The tale was one known to every child at the hearth, to every man in his labour, and to every woman beneath the long turning sky of the world. It was spoken of in nursery rhyme and in solemn lesson alike. More than millennia before the present age, when memory itself grew thin at the edges, a behemoth fell from the heavens, the first forebear of all dragons, and it came screaming through the upper airs until the firmament itself seemed aflame. To millions, watching from fields and cities and seas, it was taken for the ending of all things, the very shape of the apocalypse made manifest.

  Yet a single mind, whether genius or madness none could ever quite agree, didn't see only doom. Where others fled, crying out in terror, he felt instead a tremor of anticipation, sensing in the immensity of the event a promise, a possibility vast beyond measure. While crowds scattered, he went forward alone, driven by a hunger for knowing that couldn't be quenched. It was there, in the shadow of that fallen titan, that the First Bond was forged.

  That man was none other than the ancestor of Seralyth.

  And now, treading the same paths and passing through the same valleys that he had crossed in an age so distant it bordered on legend, Seralyth herself went onward, step by measured step.

  "Candidates, step forth in a line."

  Blink.

  The splendid visions that had swelled within Seralyth, the grand and terrible romance of myth that threatened to break her heart with its beauty, were struck flat in an instant. The voice that cut through her thoughts was cold, stern, and unyielding. By its tone alone she guessed it belonged to security personnel, already issuing instructions without ceremony or reverence.

  Perhaps, she thought, in the elder days the Bonding Ceremony had been wrapped in prayer and story, more rite than process. But centuries upon centuries of study, experiment, and refinement had pared it down into something nearer to a procedure, orderly and exact.

  The notion drew a quiet chuckle from her, one edged with bitterness. She had never imagined she would find herself agreeing with her father, Your Imperial Majesty, on matters such as this. Yet now she couldn't help wishing that some fragment of the old ritual had been preserved, if only to lend fitting weight to what waited beyond the landing zone.

  "Members of the imperial family, proceed to First Bond Site One. Nobles of the imperium proceed to First Bond Site Two to Seventy-Nine."

  So be it.

  Seralyth obeyed. Alongside distant kin she advanced through a succession of corridors, white and spotless, their surfaces too clean to feel welcoming. As she walked, she became aware of a faint yet persistent presence, a mana barrier laid in careful layers, interface upon interface, each aligned so precisely that none bled into the next. Its purpose was plain enough to her. Since the moment of landing, she hadn't felt any foreign emotion brush against her soul, and this barrier was the reason why.

  Lights flickered from scanners set into the walls, washing over the candidates as they passed. Watching them closely, she discerned the familiar signatures of arrays casting「Analyse」and「Inspect」. The thought pricked her curiosity. Were the researchers and unseen observers monitoring them so closely? And if so, why such secrecy?

  A seed of suspicion stirred, but she set it aside. Her attention returned to the Bonding itself. This ceremony had endured for thousands of years. It seemed unlikely that something fundamentally amiss had escaped notice for so long.

  She didn't know that, far away in the command centre, one of the many screens now displayed her image alongside dozens of other candidates. Their names, resonance parameters, emotional fluctuations, and countless other measures streamed beside their faces. The researchers there understood well that across dozens of sites and millions of participants, fewer than one in a hundred would even have a chance to bond with a dragon. Fewer still would succeed.

  For that reason, they fixed their attention upon those deemed most promising. It was why Seralyth’s momentary look of surprise was captured so clearly by their instruments.

  "Is that a cave?"

  "No. Don't you feel it?"

  "Madness. Pure madness."

  "Hmph. Just as one would expect from a tradition this old."

  Whispers rippled through the corridor. Some voices carried awe, others confusion or thinly veiled disbelief. Seralyth counted herself among those whose eyes held questions rather than fear.

  'That lies within the First Bond.'

  Of this she felt certain. At the corridor’s end, a gate stood where sterile white gave way to a rugged tunnel descending into shadow. Before it shimmered an azure membrane, a barrier barring passage.

  'No. It keeps the pressure at bay.'

