The first sign was silence.
No wind, no rustle of sheep, no hum of drifting lands. The air hung still as glass. Even the light had changed, turning faintly gold and gray at once.
Rowen was the first to sense it. He rose, his cloak brushing the dew.
"Up," he said quietly. "Now."
Harkon blinked awake. "It's not dawn yet."
"No," Rowen said. "It's the storm."
Lyra sat up, her hair tousled from sleep. "Already?"
Elian squinted into the mist. "The skies look clear—"
He never finished the sentence.
A sound split the horizon—a low, groaning roar, as if the world itself had drawn a breath. The clouds below began to twist. One of the floating lands tilted, then another. The sheep bleated in alarm.
"Grab what you can!" Rowen shouted.
They rushed to their packs, tying ropes and securing weapons. The wind hit them a moment later—sharp, cold, and heavy enough to push them back. The green land trembled beneath their feet.
Lyra fell to her knees, clutching a tuft of grass. "Rowen!"
"I've got you!" He reached for her arm, pulling her up just as the edge of their meadow cracked and fell away into white nothingness.
Sheep flew past them like scraps of cloud. One of them landed nearby, rolled, and scrambled up again, bleating. The sky was full of spinning fragments—small lands colliding, breaking apart, floating off like shattered mirrors.
Elian pointed upward. "Look!"
Through the swirling mist, something vast moved—its shadow rippled through the clouds like a phantom wave. The air whistled around it, bending with its shape.
The Bone Dragon.
For a heartbeat, they could see it clearly—the long, silver-white body made of bones and stormlight, gliding between the drifting lands. Its wings were torn clouds, its eyes faintly glowing blue.
"It's real," Lyra whispered, her voice trembling.
Rowen's jaw tightened. "Move. Now!"
They leapt from their crumbling island to the next. The space between was wide, but the wind carried them, or perhaps it wanted them gone. Harkon barely made it, landing with a grunt. Behind them, their old camp tilted and was swallowed by the storm.
The dragon's cry echoed—deep, metallic, and sorrowful. It wasn't anger they heard, but something older. Grief, perhaps. Or hunger.
They ran across three more lands, each smaller than the last. Lyra's boots slipped on the wet grass, but Rowen caught her again, steadying her. The storm roared around them like a living thing.
"Elian!" Rowen shouted. "The rope!"
Elian threw it across to the next island, anchoring it to a rock. One by one they crossed, hanging over the swirling clouds below. For a moment, Lyra looked down—she saw flashes of light deep beneath the mist, like lightning trapped under glass.
The dragon was circling. Each pass brought it closer. The wind carried the sound of its wings—a rhythm that matched the storm's pulse.
They reached a patch of rock shaped like a crescent. The stormlight illuminated their faces. Rowen drew his blade, though he knew it would do nothing against the creature. Harkon lifted his spear; Elian muttered something like a prayer.
Then the dragon descended.
It didn't strike them—it passed over, its shadow drowning everything in gray. The wind from its wings knocked them flat, and Lyra clung to the ground as pieces of stone broke loose and fell into the endless clouds.
Rowen looked up, eyes wide. For the briefest instant, the dragon's face turned toward him. Two glowing eyes stared through the storm—and in them, Rowen saw not fury, but recognition.
Then it vanished into the mist.
The wind began to ease. The lands steadied, their trembling slowing to a soft drift once more. The storm retreated as swiftly as it had come.
They lay in silence for a long time, breathless and soaked. Finally, Elian whispered, "Why didn't it attack?"
Rowen stood slowly, still watching the empty sky. "It didn't need to. It was warning us."
Lyra shivered, wrapping her cloak tighter. "Of what?"
Rowen's voice was quiet, almost drowned by the last sigh of the storm.
"Something worse than itself."