Chapter 31
Andri returned to Imresia with Kito at his side. The young female Steedraptor had been entrusted to him as a parting gift after spending months in his care in Tatsuno.
Winter was setting in, and with the snowfall growing heavier by the day, it was a cruel season for Andri. But the people of Tatsuno had taken every measure to shield him from the worst of the cold. They provided him with a heavy winter cloak, along with a newly tailored uniform made in the exact style of the Royal Guard of Imresia. Even his military boots had been specially crafted to fit comfortably over the support braces he wore by day. Both the uniform and the boots had been discreetly lined to hold concealed warming packs—a thoughtful addition Yuki herself had insisted upon.
He had been gone for only a year and a half, yet the change in him was enough to leave everyone speechless.
It was not merely that he had grown taller.
His eyes held a strength they had never possessed before.
Once, Andri had carried himself like a man forever conscious of the eyes upon him, as though trying to make himself smaller. Now he moved with the steady certainty of someone who no longer believed there was anything left in the world he needed to fear.
He was granted an audience with King Alexios, where he knelt before the throne to report his return and renew his oath of loyalty.
Yet it was the king who seemed thoroughly intimidated.
“Try not to terrify His Majesty too badly,” Antonius remarked afterward. “These constant dealings with Tatsuno have already strained his nerves sufficiently.”
The words might have sounded reproachful, but Antonius was smiling as though he could not help but enjoy the situation.
Yet once the amusement faded, he looked up at Andri—now unmistakably taller than before—and lowered his voice.
“Your return is of tremendous value to us. I am grateful for it… but are you truly certain of this?”
Andri answered without hesitation.
“I am, Lord Commander. My oath is to Imresia—to the Royal Guard, and to the Kingdom itself. I will not leave the kindness shown to me by the people of Tatsuno unrepaid… but for now, my duty is to my homeland.”
Antonius studied him in silence for a moment, but did not press him any further.
Instead, he formally reassigned him. No longer Captain of the First Unit, Andri was appointed Captain of the Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry, and ordered to shape the newly formed unit into a force fit for active service.
At first, Andri wondered whether this meant the destruction wrought by the Dracotyrannus had finally begun.
But that was not the case.
In the southern mountain territories, rival lords had begun clashing in a series of escalating skirmishes. Local knightly company had already been dispatched to maintain order, but tensions between the two domains’ armies were steadily worsening.
The Royal Guard was expected to intervene before the conflict escalated any further.
And because the fighting would take place in mountainous terrain, the Royal Guard intended to field the Steedraptors in active service at last.
Andri wasted no time.
The First Unit of the Royal Guard Heavy Infantry was reorganized into the newly formed Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry, and training began almost immediately under his command. The corps had been assigned six Raptors in total, Kito among them.
No human army had ever attempted anything like it before.
The corps had been built around the techniques and knowledge Andri brought back from Tatsuno.
The Dracoserpens fought in their draconic forms, taking to the skies under their own power. Because of this, Raptors in Tatsuno had never filled a combat role. To the Dracoserpens, Raptors were mounts and nothing more—creatures capable of crossing the freezing upper skies where ordinary animals could not survive. Even the riding techniques Wani taught Andri had never been developed with warfare in mind.
Andri intended to change that.
Each flight consisted of three men. A reinsman. An archer. And a unit leader.
The reinsman controlled the Raptor itself. It demanded a delicate touch on the reins, steady nerves, and enough confidence that the intelligent beasts would accept the rider’s command.
The archer’s task was no less difficult. He had to read the wind, the movement of the wings, and the shifting rhythm of flight while loosing arrows at full speed in midflight.
The unit leader watched everything.
The Raptor’s course. Altitude. Enemy positions. Allied movements. The condition of the reinsman and archer alike.
Front. Rear. Left. Right. Above. Below.
If the unit leader lost track of the battlefield for even a moment, all three men could die.
Andri addressed the gathered soldiers.
“The saddles will be redesigned for three riders. Assignments will be determined through trial runs—compatibility with the Raptors, visual tracking, reaction speed, judgment, and skill with the bow.”
Training began on the grazing grounds behind the royal palace.
At first, they trained on foot.
Then the exercises moved beyond the cliffs at the edge of the pasturelands and into open sky.
No one could say how many men screamed during their first flight.
Until now, there had always been ground beneath their feet. They had thought themselves fearless—soldiers who could stand against overwhelming numbers or storms of arrows thick enough to darken the sky.
But courage felt very different with nothing beneath them but open air.
The wind cut across their faces like knives.
“Move with the Raptor, Ari!”
The warning came a heartbeat too late.
Ari lost his balance and was thrown from the saddle.
