Warriors of Wing and Flame

by Sara B. Larson

  “They all seem fine,” she finally commented, after peeking into the last stall. “This place needs some work, but … it’s better than being outside in the elements.”

  I glanced up at the cobweb-filled rafters, barely illuminated by the glowing blue light hovering over her hand. A gust of wind rattled the walls, but though it sounded questionable, the structure held firm against the onslaught.

  “It’s survived some terrible storms,” I felt compelled to assure Sharmaine when her eyes widened, a flash of worry crossing her face. “It should be fine.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” But she didn’t look sure when another bout of wind sent the stables trembling beneath its might.

  “Really, there have been a few times when it seemed like the citadel wouldn’t make it, so I thought for sure we’d wake up to find the stables destroyed, but it hasn’t collapsed yet.”

  She glanced back at me. “I really do believe you. If there were any danger of it collapsing, the gryphons would sense it and be agitated. But they’re all calm. Well, as calm as can be expected after what they’ve been through.”

  “Right.”

  “We’d best head back in.” She strode through the stable to the door we’d originally come through. In the brief time we’d spent inside it, night had settled more firmly over Vamala, shrouding the citadel and the grounds in darkness. I struggled to subdue a shiver as we hurried back the way we’d come. Sharmaine kept the light hovering above her hand and even brightened it a bit—as if she, too, felt the foreboding weight of nightfall pressing in on her.

  Once we reached the security of the citadel, the door shut firmly against the oncoming storm, I sighed. If Barloc returned there was seemingly nothing and no one that could stop him, but being back in the citadel with all of the Paladin now residing within its walls felt like the safest place I could hope to be until they somehow came up with a plan to stop him.

  Because that’s what they would do—what they had to do. The alternative was unthinkable.

  Sharmaine looked around and then with a little shrug admitted, “I don’t know how to get back to our rooms.”

  “I can show you.”

  There was certainly no shortage of rooms in the citadel, but only some were in good condition. There had been no reason for Sami or Mother to maintain the others, with only the four of us trapped there. Mother had stayed in the room where she’d lived with Adelric before he’d been taken from us, even though it was in the wing on the other side of the kitchen, far away from where Inara, Sami, and I all lived—which only now struck me, how she’d secretly clung to the memory of him, even while professing to abhor him. Though the other rooms in the wing where the rest of us dwelt hadn’t been lived in, they were still more habitable than the one poor Halvor had been forced to sleep in. The Paladin and Halvor were all staying in the same wing as us now, just down from my room, past Inara’s.

  Sharmaine followed behind me as we climbed the stairs and walked down the hallway, past my room, past Inara’s, and the next and the next, until we reached the one where I knew Sami had aired out a bed for Sharmaine—next to the room Loukas was in. Raidyn was on the other side, one closer to mine.

  “I think this one is yours.” I gestured and she finally let the light above her hand die as she turned the knob and glanced in to find a fire burning in the hearth, her bed turned down, ready for her. The sheets were shabby and worn, but clean. I didn’t hear any telltale scurrying of rodents, so I could only hope the room was free of unwelcome inhabitants. “It’s the best we could do…”

  “It looks warm and cozy,” she assured me, “and I’m so tired, it could be a bed of stones for all I’d care and I’d still sleep for two days if I were able to.”

  I couldn’t help smiling, even though the panic that had been somewhat subdued by the distraction of going to the stables with her was already rising, knowing she was about to close her door, to go to sleep, seemingly untroubled by the events of the day, leaving me to retreat to my room—alone with my memories and trembling hands. “Sleep well, then,” I managed.

  “You too, Zuhra.” A flash of something—concern or sympathy—crossed her face, but I turned away before she could say anything further, not wanting to keep her from much-needed rest. I felt the shutting of the door behind me like an echo through my bones.

  I paused in between the rooms where Loukas and Raidyn were staying, straining for any hint of sound—wondering if Raidyn had finished healing him and gone to bed, or if they were still together, perhaps talking of the day’s events. But there were no discernible noises.

