Ryn touched Kivith’s bridle hanging on the wall. Two taps on the leather. Ritual completed. Memory honored.
Then they laid down on the furs and let exhaustion pull them toward sleep. Real sleep this time, not unconscious collapse. Not floating in the bond.
Outside, the stars wheeled across the cold mountain sky, indifferent to human struggles or dragon plans. A new sun soon to be rising.
-
Read Mountain Bond Part One - The Severance or Get it as a free ebook |
Start from the beginning of Part II or Read the previous chapter |
Discover more about the Dragon-Human Bond and the Crimson Desert
Some of you already know, at the beginning of the month my laptop crashed and I lost most of everything I was working on. This put me weeks behind on all my publications, both non-fiction and fiction.
In the case of Mountain Bond specifically, I lost about 10-15k of material, basically the whole last section of the book.
I’m still not completely sure of how it happened, and since I am usually very good at saving and backups this completely blindsided me.
I won’t lie, it was bad.
After a couple of days I finally slid from denial/ rage into acceptance and started rewriting. I ended up with a pair of extra scenes that I really really love (and -I think- say a lot about Ryn’s mental state at this point in time), and two new characters -which I am sure you will love- appearing in the epilogue.
Yes, the epilogue is written.
The book is now finished at about 80k (editing pending), and I hope you loved—and are still loving this story, long break notwithstanding.
The last 6 chapters are set up to release through February/March, and I hope to have the last editing pass done and the book published by the end of the month as well (Wish me luck. Seeing how January went, I clearly need it.)
Thank you for being here, you don’t know how much it helped,
- Morgan
Ryn was floating.
For one perfect heartbeat, weightless and free—
Then their stomach lurched into their throat as stone and sky switched places. Both hands gripped the metal rings, knuckles white against iron, but the friction was already tearing skin from their palms.
Eskarith’s massive body banked through turbulent air, pivoting hard, and Ryn’s strength gave out. The rings pulled away from fingers that couldn’t hold anymore.
Then just air. Air beneath them, around them, everywhere their body reached for something solid and found nothing. Wind tearing at their clothes, screaming past their ears. The taste of altitude, thin and metallic, mixed with the tang of blood where they’d bitten their tongue.
Panic hit before conscious thought could shape it into words.
Going to die falling can’t breathe WHERE—the scream tore through the bond before Ryn’s throat could make sound. Terror so absolute it drowned every rational thought, left only the body’s primal certainty that death was rushing up from below and there was no one, nothing, WHERE IS—
Eskarith’s foreclaw closed around their body.
Careful and quick. Gentle through the violence of the catch. One massive talon curved to cradle ribs without crushing, to secure without breaking, to hold the small fragile thing that had been falling and now wasn’t.
The transition from freefall to caught happened in a heartbeat. Eskarith’s wings adjusted, the spiral continuing—controlled, precise, practiced recovery that only centuries of flight could perfect. He found stable air below the wind shear and banked toward a ridge where stone provided landing space wide enough for his bulk.
The landing was perfect.
Eskarith set Ryn down on solid rock with the same care someone might place a cracked egg. Then he withdrew, settling back on his haunches. His scales remained within touching distance, his massive head close enough that Ryn could see the individual small scales around his nostrils. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body, to smell the particular scent of ancient dragon: cold like winter air clinging to stone, and cinders—the acrid ghost of fires long burnt out.
Close enough, but the distance in the bond was immense.
Ryn’s legs wouldn’t hold. They crumpled on hands and knees on freezing stone, lungs gasping for air. Heart hammering against ribs. Palms bleeding sluggishly, the wounds stinging in the mountain air.
They reached for the connection, searching for Eskarith’s presence. For the verbal reassurance that had been there since thir bond formed, that deep voice saying things would be alright, that they would manage, that patience was required.
Words should have been there.
They weren’t.
-
Time passed—heartbeats, breaths, however long it took for Ryn’s body to stop shaking enough to form words.
“Are you—” Their voice cracked. They swallowed, tried again. “Are you injured?”
The question hung in a puff of breath between them. Eskarith’s eye tracking every fine tremor in Ryn’s body, mapping their terror onto reality.
He didn’t answer.
Ryn reached through the link again, shaping intention into question. What’s wrong?
A pause, and then images flooding back through the connection.
The minds cape. Their bond. A chasm.
Emptiness yawning wide between their minds. Ryn could see the raw edges of it, crumbling where something had torn, pathways that had been forming now swallowed by void. Their growing trust, their partnership—all of it disappearing into that emptiness.
