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The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapters 68–83 Summary
This Sarah A. Parker The Ballad of Falling Dragons chapter summary contains full spoilers.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 68
The group reaches a military checkpoint near the city gates. Soldiers tear through the wagon, seize Noeve’s bloodstone, and probe the cargo for stowaways. The plan falls apart when Ahvi’s hatchling makes a noise under the floorboards. A soldier recognizes Raeve, and the situation turns violent.
Raeve sends the first guard over the cliff with wind magic. She and Kaan cut down the rest. Raeve drives stone spikes through the soldiers on the other side of the gate. Once the guards are down, Ahvi confirms that he can bypass the magical runes on the gate and get them inside the city.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 69
The group walks through the empty streets of Gore and finds several people hanging from a bridge. Raeve notices that the victims share the same marking on their ears that she carries. Kaan believes the military executed them to clear the streets before moving the population to the Undercity.
Later, the group stops at The Curly Quill. Raeve looks for her friends but finds no one. Upstairs in the office, she discovers a brief message from Sereme saying the current plan has changed and keeps an old parchment lark from the Elding to herself.
Kaan calls Raeve back down because the dusty air is making it hard for Ahvi to breathe. Raeve warns that the journey to the mine will take two days through filthy tunnels, hoping to convince Ahvi to turn back. He refuses, but he agrees the dragon should stay behind. Pyrok volunteers to watch over the hatchling.
Raeve shows Pyrok a hidden entrance into her old home and tells him where to find food and weapons. She also warns him that he must never go through the door to the upper level.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 70
Pyrok wakes to tapping from the ceiling. Despite Raeve’s warning, he climbs up. A woman ambushes him, pins him down, and presses a blade to his neck.
She catches a familiar scent on Pyrok and grows emotional. Believing her friend Raeve was killed by a dragon long ago, she listens as Pyrok explains that the execution failed and a dragon rescued Raeve and took her north. The woman faints, and Pyrok lunges to catch her before she hits the floor.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 71
Raeve fights through a blizzard with a painful injury and a key she stole from a guard. She loses sight of Fallon and panics, but she catches up. They find shelter from the wind, and Raeve tends to her wound. The sky clears just enough to reveal a dragon overhead. Then, Fallon urges her to keep moving and to find a reason to be happy. Raeve promises she’ll live and falls asleep.
Raeve wakes from the dream in a small shelter deep in the tunnels. Kaan is there, wiping her tears, and Ahvi sleeps in the corner. Raeve wonders out loud if the boy’s parents are still alive. Kaan says they’re probably dead.
When Kaan asks if Raeve wants to talk about her dream, she only asks him to hold her, and he pulls her close.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 72
Essi wakes, and she and Pyrok exchange names. Pyrok tells her Raeve is alive and traveling with Bothaim’s protégé, who may break Raeve’s blood bind. Essi wants to meet the kid.
A young dragon named Gruffin cries for food. Pyrok tries insects, but Gruffin refuses them. Essi produces raw meat, which Gruffin eats.
Essi offers to create a rune so Pyrok can use the front door and search for his sister. While working with his blood, she catches a familiar scent and realizes his sister is Queen Dothea Vaegor. Essi tells Pyrok that his sister is safe, hidden in a subterranean city she helped protect. She offers to take him there after finishing a project. Pyrok stays.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 73
Raeve, Kaan, and Ahvi arrive at a cave Raeve knows well. It’s the exact spot where she nearly died crossing the wilderness. Kaan finds it suspicious that Sereme managed to locate her in such a remote place. Raeve pulls out the lark she took from Sereme’s office. The note says the Elding gave orders to keep her under control until he could reclaim her.
As Ahvi prepares to break the blood bind, he warns Raeve that the process will force her body back to the state it was in just before she made the original deal. She was near death then and tries to stop him. Ahvi says the Book of Voyd will anchor her life force and keep her alive through the transition.
Just as Ahvi begins, Sereme activates the blood bind, and Raeve collapses in agony. Kaan screams at Ahvi to finish the spell. Ahvi draws the final symbol, and the ritual is complete.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 74
\The transition begins, and Raeve wastes away to almost nothing. Kaan is forced to watch from outside the magical circle until the final step. When he holds her close while she’s unconscious, her heart stops, then starts again, and her body returns to normal.
Suddenly, soldiers surround the three. Sereme steps out and uses Kaan’s niece as leverage to force his cooperation. She hands him a letter from the girl with a hidden note. To keep Raeve and Ahvi safe, Kaan surrenders.
Sereme admits that the pain she inflicted on Raeve was part of a plan to lure Kaan to the cave. She then forces him to drink a potion that strips his magic. The guards chain him and knock him unconscious.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 75
Grihm scales a red cliff to reach the burrow of a silver dragon named Ahra. At the nest, he finds that all the eggs are smashed and the younglings are dead. He covers their eyes with shell fragments, sits in the nest, and waits for the dragon, hoping she’ll kill him.