  A throaty growl of thunder shuddered through the citadel. With a shiver, I forced myself forward. But rather than going to my room, I decided to go to Inara’s. We’d barely had a moment alone together yet, and she was alive and completely lucid, and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep anyway.

  I hurried to her door—but paused before reaching for the handle.

  What if she were asleep already?

  She desperately needed rest, to let her body heal. As much as I wanted to speak to my sister, I refused to be selfish enough to wake her. I was leaning forward to press my ear to her door when a click down the hall startled me. Straightening as if caught doing something wrong—though I didn’t even know why—I spun, expecting to see Sharmaine coming after me. My heart skipped up to my throat when, instead of her red hair and smile, I found myself facing blue-fire eyes that glowed in the darkness and thick blond hair that looked as though a hand had been running through it continually as Raidyn stalked toward me.

  I stood still, unable to move even if I’d wanted to.

  “Zuhra.” Raidyn uttered my name in a low whisper, as he halted close enough that I had to tilt my head slightly to meet his gaze. “I hoped to have a word with you before you retired for the night.”

  “Why?” I whispered back, the darkness swelling to envelope us like a cloak. Another angry clap of thunder crashed through the hallway, startling me. Raidyn lifted his hands—to steady me, perhaps—then paused, mere inches between his fingers and my arms. Likely it had only been instinct and he’d caught himself at the very last second. I wrapped my arms around my waist as he slowly lowered his hands once more.

  “Why?” I asked again, a little louder this time.

  He flinched. “I don’t want to overstep my place, but I…” He paused briefly. When I didn’t speak, he barreled on, “I’m worried about you. What you’ve been through—what you’ve seen—”

  “I’m fine,” I cut in, though I wasn’t fine and he obviously knew all too well just how not fine I was, thanks to the sanaulus.

  “Zuhra, the hardest part of any battle—of any loss, especially someone close to you—is not the heat of the moment. It’s the quiet minutes afterward, when you’re alone with your thoughts and the images that have been seared into your mind, when—”

  “Stop,” I cried out, heedless of who I might wake. “Please, just—stop.” The vise of panic constricted, tightening around my heart, so I couldn’t speak another word, my breathing shallow.

  “I know what it’s like. I know how hard it is.” Raidyn was still quiet, and this time when he lifted his hand, he didn’t stop, brushing the back of his fingers against my cold cheek. He took a step closer, swiping my hair behind my ear, and cupped my jaw, staring into my eyes, the warmth of his touch chasing away the chill.

  “Can you make it go away?” My voice quavered. “Can you heal me?”

  Raidyn shook his head silently, his gaze mournful. “This is not something I can heal.”

  The images began to cycle through my mind again, unbidden but unable to be suppressed. I trembled under the onslaught of death and carnage and pain. Inara lying on the ground with her neck ripped open, Barloc crouched over her … Grandfather staring sightlessly into the unfeeling sky, a hole torn through his body that no amount of Paladin magic could repair … that endless, terrifying blackness inside of Inara that Raidyn and I had barely managed to pull my sister out of
…

  “Look at me, Zuhra.” Raidyn’s voice sounded too far away, too quiet, over the roaring of my blood and the flood of terror that turned my legs weak and my arms inexplicably numb. My eyes burned and I gasped for air. “Look at me. Into my eyes.” The hand that cupped my face tilted my chin up, his fingers firm against my skull and jaw. He laced his other hand with mine, lifting it up to press against his chest. “Feel this. Feel my heartbeat—and my hand on yours. Breathe with me. In and out … yes, there you go, just a little slower … in … and out … Look at me, Zuhra. Look right here and just breathe. You’re all right. I promise, you are safe.”

  I succumbed to his gentle commands, staring up into his eyes, forcing myself to focus on the feel of his hand over mine, of the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my fingers. I matched my breathing to his and slowly, slowly, the rush of blood in my veins calmed and my breathing slowed and my trembling stopped. I hadn’t even realized I’d been crying until he brushed his thumb beneath my eye, to wipe away the tears that were still wet on my skin.