Then their own terror reflected back through dragon perspective. Their fall shown to them through senses that didn’t process fear the way human minds did. Something that registered as a wound, as rejection.
The scream that had ripped through them both echoed in the reflection: alone, falling, WHERE—
Not where is Eskarith.
Just WHERE IS.
As if he wasn’t there. As if the massive presence beneath them, the ancient consciousness that had been holding them steady through a fortnight of pain and doubt—as if none of that existed. Nt when it really mattered.
The images dissolved. Eskarith’s presence in their shared awareness pulled back, withdrew. An observer in their shared mind now, more than a participant.
The chasm widened a bit more under Ryn’s eyes. Its edges clearer now. Sharper than before. Their foundation was missing.
Trust hadn’t taken root deep enough in their mind, to hold when conscious thought failed. The bond was fraying.
And Eskarith knew.
-
“Words. You’ve been using words.”
The realization came slowly, Ryn’s mind still catching up to what the bond was showing them. “Always words. Since the beginning. Since you told me to choose in the Sacred Caverns.”
Choose.
That first word had been so clean, so solid—a single concept to anchor to when Ryn’s mind had been unraveling into chaos.
Eskarith could have connected any way, Ryn realized. Could have sent images, emotions, sensations. Words had been a choice.
By comparison, Kivith’s communication had been fluid—words sometimes, yes, but also sensations. Joy that fizzed bright and effervescent in the mouth. Fear that tasted sharp and metallic.
Eskarith had sent one word on that day. Choose.
And every communication since had been the same—words, always words. Clear and verbal. Concepts Ryn could evaluate from intellectual distance.
“Why?” Ryn’s voice came out rough. “Why only words?”
Through the bond other images came: Ryn’s mind during the bond, convulsing and raw. Fragments of light and sounds.
Yesterday’s weather-working. Soft rain that became violence. Grief manifesting as storm, anger becoming wind that tore at stone.
What you feel becomes what you create.
Ryn’s breathing changed, became shallower.
“Because if you sent what you feel...” They stopped, tried again. “Your emotions would add to mine. Make everything worse.”
Affirmation rippled through the link. The idea of something vast and heavy pressing on the horizon.
“I didn’t realize you were—” The words caught. Ryn’s chest tightened, something hot and painful lodging behind their ribs. All this time. All this effort. And they hadn’t even known to be grateful. “That you were protecting me. I thought—“
This was just how ancient dragons communicated, he did not say—formal, measured, different from Kivith’s warmth.
Eskarith heard it anyway.
Doesn’t matter now.
The concept arrived flat, stripped of the cushioning he’d been providing. Because the rupture had shattered that control.
Images and feelings came sharp-edged now, faster, lashing burning and cold on their mind. The full force of what Eskarith had been holding back, dredged up by Ryn’s grief.
Riders across centuries, each one learned, each one loved, each one lost. Deaths felt through bonds. The terrible intimacy of experiencing someone you loved ceasing to exist while you continued.
The loneliness of endless endurance. Ages compressed into grief that made Ryn’s mouth go numb, strangling them.
Too much.
And beneath the ancient grief—hurt. A wound still bleeding. The particular pain of offering care and restraint and protection, and having the person you protected scream their absolute certainty that you weren’t there at all.
Ryn’s hands clenched at that, their hard nails cutting into already bleeding palms. Through the bond, they could sense Eskarith’s presence withdrawing further—settling into the wary stillness of self-protection.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand—”
Understanding won’t repair the damage you made.
The lack of anger in his voice, the absence of recrimination, hurt Ryn more than anything else could have. Their blind panic, their inability to trust, had proven the bond weaker than they believed.
And Eskarith had reached the end of what he was willing to give.
I can’t do this anymore.
The statement landed heavy between them. Muffled by distance.
I won’t do this anymore.
Eskarith moved, wings spreading in the crouch before launch. Mountains didn’t ask permission before they rose. Storms didn’t consult before they broke.
“Wait—” Ryn started.
Eskarith’s foreclaw closed around them with the same gentle care he’d shown catching them mid-fall. Secure without crushing. Then launch—stone dropping away as he climbed, the ridge falling into distance.
Through fractured channels came impression rather than words now, just raw concept: Away.
Somewhere quiet, somewhere removed from witnesses and pressure from the Council, and the eyes of the Flight Circle.
Somewhere the broken thing between them could either be repaired or put to rest.
-
to be continued…
Read Mountain Bond Part One - The Severance or Download it as an ebook |
Start from the beginning of Part II or Read the previous chapter |
Discover more about the Dragon-Human Bond ||
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— Morgan
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