5. Cassia: Wraiths

Cassia jolts from a scrying vision unnaturally linked to Everen’s dream and sprints from the depths of the weyr to the open sky. Answering the Queen’s command to go, she takes wing with Mace, Thist, and Pan, following an inner pull to a fresh rip in the Veil over Vere Celene’s western coast.

The breach crackles with purple lightning as winged wraiths—warped echoes of dragons—pour through. One clamps onto Sidar’s neck. Drawing on Everen’s knowledge that dragon touch weakens wraiths, Cassia and the others claw and bite through the smoke-dense forms, forcing them to unravel. The onslaught ebbs; the remaining wraiths are shredded, and the Veil begins to seal.

As adrenaline fades, injuries surface. Sidar bleeds heavily, shrinks mid-air from exhaustion, and goes limp in Pan’s claws despite cautious handling. The warriors return to the weyr, where the Lady—Cassia’s injured mother, the Queen—awaits, grounded by an old crossbolt wound. Healers converge, but Sidar is beyond saving.

Pan keens her loss, and the entire weyr answers with the layered song for the dead. Cassia senses Everen’s distant grief and understands that his shared visions gave them just enough warning to prevent worse devastation. She briefly yearns to cross the closing breach to Lumet but rejects repeating Everen’s risky attempt, and the weyr mourns Sidar’s passing.