Contents
Chapter 10
Overview
Florence is overwhelmed by pain as Nyxaris communes with Molindra and hears a warning that someone seeks to pierce the Veil. Nyxaris withholds answers, while Florence’s mother reveals generational compulsion binding blightborn and suggests rising change. Shaken yet drawn to Nyxaris, Florence senses she may be central to coming upheaval.
Summary
Florence collapses under searing physical and emotional pain as Nyxaris’s voice fills her mind, urgently demanding answers from Molindra, the golden Luminthar. Through the agony, Florence pieces together that dragons can speak mind-to-mind. A trembling voice claims someone seeks to pierce the Veil, and Nyxaris reacts with fear and denial.
When Florence reaches for him, Nyxaris brusquely dismisses her as ignorant and severs the connection. The pain ebbs, and Florence’s mother helps her sit up, pleading for the truth. Florence reluctantly explains that her lifesaving by Medra and Professor Rodriguez came with a dragon-bound “catch.”
Her mother, terrified yet candid, warns that the world’s balance is shifting. She explains that outside Bloodwing, blightborn obedience is not merely cultural but enforced by long-woven compulsion magic. She notes Florence’s subtle changes since Nyxaris’s return and says dragons break chains.
Invoking the proverb “The axe forgets, but the tree remembers,” her mother suggests rebellion may be coming and believes Florence, bound to a dragon, will be at its center. Florence protests she doesn’t want that role, but her mother urges her to speak with Nyxaris.
Left reeling, Florence feels the lingering pull toward Nyxaris and fixates on the Veil: what it is, who seeks to pierce it, and what great price Nyxaris may have paid to keep it closed.
Who Appears
- FlorenceBlightborn student bound to Nyxaris; suffers shared dragon agony, learns of the Veil warning, and hears her mother’s revelations about compulsion.
- NyxarisAncient dragon linked to Florence; communicates with Molindra, fears the Veil being pierced, withholds explanations, and severs contact.
- Florence’s motherComforts Florence and reveals that blightborn obedience is enforced by compulsion magic; hints at looming rebellion and urges dialogue with Nyxaris.
- MolindraGolden Luminthar; source of a warning that someone seeks to pierce the Veil, triggering Nyxaris’s fear and Florence’s pain.