A shout rose from below as his body tumbled helplessly through the freezing air, spinning end over end against the screaming wind.
“—Kito!”
The blue Raptor burst from sky like a bolt of lightning.
Kito folded her wings and plunged downward at a near-vertical angle. The dive was so steep that several of the watching soldiers instinctively tensed just from seeing it.
Then, in the very next instant—
her massive talons locked around Ari’s falling armor.
With one powerful beat of her wings, Kito surged back into the sky.
By the time she landed, Ari’s legs were close to giving out beneath him.
Andri was already off the saddle before the Raptor had fully settled, crouching in front of the shaken soldier almost at once.
“Ari. Breathe. You’re safe now.”
Ari tried to answer immediately, but his teeth were still chattering hard enough to betray him. His hands shook uncontrollably.
“...Sorry for the trouble, Captain…”
“It’s fine,” Andri said evenly. “You hurt anywhere?”
Looking up at Andri, Ari somehow managed to force a grin onto his pale face.
“...Might’ve pissed myself a little, but I’m in one piece.” He forced out a shaky grin. “Hard to earn any decent scars serving under you, Captain.”
The entire pasture broke into laughter.
Even Andri laughed at that.
“I owe you an apology, then,” he said. “But from now on, take care of your business before we fly. The saddles weren’t designed to carry spare trousers.”
That only made the laughter louder.
The fear that had gripped the men moments earlier slowly began to crack apart beneath the laughter.
Theodoros watched the scene in silence.
Not long ago, this young captain would never have known how to answer a joke like that. He would have apologized in earnest and let the fear linger among the men.
But now—
whether he realized it or not—
Andri seemed to understand exactly what his soldiers needed to keep their courage from breaking.
Even if the fear could never be erased entirely, a bond of trust stronger than anything they had known before steadily took shape—and in time, that trust began to reveal itself in the way they moved.
The archers’ arrows split the wind cleanly before striking their marks.
The reinsmen guided their Steedraptors as though reinsman and Raptor shared the same instincts.
And the unit leaders, with nothing more than signals given by hand and foot, relayed precise commands to reinsman and archer alike while coordinating seamlessly with the surrounding flights.
The crew and the Raptor gradually became a single aerial combat unit, racing through the skies as one.
“…They are coming together splendidly.”
After training one late afternoon, Theodoros spoke.
Overhead, formations of Raptors glided through the pale winter clouds, their silhouettes drifting beneath the fading winter light.
“Remarkable, isn’t it, Captain?”
“It is,” Andri agreed. “They’ve done better than I could’ve hoped for. You included.”
Theodoros shook his head.
The men’s astonishing growth was not merely the result of their own effort. More than anything, it was the skill of the man leading them.
He was about to say as much when he caught the look Andri cast back over his shoulder.
“…Captain? Is something the matter?”
“Theodoros. There’s something I’d like to try. Would you take to the air with me?”
Theodoros had mastered every role within the aerial cavalry—unit leader, reinsman, and archer alike.
Meanwhile, Andri had spent countless hours training alone: flying, shooting, and pushing himself beyond reason. There was a new sense of resolve about him now.
“Of course, sir. I shall prepare at once.”
Winter daylight faded quickly. There was little time left before darkness swallowed the sky entirely, but Theodoros mounted his Raptor without hesitation and rose after Andri’s mount, Kito.
He had only a moment to watch closely, trying to read his captain’s intent—
“Good. No one below.” He looked down briefly. “If this goes wrong, I’m the only one taking the hit.”
“—What?!”
The instant the words left his mouth, Andri hurled himself from the Raptor’s back.
The riders circling nearby nearly stopped breathing.
Just as Theodoros moved to send his own Raptor diving after him, Kito tore past him with such speed it seemed to outrun the sound itself.
Its talons locked around Andri’s shoulders.
As the Raptor accelerated, Andri’s back slammed tight against Kito’s feathered breast, suspended beneath her as though wings had grown from his own body. From that impossible position, he drew and loosed an arrow in a single motion—
and pierced a ground target as he streaked past it.
Then Kito descended sharply, still clutching him.
“Kito! Let go!”
The hooked talons opened.
For an instant, it seemed certain Andri would be smashed into the earth.
Instead, his hand dropped to the sword at his hip as both feet struck the ground cleanly. He rode the impact through the landing—
and in the same motion, tore the sword from his hip and hammered a crushing slash into the target.
Neither Theodoros nor the men could make sense of what they had just witnessed.
“Hm. Drawing a bow’s a little cramped around the shoulders,” Andri said, rolling one arm experimentally. “But it’ll work.”
He looked genuinely pleased with himself as the men gathered around after landing.
Not one of them looked amused.
