Then the silence breaks. An inhuman, hair-raising keen goes up, unearthly, alien, full of unbearable sorrow. Though it’s a sound I’ve only ever read about, I know it at once. It is the sound of a dragon who has felt the bond with its rider break in the only way it can be broken. It takes the breath out of my lungs. Pallor recovers before I do, driving us forward, firing again to finish what we’ve started. The grieving stormscourge barely resists.
