Chapter 132: SECOND SON

RAIGORO’S POV

The bond did not make eleven-year-old Raigoro a Dragon Host officer.

This disappointed him.

Toren considered the disappointment educational.

"You cannot even reach the upper harness without help."

"I can climb."

"That was not the objection."

Vharos remained under Dragon Healer restrictions for months.

Raigoro remained a child for considerably longer.

Their bond therefore began without battle.

Raigoro sat with Vharos and walked beside him when the healers finally allowed movement. He learned which forms of irritation belonged to pain and which belonged to Vharos simply disliking somebody.

He also learned that awareness through the bond was not language.

Hunger could feel like restlessness. Fear could resemble anger.

Raigoro misread him often.

Vharos corrected those mistakes by becoming extremely obvious.

The first supervised flight did not happen until the healers declared the old wing capable of carrying the added load safely.

Raigoro remembered the morning more clearly than most birthdays.

Dragonkeepers and the harness crew fitted Vharos with a light harness meant for supervised bond-acclimation flights. There would be no weapons, patrol, or Dragon Host assignment.

The purpose was simply to teach an eleven-year-old boy and a recovering dragon how to move safely together.

Three adults checked every strap.

Then they checked them again because Raigoro was eleven, and Grand Duke Laurent Kael had informed everyone that if his second son fell off a dragon, the responsible officer would survive long enough to explain how.

Toren considered this fair.

Raigoro climbed into position.

His hands shook.

He hid it badly.

Vharos knew anyway.

The black dragon turned his head, and a pulse of attention came through the bond.

Raigoro pressed one hand against the familiar scales.

"I know."

He did not know.

Vharos opened his wings.

The first downward stroke erased every remaining thought.

The Citadel fell away beneath them.

Raigoro had seen Blackharrow from towers, but towers had never shown it to him like this.

Mountains opened beneath them. Roads became lines, and the walls that seemed enormous from the ground became one dark shape against the snow.

Vharos climbed.

Raigoro laughed.

He could not stop.

Toren later claimed this was the last uncomplicated decision Raigoro ever made.

Vharos banked over the northern ridge, and Raigoro understood why a creature built for the sky might prefer injury to a cage.

As Raigoro grew older, observation became structured education.

At fifteen, real service began under older command.

By seventeen, he had spent six years believing that having Vharos made him better than he actually was.

Captain Toren considered this correctable.

The lesson began on a narrow training ridge east of Blackharrow.

Three infantry companies, one engineering team, mounted scouts, and two Dragon Host pairs took part in the exercise. Raigoro and Vharos formed one of the Dragon Host pairs.

Vharos had been cleared for ordinary patrol and training duties years earlier.

He remained difficult, mostly with people he disliked.

Toren claimed the list was growing.

Raigoro believed this was unfair.

Vharos had bitten only one trainer.

"Only one this year," Toren had corrected.

The exercise began before dawn.

Raigoro’s task looked simple on the command sheet: hold the ridge road, protect the mock supply convoy, and prevent the opposing force from reaching the marked ward station.

Toren commanded the exercise.

He also clearly intended to make Raigoro suffer.

Raigoro knew because Toren looked cheerful.

The first opposing force appeared on the western slope.

Forty soldiers.

Visible and obvious.

Raigoro saw them from the Dragon Host harness and signaled below.

"Second Company west."

The flag officer repeated the order while Vharos banked above the ridge.

The opposing soldiers increased speed.

Raigoro committed another block of infantry.

Vharos turned sharply east.

Warning moved through the bond.

Movement.

Raigoro searched the lower tree line.

A second opposing unit emerged beside the convoy route.

Larger.

Toren’s actual attack.

Raigoro swore.

He had committed too much infantry to the obvious threat.

The convoy below began turning badly, and its retreat route crossed the same eastern path the second force now occupied.

Raigoro signaled Vharos downward.

The black dragon descended toward the threatening formation.

Vharos could break it.

Probably.

Raigoro had seen danger and immediately reached for the strongest thing he possessed.

While his attention stayed on what Vharos could destroy, the infantry routes beneath him became secondary.

Captain Toren’s signal horn sounded.

Three sharp notes.

Exercise halt.

Raigoro landed already disliking every person on the ridge.

Toren approached carrying a map board.

"What were you defending?"

"The convoy."

"No."

Raigoro stared at him.

Toren pointed toward the ridge.

"You were attacking the people threatening the convoy."

"That protects it."

"Does it?"

Raigoro already disliked where the question was going.

Toren pointed toward the eastern route.

"Where does the convoy retreat?"

Raigoro looked.

Blocked.

"Where does First Company withdraw if the western slope becomes untenable?"

The same road.

Raigoro said nothing.

"You gave an order before confirming the routes your own people needed."

"The western force was attacking."

"Yes."