  On the far side, mana churned and gleamed, endlessly dismantling an influence that pressed against it, seeking entry through any weakness. The sight set her thoughts racing. She wondered, with an intensity that bordered on hunger, what it would feel like to step beyond that veil.

  She wouldn't have long to wait.

  "Candidates!"

  An older man stood near the gate, his military uniform heavy with decoration and authority. At his side were soldiers in matching dress, medical personnel ready at a moment’s notice, and several magi whose attention never wavered.

  "We will proceed with the start of the Bonding Ceremony. When your name is called, step forth and pass through the gate until you reach the ceremonial chamber. Questions? None. Good."

  There was neither space nor time granted for preparation. Seralyth suspected this was deliberate. She glanced about her. Some candidates held themselves stiffly, projecting confidence even as fear glimmered in their eyes. Others allowed their nerves to coil inward, silent and tight.

  Her gaze met that of a distant cousin. He nodded briefly, not warmly, but without hostility. She raised a brow and returned the gesture.

  "#0001 of the imperial family category, Aaltheris Aeryndil. Step forth."

  The young man froze, his stare locked upon the gate. Seralyth wondered, not unkindly, if he cursed his parents for saddling him with such a name. Whatever his thoughts, he was first. Under the watchful eyes of thousands and the unblinking scrutiny of the officers, he moved forward and passed through the gate.

  "Aghh?!"

  He fell hard to his knees. Pain twisted his features into something scarcely human. Blood welled and spilled from his mouth, his eyes, his nose, and his ears.

  "Extend the barrier. Rescue him," the officer barked.

  A magus hurried to the magitech controls, urging the barrier forward into the cave until it enveloped Aaltheris. Medics rushed in, dragging him back into the corridor and tending to him at once.

  "#0001 has been disqualified. Next."

  A heavy unease settled over the assembled candidates.

  ???

  “#7102 of the Imperial Family category, Seralune Aerendyl. Step forth.”

  At the calling of her name, a small and youthful maiden drew back a half-step without meaning to do so, as folk will when startled in a great hall. Princess Seralyth marked the movement with a brief sidelong glance, no longer than the blink of an eye; yet when she saw the hesitation plain upon the girl’s face, she turned her own gaze forward again and didn't linger.

  'Another one that will fail.'

  She didn't trouble herself to watch closely, nor to wait upon proof, for she was already certain of her foretelling. An uncertain span of time had passed since the trials began, and in that while, through those who had succeeded, those who had broken, and those whose results lay in a grey and troubling middle, Seralyth felt she had learned the shape of the matter well enough.

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  Whenever one passed through the barrier, the measures of pressure would leap beyond any common scale. If the candidate faltered, or failed to brace heart and soul together, the resonance would sweep them away, folding inward upon them until their very spirit collapsed.

  Whether this came merely from the passive being of the First Bond, or whether some deeper intent lay coiled beneath it, Seralyth couldn't say. Yet the outcomes were written plainly before her eyes, and didn't need further explanation.

  “#7103 of the Imperial Family category, Princess Seralyth Aerendyl. Step forth.”

  So it seemed she must go on without certainty. A trembling form was carefully borne aside for aid, and the military officer overseeing the rite didn't so much as flicker an eyelid before his hoarse voice rang out again across the chamber.

  Seralyth didn't hurry. Instead, she let out a long breath, then drew another in sharply, setting her breathing and the beating of her heart into order. Along her limbs and spine, the implants set within her flesh gave a soft whistle and glimmered into a hue of pale lavender. The empathic gift her lineage boasted of stirred fully awake, unrestrained and keen.

  In all that ceremony, she alone stood as a direct descendant of their ancient progenitor. Her brothers and her sister had either passed through this trial in years gone by, or else were still too young and unready to risk their single allotted chance.

  “What is she doing?” someone whispered.

  “I suppose she’s afraid,” came a murmured answer.

  “I doubt it. There’s never been a direct descendant who’s failed.”

  “And wouldn’t that thought make her all the more uneasy?”

  “If she fails–”

  Seralyth heard none of it. Her mind had narrowed to a keen, unwavering focus as she stepped forward, pace by measured pace, until she stood before the gate itself. The membranous barrier shivered at her touch, but didn't resist her passage, yielding as she moved through.

