A Widow's Vengeance

The plain stretched wide and sunbaked, the air alive with wingbeats and sparks of dragonfire. Threshing. Cadets scattered across the field, some standing tall, others trembling, each waiting for fate to decide if they’d leave bonded…or burned to ash.

Veronica “Ron” Maigret kept to the edge of the line, ignoring the whispers trailing her like weeds. She was used to the snickers from the younger cadets that she was “too old”, “not even a soldier’s widow, a scribe’s widow”, “looks too soft like somebody’s mother”.

Ron folded her arms, jaw tight. She didn’t bother correcting them. Let them sneer. They don’t know what it is to walk through fire already burned hollow.

Now 35 years old, she was mentally and physically exhausted. Every muscle ached. She didn’t heal as easily as the younger cadets, but she outshone them with determination. I will not fail here. Not before I’ve made the venin choke on their own shadows.

A thunderous hush fell over the field.

Something stirred at the tree line — not one of the greats, not the vast wingspan of a battle-seasoned red or blue, but a smaller shape, gleaming with shifting iridescence. At first, she gleamed gold, scales catching sunlight like a thousand mirrors. Tiny yet coiled with unshakable poise. Gasps rippled through the cadets. An irid. Ancient-blooded. Battle-tested. Far more dangerous than she looked.

“Andarna?” someone whispered, disbelieving.

The dragon padded forward, slender and dangerous, her scales flowing darker with each step until she settled into the coal-black hide and heavy tail-spike of a clubtail. Not a child anymore. Not helpless. Her eyes, molten-bright, swept the crowd and fixed on Ron.

Ron’s heart kicked. No. Not me. She can’t—

Andarna didn’t hesitate. She crossed the field with the slow certainty of a queen and stopped inches from Ron, lowering her head. The heat of her breath fanned across Ron’s face.

A voice burst inside Ron’s mind, sharp and bright as hammered steel. “Widow. Farmer. Fighter. You have sown in soil long enough. Now you will sow in fire. Take me.”

The bond ignited. Ron gasped, knees buckling as the connection tore through her—her body, her breath, her soul. She was in two places at once: her own skin and Andarna’s sleek, coiled body. She smelled ozone and smoke, tasted blood and ash, felt power like molten metal singing in her veins.

She staggered upright, pressing her palm to the dragon’s muzzle. “I—what the—You’re beautiful.” Her voice cracked. “I’m Ron Maigret.”

“I know,” Andarna replied simply, the words rumbling inside Ron’s bones. “And I am yours.”

But a second, searing force tore through the new bond, an intrusive, violent connection that wasn’t Andarna at all. It was pure, unadulterated grief and rage, and for a blinding, heart-stopping second, Ron felt not her own widow’s sorrow, but the soul-crushing despair of a man who had lost everything. The foreign emotion was so potent it made her gasp, tasting bile and the metallic tang of an ancient, festering wound. In her mind, an unrecognizable voice said menacingly, “Why am I hearing this? You don’t belong here. Leave. Now.”

The mental scream was a raw shockwave, a command from a mind far more powerful and wounded than her own. She opened her mouth to snap back, but the words didn’t leave her lips. They burned in her chest, flared hot in her veins—then poured outward, unbidden. “Neither do you. Yet here we fucking are.”

The field rippled with whispers as Andarna curled her tail protectively around Ron, the small black clubtail shimmering faintly in the harsh autumn light. Dragons averted their gazes out of respect; cadets stared, stunned, whispering.

“Andarna doesn’t bond anymore!”

“That’s Violet Riorson’s dragon—she can’t—!”

The murmurs spread like wildfire. Some cadets glared, others shrank back, as if Ron had just committed sacrilege.

From the ridge above, the officers watched in silence. Commander Xaden Riorson stood with his arms folded, expression carved from stone. He was still reeling from the sudden, hateful mental intrusion—a split-second collision with a mind full of relentless, burning anger and vengeance—that had ripped through the dead channel of his bond with Tairn moments ago. He was surprised to hear Andarna as he had never communicated with her in this way before. His dark eyes narrowed as he took in the sight: the tiny, irid clubtail pressing her nose into the palm of a what seemed to be a young man with chin length hair.

Andarna. Violet’s Andarna. Bonded again.

The name was a scar across his soul. Andarna and Tairn had vanished after… her. After everything. He forced the thought down, where grief cannot follow.

He snorted quietly. From his vantage point it seemed to be another vengeful boy chasing glory, arrogant enough to suggest that he didn’t belong in this picture. Another soul to commend to Malek soon. But when the cadet straightened and turned, her face hard with fury and tears and defiance, the truth hit him. A woman. Older. Stronger. This must be the widow he’s heard of.

His jaw tightened. For the first time in years, his control threatened to slip. This woman shouldn’t have been able to answer his thoughts through the bond. No cadet, no rider, no one other than Violet has ever shoved words into his mind.

Captain Jesinia murmured beside him, “Commander, she’s--” “I see what she is,” Xaden cut in, voice like a blade. “Another widow chasing ghosts. Get me her file.”

When Threshing concluded, the cadets dispersed, some staring daggers at Ron, others whispering frantically. Andarna stalked beside her, scales still shimmering golden black.

