The dreams began that night.
Seraphina had never been much of a dreamer—even as a child, her sleep had been largely unremarkable, filled with the ordinary fragments of daily life. But this dream was different. It started the moment she closed her eyes, pulling her down into a darkness so complete it felt like drowning.
She was standing in a vast chamber, larger than anything she had seen even in the Citadel. Pillars of black stone rose into shadows that seemed to go on forever, and between them, dragons slept. Dozens of them, hundreds perhaps, their massive forms curled in peaceful slumber, scales gleaming with a faint luminescence that was the only light in the entire space.
Then one of them opened its eyes.
They were red—not the deep crimson of the Queen's dragon, but a bright, burning scarlet that seemed to pierce straight through Seraphina's soul. And when the dragon spoke, its voice filled her mind like water filling a vessel.
"THE BINDING STIRS. THE CHOSEN COMES. BUT WILL SHE BE STRONG ENOUGH?"
"I don't understand," Seraphina said, and her voice echoed strangely in the vast chamber. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"
"UNDERSTANDING WILL COME. IN TIME." The dragon's massive head turned, those burning eyes fixing on her with an intensity that was almost painful. "BUT TIME IS SHORT. THE ENEMY STIRS. THE BARRIER WEAKENS. SOON, ALL THAT WAS HIDDEN SHALL BE REVEALED."
"What enemy? What barrier?"
The dragon did not answer. Instead, it began to change—its form shifting, scales falling away, body contorting in ways that should have been impossible. Seraphina watched in horror as the ancient creature transformed, becoming something else entirely. Something human-shaped but wrong, its features shifting like water, its eyes still that burning red.
"SLEEP NOW, CHOSEN ONE. THE TRUE TEST APPROACHES. AND WHEN IT COMES, YOU MUST BE READY."
Seraphina woke with a gasp, her heart pounding, the mark on her wrist blazing with light. For a moment, she didn't know where she was—then the familiar shapes of her chamber emerged from the darkness, and she remembered.
The Citadel. The training. The Court.
A dream. It had been just a dream.
But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't true. Something had spoken to her—something ancient and powerful, something that had reached across the barrier between sleep and waking to deliver a message she didn't understand.
She lay back down, but sleep did not return. Instead, she stared at the ceiling, her mind churning with questions she couldn't answer.
What enemy? What barrier? And what true test was coming?
The next morning, she sought out Kestrel in the training room. He was already there when she arrived, going through a series of movements with his staff that seemed more like dance than combat. Each motion flowed into the next with fluid grace, and Seraphina found herself watching, caught up in the strange beauty of it.
"You're early," he said without breaking rhythm. "Couldn't sleep?"
"I had a dream." She waited until he completed his form and turned to face her. "A dragon spoke to me. It said something about an enemy, about a barrier weakening. And then it... changed. Transformed into something else."
Kestrel went very still. The staff in his hands stopped moving, and for a long moment, he simply stared at her with an expression she couldn't read.
"Tell me everything," he said finally. "Every detail."
So she did—from the vast chamber full of sleeping dragons to the creature with burning red eyes to the cryptic message about tests and enemies and barriers. When she finished, Kestrel was silent for a long time, his gaze distant, as if seeing something far beyond the walls of the training room.
"There's something I haven't told you," he said at last. "Something I was hoping wouldn't become relevant until you were better prepared." He moved to the bench along the wall and sat down, his staff resting across his knees. "Do you know why the Dragonbound are born only once every three hundred years?"
"Kestrel, I barely knew dragons existed a month ago."
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Of course. Forgive me." He was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "Three hundred years ago, the dragons and the Dragonbound fought a war. Not against each other—against something else. Something that came from beyond the barrier between worlds."
Seraphina felt a chill run down her spine. "The barrier the dragon mentioned."
"The same." Kestrel's voice was grim. "The Enemy—what the old texts call the Voidwalkers—breached the barrier and nearly destroyed everything. Dragons and humans alike would have been wiped from existence if not for the sacrifice of the last Dragonbound."
"What sacrifice?"
"She bound herself to the barrier itself. Used her power to seal the breach, to close the door between worlds." His jaw tightened. "But seals can weaken. Doors can be opened. And every three hundred years, when the stars align in a pattern called the Conjunction, the barrier grows thin enough that the Voidwalkers can try again."
"And the new Dragonbound..."
"Is meant to reinforce the seal. To hold the barrier until the Conjunction passes and the stars shift again." He met her eyes, and there was something in his gaze that might have been fear. "But if the new Dragonbound is not strong enough, if they cannot maintain the binding..."
"Then the Voidwalkers get through," Seraphina finished. "And everyone dies."
"The dream you had—it wasn't a dream. It was a message from the Sleeper. One of the ancient dragons who has chosen to sleep through the centuries, preserving their power for when it's needed most." Kestrel stood, his movements tense with controlled energy. "If the Sleeper is reaching out to you, it means the barrier is weakening faster than we anticipated. The Conjunction is still months away, but the Enemy may already be testing our defenses."
Seraphina absorbed this in silence. It was too much—too much information, too much responsibility, too much weight for one person to carry. She thought of Thornhaven, of the simple life she had left behind, and felt a wave of grief so sudden and sharp it almost doubled her over.
"Why me?" she whispered. "Why was I chosen for this?"
"I don't know." Kestrel's voice was softer now, almost gentle. "The Binding doesn't explain itself. It simply chooses, and those who are chosen must find their own answers." He hesitated, then added, "But I've trained three Dragonbound in my lifetime. And you... you have something they didn't."
"What?"
"Fire." He smiled, and for the first time since she'd met him, it reached his eyes. "Something in you burns brighter than fear, brighter than doubt. I saw it the first moment I laid eyes on you, standing in that river with a basket of dead fish, glaring at an ancient dragon like you might actually try to fight it."
Seraphina laughed despite herself—a short, sharp sound that held more hysteria than humor. "I wasn't going to fight it. I was just trying not to die."
"And yet you took my hand. You left everything you knew to follow a stranger into a destiny you couldn't possibly understand." Kestrel picked up his staff and tossed it to her. "That takes a certain kind of courage. A certain kind of fire."
She caught the staff, feeling the familiar weight in her hands. "Or a certain kind of stupidity."
"Perhaps." His smile faded, replaced by the familiar hardness she had come to expect. "But whichever it is, you're going to need more of it. The training intensifies today. No more half-measures."
"Good." Seraphina raised the staff, settling into the stance he had taught her. "I was getting bored anyway."
They trained until her muscles screamed and her mind went blank. And through it all, Seraphina couldn't stop thinking about the dream—the Sleeper, the barrier, the Enemy waiting beyond.
Nine months. She had nine months to become strong enough to hold back an invasion from another world.
And somewhere, deep inside her, the fire Kestrel had seen began to burn a little brighter.