  Her heart gave a sudden leap within her chest.

  It was as though the world itself had chosen to rest upon her shoulders.

  The weight wasn't of flesh and bone, yet it pressed upon her all the same. Reality itself seemed bent and warped, and Seralyth knew with a sharp clarity that this wasn't mere rite or ceremony. It was an audience with an existence set far, far above her own understanding.

  If once her soul had been like a small boat caught in a raging storm, now it was hurled into a great whirlpool, stripped bare and unguarded. She felt it twist and strain, threatening to lose all shape beneath the influence of the First Bond.

  Calm down. Calm down. I can do it. Be calm.

  Those thoughts sank like anchors into the churning depths, steadying her against the tumult. Her neural and soul stabilisers flared violently in answer to the foreign pressure. They aligned themselves with her empathic gifts, the magitech woven through her body strengthening the arrays she cast again and again with relentless will.

  “Haaah,” Seralyth breathed at last, as the air trapped in her throat was freed.

  The natural affinity borne by her and every member of the Imperial Family, an unseen mantle that eased the strain, settled over her. It was a passive strength, quiet but enduring, that allowed her to endure higher crests of pressure and to recover from them with greater swiftness.

  Needless to say, it shone brighter in her than in those of more distant blood.

  'It feels… different.'

  As her senses adjusted, Seralyth became aware that the cavern was no true cave at all, but the hollowed bone of something vast. Beneath it, she could faintly perceive flesh responding to the tides of her emotion. Though this wasn't the first time she’d walked within the innards of a dragon, awe stirred in her all the same, deep and sincere.

  'I suppose it’s now or never.'

  Step by careful step, more cautious than she herself realised, Seralyth passed into the veil of darkness that cloaked the path ahead, until her form was swallowed from sight.

  She still felt the hard ground beneath her feet, the close presence of the walls about her, and the influence that scraped now and again across her soul, sometimes lightly, sometimes with sharper insistence.

  She felt the dark abyss close around her, and she yielded, letting her body drift into it.

  Then she felt her body become her soul, and her five senses flowed together into a single, strange awareness. She wasn't Seralyth, nor a princess of any realm. She was a bright red star, radiant and fierce.

  She blazed splendidly, yet even so her light couldn't illumine the whole of the vastness around her.

  Far off, points of light winked into being and faded without rhythm or pause. They were like her, stars set within this boundless firmament.

  And above them all, looming beyond measure, hung a supermassive black hole. It didn't strain to draw them in, yet its mere presence bent their paths. Some stars wandered too near, unable to find a fitting counterpart, and were snuffed out, lost to nothingness.

  The red star held fast. Its light wavered, but it didn't swell or break, even as the void thickened about it and pressed ever closer.

  Small, youthful black holes came into being, circling their great progenitor. They burst forth in a tumult of feeling, a storm of sentiments strange to the red star. Only with great effort were these impressions given meaning.

  Fear.

  Aggression.

  Curiosity.

  Attachment.

  And many more besides. Yet none of them wove themselves into a single, coherent self, no clear thread for the red star to bind to. The darkness of the cosmos began to compress, and the anchor that held the red star steady quivered under the mounting force.

  She wouldn't let her light dim.

  It was an act of defiance.

  The red star knew its own recklessness, yet couldn't bring itself to wait passively and hope that a bond might one day come. Instead, she let her energy surge, her resonance leaping beyond all control. The darkness around her was driven back by a fiercer brilliance.

  She flared into a supernova, scattering light across the whole of the cosmos.

  The vast empathic wave rolled outward, sweeping through the youthful black holes, knowing them, weighing them, setting them in their proper measure. It sought a unified whole, a bond, a counterpart, an equal.

  The wave reached onward into heights unseen. The supermassive black hole neither hindered nor aided the bold attempt. It simply watched.

  In that strange realm, there was no telling whether the supernova endured for mere moments or for ages uncounted.

  Only this was known. When it faded, a silver-blue pulsar shone where the red star had been. Unchecked desire had settled into a calm and steady glow. It aligned itself, resonated true, and locked upon a black hole that didn't recoil, but answered in kind.

