymore.
She let out a choked breath, her legs buckling beneath her. Without thinking, Tairn caught her, curling his neck around hers, cradling her against him.
“Sgaeyl,” he whispered, and her name was a prayer, a plea, a shattered thing on his tongue.
She shuddered in his hold, wiggled and pressed herself to him to his one last time.
“You are the love of my life , Tairneanach.” she murmured, “and I will return to you, or die trying.”
Tairn tightened his grip, as if he could will her to stay. As if he could keep her here, safe, whole.
“You are my life,” he swore. “Promise me—promise me, Sgaeyl—”
“I promise.”
And then, before he could stop her, before he could shatter all reason and drag her back to his side of the skies where she belonged—
She pulled away, trembling but resolute, the last wisps of his smoke still clinging to hers. Her brilliant blue wings unfurled, catching the dying light, and for a heartbeat, she hesitated—one final moment where she was still here, where he could still reach for her, still undo the impossible choice they had made.
Then she threw back her head and roared, a sound of defiance and heartbreak, of love and farewell, of a promise that neither time nor war nor severed bonds could ever break.
With a powerful beat of her wings, she rose into the sky, ascending into the unknown darkness ahead… Into a place where he could no longer follow.