Grihm lost his own dragon and felt that one of Ahra’s eggs was his last chance at a future. When Ahra returns, she pins him with her talons but refuses to finish him off. Furious, he leaps onto her back, and she takes flight.
As they fly, Grihm begins to feel Ahra’s thoughts and immense sorrow. She’s been searching for a rider, so he chooses to stay rather than welcome death. They dive into a crater, and when they emerge, their minds and spirits are linked as one.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 76
Raeve wakes in a dim cell and sees Fallon resting on a thin pallet nearby. She thinks it’s just a dream but pulls Fallon close anyway. Raeve shifts so she’s between Fallon and the cell door. She hums softly until the pain in her head drags her back under.
As Raeve drifts through broken memories, a strange silver glow takes root inside her and spreads through her soul. She feels complete.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 77
A silver Sabersythe glides toward the capital of The Burn with Grihm riding between its wings. A shimmering silver ribbon guides them south as crowds fill the streets to watch.
The ribbon is a fragment of a much larger entity, broken apart long ago and trapped in the atmosphere, struggling to draw its scattered pieces back together. It once gave part of its essence to the Sabersythe as a silent plea for help. Now it hopes Grihm will understand this reunion was always meant to happen.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 78
Pyrok returns from a supply run and finds Essi passed out at her desk, her hand wrapped in a bandage. It looks like she used her own blood to carve runes into a stone. Pyrok feeds Gruffin, but the portions are too small. He knows he should hunt for something bigger, but he’s too tired to move. He falls asleep on the floor.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 79
After fighting in the pits, Raeve returns to her cell and demands the bloodstone she earned from Arkyn. He refuses and walks away. Raeve then learns that Fallon died while she was gone.
Raeve wakes from a nightmare about Fallon’s death, her ankle shackled to the floor. She steadies herself with the truth that Fallon died in a snow hut, held close and not alone.
That’s when Raeve realizes the person she’s been holding is Kyzari, the Shade’s Princess and Kaan’s niece, who lies unconscious. Veya is locked in the next cell, hollow-eyed and broken. She tells Raeve that Arkyn beat Kyzari, but guards flood the corridor before Veya can say more.
Raeve slips Kaan’s málmr around Kyzari’s neck and moves to the front of the cell to shield the princess. The guards pin Raeve down with fire magic and lock shackles on her wrists and ankles. When the spell breaks, she fights back and takes down several of them, but a blow to the head knocks her out.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 80
Raeve wakes in chains in Arkyn’s feasting cavern. Across the table sits Kaan, bound and gagged. Arkyn shocks them both by claiming to be Kaan’s brother. A parchment lark also confirms he’s the Elding. The Flourish, the place Raeve believed was a safe refuge, is revealed as his base of operations.
Arkyn burns Raeve’s severed uhloo and tells her she belongs to him. He reveals that Ahvi is being forced to place magical runes in the fighting pits. Raeve learns that her past work in The Fade helped Arkyn build an army he plans to use to take Kaan’s throne. Arkyn then tells Kaan that he intends to keep Raeve and have children with her.
When Raeve refuses to eat, Arkyn forces her. Afterward, he produces a diary that belonged to Elluin, and the sight of it shakes both Raeve and Kaan.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 81
Arkyn reads from Elluin Neván’s diary while Kaan sits bound in heavy chains. The entries reveal that Elluin loved Kaan and was carrying his child, but Kaan’s father pressured her into a lie. She led Tyroth to believe he was the baby’s father. Before leaving for Arithia, Elluin wrote Kaan a note claiming Tyroth was a better match for her.
From there, Arkyn reveals that Raeve and Kaan’s daughter is locked in a cell and may be close to death from injuries he inflicted on her. As he lashes out at Kaan with fire, Raeve steps in and offers to compete in the fighting arena again if he spares Kaan. Arkyn agrees and burns her arm to mark her for the upcoming combat.
Through the pain, Raeve finally faces the memory of Fallon, accepts that she died alone in a cell, and stops running from that grief. That acceptance allows her to tap into a power she had long suppressed, and she sets her mind on one goal: free Kaan and their daughter.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 82
Arkyn returns to find Sereme waiting in his suite uninvited. She tries to make herself comfortable, but he shuts her down immediately.
When the conversation turns to Raeve, Sereme makes excuses for nearly letting her be executed and urges Arkyn to finish her off in the fighting pits. She also makes a play for her position as his future queen, insisting the throne isn’t big enough for three people. Arkyn agrees there’s only room for two, though it’s clear he has a different pair in mind.
Arkyn leads Sereme through a back tunnel and out into the snow. He tells her she’s no longer useful to him. Just then, Cliár erupts from the mountain and dives straight toward them. Arkyn warns Sereme that she should start running.
The Ballad of Falling Dragons Chapter 83
Pyrok wakes to find Essi gone. A note explains she went out alone to find food for Gruffin. Through the window, Pyrok spots her struggling across the open landscape with two crowls trailing behind. Knowing these creatures target solitary travelers, he grabs her weapons and goes after her.