The three-hour journey felt like the blink of an eye.
Sol streaked over the sea of clouds with Sylvia, Zhaoyue, and Noir on his back, while the purple thunderstorm of the Deathcloud Mountains rolled beneath them without ever touching his golden scales. Zhaoyue said little along the way. She hugged her knees on the dragon's back, gazing at the horizon, and from time to time her fingers touched the small crystal on the shoulder of her gown like someone checking whether she was still real.
The white marble peak emerged from the clouds as dusk turned to night. The golden veins in its stone glowed dimly, and the ancient stone pillars around the crater looked like bony fingers pointing at the stars.
At the crater's edge, someone was already waiting.
Not one person. Two. And Sylvia, who could see their life threads from afar, stopped Sol with a soft tap on the dragon's neck.
"We have guests," she said.