  The smaller black hole acknowledged the call and moved to meet it. Together, they loosed their former anchors and turned about one another, their orbit stable and sure.

  The black hole didn't draw the pulsar in.

  The silver-blue pulsar didn't burn itself away.

  A bond had been forged.

  One that would shape the present.

  ???

  “What in the wide world was that?!”

  In the command centre, the lead researcher Professor Halric Morcant stood astounded and altogether stunned. It had been a rare and much-desired honour to oversee the Bonding Ceremony, a day for which he had waited with an eagerness so full that it scarcely let him sleep in the nights before.

  And then, quite without warning, the unknown had come upon them.

  “Empathic energy is beyond all charts!” cried one voice.

  “The source can't be determined!” said another.

  “We can't measure its dilation at all!”

  “There are resonance spikes whenever it touches a hatchling!”

  “It’s… examining them?”

  Thus information poured from the lips of researchers and assistants alike, a ceaseless stream of facts and readings that none of them could rightly order or understand. Screen after screen was flooded and overwritten by red warnings of every imaginable kind, glowing like danger-signs in an ancient tale.

  Their carefully written protocols, learned and rehearsed over long years, were rendered useless beneath the weight of the strange phenomenon that now unfolded before them.

  “It’s retrograding!”

  “There are no changes in the candidates!”

  “None in the hatchlings either!”

  “The First Bond didn't respond!”

  “There is a bond!”

  What.

  Confusion followed, thick and heavy. Every person present knew the meaning of those words well enough, yet only after a heartbeat’s delay did their full sense strike home, like thunder heard a moment after the lightning.

  “A bond?!” Professor Halric burst out. “How in all reason, who was it?” he demanded, his voice sharp with disbelief.

  “Checking the logs!”

  “It’s listed under the Imperial Family category!”

  “Candidate number seven-one-zero-three!”

  “Your Highness, Princess Seralyth Aerendyl.”

  “That is…”

  Professor Halric clicked his tongue in dismay. Of all the souls it might have been, it had to be a member of the imperial house, and not merely so, but a direct descendant. Their line was known for its variations, for traits that defied neat measure, and they’d long proven troublesome to any attempt at tidy classification of phenomena.

  “Verify the records from before the irregularities,” Halric said at last, letting out a weary breath. “What did she do?”

  “That topology doesn't exist in any bonded profile,” someone reported carefully.

  “There was no external stabilisation phase at all.”

  “She…”

  “Forced an empathy collapse?”

  “Does such a thing even make sense?”

  “That would mean the candidate initiated the selection.”

  “Enough,” the professor snapped, cutting them short. “And what followed?”

  No one answered him.

  It wasn't that they couldn't read the graphs, the numbers, the shifting lines upon their screens. Nor was it that they failed to understand what those signs declared. It was that the truth of it ran against all the knowledge they possessed, learned through years uncounted.

  “She selected a compatible dragon, Professor.”

  This, despite the long-held belief that dragons alone determined resonance and compatibility.

  “There was a pattern to it as well.”

  This, despite the accepted doctrine that the process was wholly instinctual.

  “The First Bond acknowledged completion. It recorded the bond.”

  This, despite their fear that such an event would be an affront to the First Bond’s very nature.

  “Professor… what are we to do?”

  The answer came only as a long, shaken exhalation. Halric didn't know. Was this a blessing, a great turning point in their research across the ages? Or was it an anomaly, perilous and uncharted, born of things they didn't yet grasp?

  The unknown filled them with dread, yet at the same time stirred a fierce hunger to understand.

  “Begin the isolation procedure,” Halric said at last. “Find a way to model both the process and the hatchling. And establish a connection with the Imperial Palace and the Interstellar Dracology Institute. We must–”

  “Professor! The First Bond is… ugh?!”

  One by one, the researchers felt their very souls drawn taut, as if by a seamless thread that spread through the whole of the planet. It resonated with every human heart and every dragon-spirit. It spoke without words, delivering a single, unmistakable meaning.

  Stay watchful.

  Make ready.

  It will come.

  For in the wide and star-strewn heavens, something vast had taken note of their resonance.

  It had fixed its regard upon their solar system.