Riorson descended from the ridge like a thunder cloud. He didn’t stop until he was standing before her, the weight of his presence pressing against her like a physical force. Sgaeyl’s shadow circled high overhead, silent and watchful.

Ron squared her shoulders, refusing to bow in the presence of this powerful, intimidating force of nature she realized was Commander Xaden Riorson. She was well aware of his cruel and dangerous reputation with cadets from barracks gossip.

“You,” he said flatly, eyes raking over her. “Widow. Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

Ron lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes sir, Commander. I bonded a dragon.”

“You bonded my wife’s dragon.” The words dropped like stones. His voice didn’t rise, but the ice in it made cadets nearby flinch.

Ron swallowed, heat prickling her skin, but she didn’t back down. “No sir, Andarna bonded me. Maybe she decided it was time to stop hiding.”

Xaden leaned in just slightly, his voice low, dangerous. “How dare you insinuate I have no place in this bond with Andarna. You may have just condemned yourself to a death you can’t even imagine.”

Andarna’s voice threaded sharp into both their minds. “Enough. She is mine now. You will not threaten her, Xaden Riorson.”

The field went silent. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.

For the first time in years, something flickered in Xaden’s eyes—anger, yes, but beneath it, the ghost of grief. He straightened slowly, gaze still locked on Ron and said in a voice stripped of everything but steel, “Then may the gods help you both.”

Basgiath’s stone walls held the night like a coffin. The training fields were silent now, save for the restless shifting of dragons settling outside the wards.

Commander Riorson sat alone in his office, a single lamp throwing long shadows across maps and rosters. His chair creaked as he leaned forward, knuckles pressed to his jaw, eyes scanning the parchment before him.

Veronica Maigret.

Age 35. Agriculturalist, Animal Healer. Conscription: Agriculture wing. Petitioned to transfer to Riders’ Quadrant. Granted on unusual approval.

His gaze narrowed. Unusual doesn’t begin to cover it. Most scribes’ wives would have hidden behind exemptions, clutched to civilian safety like lifelines. Yet here she was—bonded to a dragon who should never have shown herself again.

He flipped the page, ink bleeding in the lamplight. Married. Husband deceased. Hunter Maigret—scribe, killed in the Aretia raid. Two years past.

The words twisted like a knife in his chest. Aretia. Home. Violet’s name didn’t appear here, nor Aiden’s, but their ghosts curled out of the ink all the same.

Xaden pushed the file flat against the desk, fingertips dragging across the edge of the parchment. He didn’t need to imagine her grief. He knew it, lived it, drowned in it every day. But grief didn’t explain nor condone this.

Andarna did.

The dragon’s name scraped at him like broken glass. She had hidden herself after Violet—after them. And yet she returned, not for him, not in search of a bond that had once tethered their lives together through Violet, but for Ron Maigret.

Why her? A widow of a scribe. A woman who had never set foot on a battlefield in her life.

His thoughts knifed back to the clash on the field. The impossible words shoved into his mind. Her defiance carrying Andarna’s pulse.

Neither do you. Yet here we fucking are.

He closed his eyes briefly, the echo rattling him in places he’d thought burned hollow.

Unpredictable. Dangerous. Ron Maigret was no ordinary cadet. Which meant she was a liability. Or a weapon.

And Xaden Riorson knew better than anyone—if you don’t control a weapon, you eventually stand in front of its blade.

The cot in Ron’s assigned chamber creaked like brittle bones when she sank onto it. The Riders’ Hall was silent now, save for the faint groan of the stone settling around her. She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and pressed her forehead against the rough fabric of her trousers.

Her body still hummed from the clash—Andarna’s wings, the surge of fire in her veins, the impossible nearness of the Commander’s voice in her head.

That wasn’t real, she told herself. Couldn’t have been real.

But her bones knew better.

A sharp ripple cut through her thoughts, scales brushing her mind like the scrape of moonlight across glass. “You’re louder than I expected.”

Ron startled, nearly tumbling off the cot. Her throat went dry. “You—?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth. It’s clumsy.”

Her heart raced. She gripped the edge of the cot. “You… you’re inside my head.”

“Not inside. Bonded. The difference matters.”

Ron closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. The bond thrummed like a second heartbeat, vast and ancient. She should have felt honored. Instead she felt… unsettled.

“Why me?” she finally asked. “You could have chosen anyone.”

Silence stretched, then Andarna’s voice returned, softer but no less sharp. “I did not choose ‘anyone.’ I chose you. And if you keep doubting it, you’ll break yourself before the Riders ever get the chance.”

Ron’s throat tightened. She swallowed against the lump that rose there. She remembered Hunter’s steady hands, the way he always knew how to coax ink from parchment, how he steadied her trembling fingers. He had never wanted her in uniform, never wanted her anywhere near this world of dragons and war.

Now he was gone. And she was here.

But underneath Andarna’s words, there was another echo still gnawing at her.

…You don’t belong here. Leave. Now. …

Riorson’s voice—like gravel dragged across steel—hadn’t come from her ears. It had burned straight through her skull. And worse, he had heard her back. … Neither do you. Yet here we fucking are. …

Ron pressed her palms hard to her temples. Why? Why me?

If she could reach this intimidating senior officer like that… if he could hear her…

Then she was not just bonded. She was vulnerable. Her thoughts, her dreams, would never be her own again.

And the most dangerous man in Navarre now knew it.