Chapter 686: A Bow To Remember

"I know you know this," Aeron began, giving Serena a stern look. "I am saying it anyway because it is my job and because you have a pattern of knowing things and doing them anyway. The shadow tether strengthens every time you overextend your magic. The cloak weakens if your emotions are heightened."

She closed her eyes for two seconds, which was Serena’s version of screaming into a pillow. When she opened them, the queen version of herself was back.

"Thank you, Aeron. My emotions will not be a factor. I will limit my magic to what is necessary and nothing beyond it." Her hand went to her collarbone, touched it once, and came back down. "Is one signature safer than the other? My Fae magic versus the gold. Is there a difference in how the tether responds?"

Aeron considered the question. It was a good one. Better than good. It was the kind of question that most mages wouldn’t think to ask because most mages treated their magic as a single output rather than a spectrum with varying risk profiles. Serena had dual signatures. Her gold which was closer to mage and her Fae magic. She treated her magic the way a surgeon treated instruments: each one had a purpose, a cost, and a consequence, and she wanted to know which one she was holding before she cut.

"I don’t have definitive evidence," he said. "But my instinct, and my instincts have kept me alive longer than my evidence has, is that your Fae magic carries the greater risk. The shadow tether is Fae in origin. Magical likeness attracts likeness. Your Fae signature is the closer match to the tether’s frequency. The gold operates on a different spectrum. Still expenditure. Still risk. But the resonance is less direct."

Aeron watched her absorb the information and the wheels turn behind her eyes.

Serena gave a single nod.

"Gold it is. Thank you, Aeron."

On paper the Master Mage was satisfied with that exchange. She had asked the right question. She had accepted the constraint. But the realist in him gave it about twenty minutes before she decided that constraint could go to hell. He would be reminding her every hour for the rest of the night without question.

Serena turned to Captain Ravenhall next.

"Captain Ravenhall. Archers on the outer walls, eyes on the ground. Infantry holds the gates. Nothing lands on Shadowclaw soil without your people seeing it first. The sky is mine. Your job is everything beneath it."

"Yes, Luna."

"Dark Fae explode when hit," Serena continued. "Station a mage with every unit on the wall. Their only job is sensing Dark Fae energy. The moment they identify one on the ground, I am notified. I will be the one to neutralize those to avoid explosions. Your forces engage with everything else: wolves, mages, and regular Fae."

"Understood."

Her eyes found Beta Sharpe and Gamma Knox.

"Last thing. Once I neutralize the corruption on a dragon, I will send it down to the field. Any dragon that crosses our walls has been cleared by me personally. Do not engage them. Do not fire on them. These are victims, not combatants. They were corrupted against their will and they will be disoriented, frightened, and defensive. A scared dragon will fight anything that threatens it, so I need every archer, every guard, and every wolf on that wall to understand this: weapons down on any dragon inside our perimeter. If one is injured, get a healer to it. If one is aggressive, back away and notify me. Nobody plays hero with a traumatized dragon."

"Yes, Luna," both men answered.

Then she turned towards the western field of Shadowclaw Keep where one hundred frost dragons stood in formation.

Grounded. Wings tucked. Riders mounted.

She descended the stone steps to the field, her boots hitting frozen ground, her bow settled across her back, her quiver full.

One hundred sets of dragon eyes were on the woman who just stepped foot on their field.

FWOOMPH.

They bowed their heads in unison.

Serena crossed the field between a hundred bowed heads, her eyes forward, locked on the Queen of Aevamorra Vyracarum. The queen did not show an ounce of surprise that her dragons were bowing for the girl approaching her.

Behind her, on the wall, Captain Ravenhall, who had been issuing orders mid-sentence, stopped and was now standing with his mouth open.

Beta Sharpe tore his eyes off the dragons and looked at Gamma Knox. Gamma Knox looked right back at him.

The Gamma opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"I gave her filing instructions this morning," he managed after a moment.

"You did," Beta Sharpe said.

Gamma Knox’s left eye twitched. "You watched her adjust pillows."

"I did."

Aeron observed all of this with a smirk on his face. The bowed heads, the queen’s lack of reaction, Serena’s obliviousness. He committed it to memory because someone needed to. He shot Captain Ravenhall a sideways glance.

"The dragons bowed to her at the war summit camp too. And every time you’ve seen her with the Draken Forces. Remember?"

"I always assumed they bowed because King Drakenfell was there," Ravenhall admitted after a moment.

Aeron threw his head back and laughed loudly. It echoed off the stone wall and startled a guard ten feet away. He didn’t care. That was funny.

???

SHADOWCLAW - WEST FIELD

Serena stopped in front of the queen and dipped respectfully.

"Your Majesty. The first wave is approaching. Dark Fae detonate outward when facing death. I want to neutralize that factor before we deploy the full force."

The queen’s response was immediate. The cadence of a general receiving a tactical update and issuing the next directive in the same breath.

"Copy. What do you need?"

"One dragon willing to take me as a rider."

The queen looked at the field of dragons with their heads still bowed.

"You will take Talon. My son’s fastest. What else?"

"I need your four fastest dragon-spotter teams to flank me," Serena replied. "They need to be able to catch a falling body in the dark, because once I neutralize the Dark Fae, their dragons are still corrupted. I have to make physical contact with the dragon to cleanse it before I can command it to the ground. And I will absolutely get bucked off at least once."