"They required a response."

"Yes."

Raigoro waited.

Toren waited longer.

Fine.

"Not most of my response."

"Better."

Vharos stood several yards away, entirely untroubled by Raigoro’s humiliation.

Toren looked toward him.

"And you."

Vharos blinked.

"You make him stupid."

Raigoro frowned.

"He warned me."

"Eventually."

Toren returned his attention to Raigoro.

"You have a dragon powerful enough to make bad decisions survive longer than they deserve."

Raigoro disliked hearing it because he knew Toren was right.

"If Vharos corrects every mistake before it costs you anything, what exactly do you learn?"

Raigoro looked toward the mock convoy.

Soldiers were already resetting the exercise. Nobody had died, and no real ward had been lost.

Training existed so he could make the mistake here.

Toren handed him the map.

"Again."

Raigoro stared at him.

"Now?"

"Did you have somewhere important to be?"

Again.

The second attempt was better.

Raigoro held the western threat with fewer troops and sent scouts to check both retreat routes before committing the reserve. Vharos remained high while Raigoro confirmed what the hidden eastern force intended.

The convoy escaped.

First Company kept its withdrawal route.

The opposing soldiers still nearly reached the ward station because Raigoro waited too long before committing his final reserve.

Toren criticized that too.

Excellent.

By sunset, Raigoro was tired enough to resent the concept of instruction.

Vaerigo Kael found him in the lower command yard.

Raigoro’s older brother and Blackharrow’s heir carried three government ledgers under one arm.

Raigoro looked at the ledgers.

Vaerigo looked at the mud covering Raigoro’s coat.

"You lost."

"Twice."

"Productive day."

Raigoro took one of the ledgers.

Heavy.

"What is this?"

"Road levy review."

He handed it back immediately.

"No."

Vaerigo laughed.

"You will learn eventually."

"That is your job."

"So your plan is to spend the rest of your life with Vharos while I read tax disputes?"

"Yes."

"Generous."

Grand Duke Laurent Kael entered behind them.

He had come from a territorial hearing and looked tired enough to prove government could be physically damaging.

He still listened when Raigoro described the exercise.

Raigoro was not his heir.

Frontier command simply mattered enough for his father to care whether his second son understood it.

Laurent asked, "First mistake?"

"Committed too quickly to the obvious threat."

"Second?"

"Used Vharos as though he could compensate for the ground problem."

His father nodded.

"And next time?"

"Confirm retreat routes before committing. Keep enough reserve for information I do not have yet."

"Good."

Laurent left it there.

No speech about destiny or declaration that Raigoro would someday lead Blackharrow.

His father looked toward the ledgers in Vaerigo’s hands.

"Council."

Vaerigo sighed.

Raigoro smiled.

His brother pointed at him.

"You are coming."

"No."

"You need to know what the army is defending."

Vaerigo trained with weapons because every Kael heir did. He could command a garrison if required, but administration, treaty law, territory, and succession belonged to the life he was preparing to inherit.

Raigoro had never envied him.

As far as Raigoro knew, Vaerigo had never envied him either.

His brother’s argument remained irritating because it was correct.

Raigoro followed.

He expected his life to continue that way.

Toren would teach him command. Vharos would remain beside him in the sky. Vaerigo would learn the government he would someday inherit, and their father would continue correcting both sons for entirely different reasons.

Raigoro would command sectors.

Perhaps one day the Dragon Host.

Vaerigo would become Grand Duke.

He had no objection.

The title belonged to his brother.

His own future seemed clear enough without it.

The following year, after Raigoro turned eighteen, Ashen pressure increased along Blackharrow’s northern approaches.

Reports described a serious force moving toward the outer settlements and relay wards.

Raigoro and Vharos were the obvious response.

Toren would command the ground defense while Raigoro handled the Dragon Host element and mobile reserve.

Grand Duke Laurent remained at the Citadel.

So did Vaerigo.

Someone had to.

Blackharrow could not empty its command center merely because the frontier became loud.

Raigoro objected once.

"Vaerigo can come north."

Vaerigo looked up from the command ledger.

"I can."

Laurent said, "And who holds the Citadel if the northern reports are wrong about the shape of the attack?"

Raigoro stopped arguing.

Toren had taught him the question already.

What are you defending?

The visible threat was only part of the answer. The system behind it mattered too.

Vaerigo fastened the clasp on Raigoro’s field coat where the lower hook had twisted.

"Try not to lose twice."

Raigoro looked at him.

"That happened once."

"Twice in one day."

Toren, already at the gate, said, "He remembers."

Vaerigo smiled.

Nobody treated the parting as a farewell.

Raigoro mounted Vharos.

The black dragon opened his wings.

Below, Laurent and Vaerigo remained beneath the Citadel standard.

Raigoro expected to see both of them when he came home.