Andri caught the mood immediately and lifted both hands in surrender.
“Easy. I’m not saying the rest of you should try it. I only thought of it after Ari fell. Kito understands my signals well enough that I don’t always need the reins, and if both hands are free…” He glanced toward the Raptor beside him. “I figured it’d let me react faster if I ever had to shift forms and fight on the ground.”
“Captain, that’s not the part any of us gives a damn about.”
Tigo shoved his way forward, voice already shaking hard enough to betray him.
“What in hell were you thinking?! You trying to kill us with fright before the enemy even reaches us?!”
The shout cracked halfway through.
Not anger alone.
Fear. Relief. The lingering horror of nearly watching someone die right in front of him.
“Captain… at least warn us first…”
Even Theodoros had gone pale. His composure held—but only barely.
“For a moment there… I truly believed we’d lost you.”
Tigo swore under his breath and dragged both hands through his hair.
Usually he was the loudest man on the battlefield—the sort who laughed in the face of death and still had a joke ready with arrows flying past his head.
Now there was not a shred of swagger left in him.
“You dropped outta the sky like a rock, sir,” he said hoarsely. “What the hell were we supposed to do? Just watch like helpless fools?”
Ari looked worse. Far worse.
When he himself had fallen, terror had frozen his blood.
But this was something else entirely.
“We couldn’t move,” he admitted quietly. “None of us could.”
Nobody shouted. Nobody seemed to breathe.
“All we could do was wait and pray you survived it.”
His jaw tightened hard.
“It was the same when you took that blasted arrow for me. I just sat there then too—helpless. Couldn’t do a damned thing. You never let us.” His voice shook despite himself. “Do you have any idea what kind of hell that feels like? Watching someone you’d trust with your life throw his own away like it means nothing?”
Several men lowered their eyes and nodded grimly.
Andri shrank slightly beneath the weight of it.
Not because he feared their anger.
But because he finally understood it.
Once, he might have brushed this aside—might have apologized only to calm the men down.
Not anymore.
Now he understood exactly what sat underneath their fury: trust. Loyalty. Fear born from caring too deeply to watch him die.
To the Dracoserpens, a fall like that would scarcely have been worth alarm. But these men were human, and Andri finally understood how recklessly his own sense of danger appeared through their eyes.
And he understood, too, that treating his own life carelessly meant trampling on those feelings without ever meaning to.
“…You are right,” he said at last, voice subdued in a way rarely heard from him. Despite his enormous frame, he looked almost boyishly chastened. “I was careless. Forgive me.”
“—Captain Chaire.”
At last, Theodoros stepped forward. His usual gentle smile had returned. Which somehow made him far more frightening.
If the others’ anger had been springfire, then Theodoros’s was Mount Agnia beneath the earth—quiet, contained, and catastrophically hot.
Far wiser to surrender than test it.
“Under the original arrangement,” Theodoros said pleasantly, “you and I were to ride separate Raptors.”
He paused.
The smile never changed.
“I would like to formally request a revision. From now on, I shall ride with Kito as well.”
No one objected.
Because every man present had already reached the same conclusion.
Their captain would absolutely attempt another suicidal stunt the moment battle chaos swallowed him again.
Andri let out a long sigh of surrender and gave Kito’s neck a resigned pat.
“…Understood. I’ll be counting on you.”
At last, with tempers cooling and shaken nerves finally beginning to settle, the Royal Guard Aerial Raptor Cavalry departed the pasturelands just as snow began to fall once more.
And then—
the day finally arrived.
The messenger appeared during breakfast, while the last traces of morning mist still lingered beyond the windows, carrying sealed orders from the Lord Commander.
“Captain Andri Chaire and the Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry! You are ordered to sortie immediately!”
The dining hall fell silent at once.
Conversations died mid-sentence. Every soldier in the hall turned toward Andri’s unit.
Andri was already on his feet.
The messenger stepped forward and presented the sealed order.
Andri accepted it with a single nod.
“Understood. The Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry moves immediately.”
The messenger saluted sharply before withdrawing.
Outside, the wind snapped against the banners beyond the barracks.
Resolve was already there.
So was fear.
Andri carried both as naturally as breathing.
His gaze swept across his men.
When he spoke, his voice cut sharply through the silence.
“No enemy is beyond our reach once we hold the skies.”
His eyes locked onto the faces of his soldiers one by one.
“Today, we prove it in battle. Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry—Open wings at once.”
The moment the order was given, the men practically shoved the rest of their breakfast into their mouths.
Benches scraped violently across the stone floor as soldiers surged to their feet in unison.
And with more fire in their blood than any other unit in the hall, the Aerial Steedraptor Cavalry threw themselves into preparations for deployment.