  “Thank you,” I whispered at last.

  Raidyn’s hand tightened over mine. “It won’t always be like this,” he said softly. “Even though it feels like it right now.”

  “I’m scared,” I choked out, admitting the truth at last. “I’m scared to go to bed.”

  Normally, such an admission would have made my cheeks flame with embarrassment, nervous he would take my meaning wrong. But somehow, I knew he would understand.

  “Would it help if I sat with you? Only until you are asleep,” he quickly added. “Then I’ll go back to my room.”

  His offer took the warmth from his touch and sent it straight into the depths of my heart. Oh, how I longed to say yes, except … “But you have to be up in a few hours anyway with my father. You need to be resting, not sitting with me because I’m such a mess.”

  “There is nowhere else I would rather be.”

  I didn’t have the willpower to refuse him again—not when the fear and panic hovered, waiting to swoop in. My eyes dropped to where his hand clasped mine against his chest and I whispered “thank you” a second time.

  Keeping our fingers laced, he rubbed his thumb across my jaw once more, leaving a trail of heat on my skin. Then he turned and guided me toward my door, opening it for me and keeping our hands intertwined as I followed him across the threshold and into my room.

  “Do you wish to change? I can leave if you do, and then you can open the door when you are ready or call out for me.”

  “No,” I quickly responded. “I’ll go to bed like this tonight.” I’d changed out of the bloodstained dress for dinner; the one I was wearing was clean and I didn’t dare let him leave, afraid of how quickly the images might resurface if he did.

  He nodded. “Would you like me to start a fire? It’s chilly in here. That won’t help.”

  “If you think so.”

  He had to drop my hand to place a few logs in the hearth. I stood a few feet back, my arms wrapped around my waist once more as he stretched his hand out. His veins lit with power, and then he sent a small blast of Paladin fire at the wood. The blue flames slowly morphed into normal orange and yellow as the logs caught and billowed warmth out into my room.

  Raidyn turned to me. We stood there for a moment that drew out long enough to be both awkward and enticingly forbidden. We were alone, in my bedroom.

  He cleared his throat and glanced toward the bed. “Why don’t you get comfortable and then I’ll tell you a story.” Without looking at me again, he strode over to the lone chair by my desk and carried it over to the side of the bed.

  “A story?” I repeated, though I did as he bid and pulled my covers down, climbing into my cold bed with a shiver, despite the spreading warmth from the fire.

  “Yes, a story,” he replied with a small smile—a true smile that lit his striking eyes with something even more powerful and beautiful than the Paladin fire in his irises. Something I’d so rarely seen that I couldn’t help but smile back, even though I was trembling again. “Lie back, and give me your hand.”

  “I … I … can’t…”

  “Trust me, Zuhra,” Raidyn murmured, sitting in the chair and resting his hand on the side of my mattress, palm up. “I promise to stay with you—to keep you safe. Give me your hand. Focus on the pressure of my grip and the sound of my voice. Wall yourself into this moment, with me, here, in this room. For right now, there is nothing else but you and me, and our hands, and this story.”

  I inhaled deeply and then hesitantly lay down, my pillow compressing beneath the weight of my head. He nodded encouragingly, and I placed my hand in his. He squeezed it, firm but gentle.

  “I can’t close my eyes. I don’t dare.”

  “Then look at me. Look at my eyes. Listen to my voice. And just breathe. Slowly … in and out.”

  “And if I don’t fall asleep?”

  “Then I will keep telling you stories until the sun rises.”

  I gripped his hand tightly, my throat thick with unspoken gratitude and so much more. I didn’t know why he was willing to do this for me—why he’d known to come, to be there for me tonight. Was it merely a sense of responsibility because of what he could sense through the sanaulus … or was it something more?

  “Once, not so very long ago, there was a young girl who dreamed of flying,” he began, his voice low and smooth, the familiar melody of it washing over me as he spoke, my hand in his hand, his eyes on my eyes. I listened and felt and breathed and, miraculously, there was only Raidyn and me and his story and the warmth of the fire washing over us both as he wove a spell of comfort and calm.

  And somehow, slowly, my eyes grew heavy, and my breathing steady, as he told me story after story, until eventually, I succumbed to exhaustion and was able to drift off to sleep, the memory of his blue-fire eyes on mine following me into my dreams, where I prayed they would keep the nightmares at bay.

  THREE

  INARA

  Darkness crept across my room, stealing the final hint of daylight partially visible through my window next to where I lay, covers pulled up to my chin. Small noises came from the hallway, and I wondered if it was Zuhra. Part of me wished to go to her … but the other part of me, the part deep inside that was darker than the inky blackness spilling across the night sky, froze me in place.

  Though I willed it not to, my heart began to thump hard, harder, harder. My face flushed hot; my arms went numb.

  Terror.

  Rising like a tsunami—something Zuhra and I had read about in a book years ago—a deceptively deadly wave that just kept coming, and coming, and coming, rising with unimaginable force, destroying everything in its path.

  My breath burst out in short gasps, faster and faster, until the room spun along with my stomach.

  You’re safe. He’s gone. You’re safe …

  I repeated the phrases to myself again and again, but they were feeble blockades against the relentless wave of panic, crumbling with barely a hint of resistance.

  “Zuhra,” I called out weakly, between pants. Zuhra … come to me. Help me.

  It felt like I was dying again, not from a wound inflicted by a monster in the form of a man, from the monster inside of me. The massive, prowling beast that stalked through the emptiness where my magic had once resided. The physical wounds were gone, healed by Raidyn and Zuhra’s combined efforts. But not even their immense combined power could fix what his attack had done to me.

  What it was continuing to do to me.

  I threw off my covers, grabbed a dressing gown from my wardrobe, and began to pace my room. Sleep was not going to come, no matter how exhausted I was, no matter how drained my body might have been after the trauma I’d endured. I wanted my power back—needed it back. I would even have willingly accepted the roar again to have it returned to me.

  I paused by my window, glancing out at the darkened grounds. The hole in the hedge was still there, a visible wound torn through our lives. The matching hole inside
me throbbed, painful and raw, until everything blurred and I had to wipe at my eyes to clear my vision from the tears that kept gathering. Dizziness from breathing so hard and fast forced me to grip the window seal to keep myself upright.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been standing there when I noticed two tall, shadowed figures walking across the grounds toward the hedge. A rush of dread flashed through me; my nails gouged the window seal. Before the scream building in my throat could release, the clouds parted, and the silver light revealed my father and the Paladin who I was almost certain had feelings for my sister—Raidyn.

  I watched them for only a moment before turning and rushing to my wardrobe. Sleep wasn’t coming, that much was certain. And I couldn’t bear the thought of standing in my room for who knew how many more hours by myself, lightheaded with panic. Instead, I hastily yanked off my dressing gown and nightclothes and pulled on whatever dress was closest. Without bothering to waste time putting on shoes, I left my room, my feet silent on the worn carpets and cold stones of the citadel’s hallways. I hesitated by the door to Zuhra’s room, but then hurried past it, hoping my sister was getting the sleep that eluded me.

  The closer I got to the front entrance of the citadel, the colder it got; it wasn’t until I stood at the threshold of the massive staircase and stared down at the darkness swirling where the heavy doors had once resided that I remembered Barloc had destroyed them as well as the hedge. A night-chilled wind lifted the hair from my neck, sending a shiver skipping over my skin as I hurried down the stairs and past the charred remains of the doors.

  Even though the clouds had erased the moon once more, turning the night as dark as the soil beneath my toes, a strange sense of peace enfolded me once I was free of the citadel. I was exposed, and cold, and powerless … but I was outside, near the gardens and orchards I’d spent most of my life tending. My true home, more so than anywhere inside the massive structure behind me.