Warriors of Wing and Flame

by Sara B. Larson

“Where is Cinnia?” Father shouted, swooping closer to me and Loukas.

  “She wouldn’t come!” Sharmaine yelled back from the other side of us. “She’s in the clearing!”

  His gaze turned sharply to the side, to where his wife was waiting, alone. I couldn’t understand why she would have refused to come, but at least now I knew why Sharmaine had left her. Father whistled to Taavi and the dark-feathered gryphon shot forward over the treetops, a streak of night against the bright sun glaring overhead. The other two hurried to catch up, but Loukas didn’t signal Maddok and his gryphon maintained the same pace, turning his head to peer at his Rider with one bright orange eye.

  His hands began to shake, a tremor that quickly traveled up his arms and then spread out through his body. I clutched his waist, terrified to feel him shivering beneath my grip as though it were midwinter, not midmorning on an already sweltering summer day.

  “Loukas!” I shouted over the wind and beating of Maddok’s wings. “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Loukas!” My heart was frantic beneath my ribs when he began to slump farther forward in the saddle in front of me.

  He was far too big and heavy for me to be able to hold him in place. If he lost consciousness, we would both fall from Maddok’s back, plummeting through the forest below to our possible deaths. I wasn’t sure how high of a fall could kill a person, but I definitely didn’t want to find out today.

  I scooted even closer to him in the saddle, pressing my entire body up against his, keeping one arm clenched around his waist. I let go with the other and stretched forward to grab the reins in front of his loose grip. Then, with a deep breath, I repeated the same motion with my other hand, so that I was clasping both reins, my hands completely white-knuckled, my arms stretched over both of his, creating a barrier of sorts to keep him upright—though a pitifully weak one.

  “Go, Maddok!” I cried, slapping the reins on his neck, praying the gryphon had sharp enough ears to hear my words before the wind whipped them away. “Get us to the clearing now!”

  The gryphon needed no further urging—his wings redoubled in speed, and we lurched forward, quickly gaining on the rest of the group. But I was afraid no matter how fast Maddok flew, it wouldn’t be enough as Loukas continued to tremble, his entire body quaking. He started to lurch to the side, and I bit down on my lip as I squeezed even tighter, trying to keep us both from falling off the side of the gryphon.

  “Loukas!” I shouted in his ear. “I can’t lift you up—you have to hold on!”

  He moaned something unintelligible but managed to straighten back up once more.

  The ride to the town had seemed painfully long, when I’d feared for my sister’s life; but the ride back was merciless. Within minutes, my arms ached from squeezing Loukas, trying to do what I could to help support him. It didn’t take long for the ache to escalate, my underused muscles on fire from the strain. If we didn’t land soon, there was no way I’d be able to continue holding on to Maddok’s reins, let alone keep Loukas in the saddle.

  Just when I didn’t think I could bear any more and that we would surely fall to our deaths at any moment, the trees broke apart and we soared over the river. The clearing was mere moments away.

  Hold on, hold on, hold on.

  Maddok followed the other gryphons toward the small clearing, tucking his wings in to land, but we were still at least two stories off the ground when Loukas finally crumpled forward. It was more than I could handle. His deadweight yanked my hands off the reins, and before I even realized what had happened, we both plummeted to the earth.

  A scream ripped out of my throat.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the impact.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ZUHRA

  Raidyn’s arms around me with Naiki’s newly healed wings beating us away from Damille back to the clearing felt like a miracle, like magic—like rebirth. I’d been certain that spear was going to impale him. I thrummed with the pure shock and joy of being alive, after believing death was upon us. Naiki chased after Taavi, who flew faster than I’d ever seen at Father’s urging. I didn’t understand why Mother was the only one who’d stayed behind, but I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it—not when Raidyn transferred the reins to one hand so he could wrap his other arm all the way around my waist, pulling me even closer so the entire length of his hard, muscled chest and abdomen pressed against my back. His lips brushed my ear, featherlight, the sweep of a hummingbird’s wings against the tender lobe, still somehow sending a bolt of heat to my chest and then lower. My belly tightened. If only it were safe to turn around and do what I truly longed to in celebration of our narrow escape.

  “Zuhra,” he murmured, his voice low, almost guttural. “Oh, Zuhra.” His hand on my hip flexed, his arm tightening so I could hardly draw breath. But I didn’t care—he was alive and holding me and not lying on the ground, cold and gone forever. As if the same thought had transferred from me to him, he shuddered and buried his face in my neck. I tilted my chin toward him, so my cheek rested against the top of his head. Longing, my constant companion on this journey, swelled, rising above the tumult of emotions that crashed over me at all times.

  Every moment together felt stolen, snatched from the uncertainty of our future on this quest that I feared was futile and possibly fatal. Now, more than ever, I realized just how valid those fears were.

  After several minutes of holding each other as best we could while Naiki winged her way back to the clearing, Raidyn lifted his head so his mouth was near my ear again.

  “What happened to you?” he finally asked. “I felt your terror … your panic … I thought…”

  Hot shame flashed over my skin, rising up my neck to heat my face. It was as I’d feared; the panic I’d been unable to subdue had been strong enough to reach him, even over such a distance, and had driven him to risk his life to attempt to rescue me.

  I didn’t know how to answer him, to tell him that nothing had happened to me, that I’d merely been unable to control my fear after we learned Barloc had been in that very town last night, that now all the garrisons would be searching for a group of Paladin riding gryphons.

  If not for Sharmaine, he would have died because I was a coward.

  I murmured, “I’m so sorry,” the only thing I could think to say.

  He didn’t push me—yet—and we fell silent. He sat up a little taller, but kept his cheek resting against my hair. I watched the dark speck of Taavi in the distance. Raidyn didn’t urge Naiki to go as fast, most likely wishing to save her strength for whatever lay ahead, rather than wasting it on a useless sprint to my mother, when Father was already almost there. When I glanced over my shoulder, Sharmaine and Halvor were right behind us, but Loukas and Inara were quite a bit farther back—I could barely see them in the distance.

  I thought about asking Raidyn if we should slow down, but I was afraid if I started talking, he would ask me what had happened to me again, so I stayed quiet.

  Flying back was much quicker than walking and soon, up ahead, Taavi swooped lower and then disappeared out of sight below the trees. As Naiki closed in on the clearing, a brush of fear tickled at my mind, gentle at first, but steadily increasing. The trees separated below us, revealing the small grassy patch where Father, Mother, and Taavi stood together, my parents’ arms wrapped around each other.

  “Do you feel that?” Raidyn asked, releasing me to take both reins in his hands again, tightening his grip on them as Naiki began to descend toward the ground. “I think it’s—”

  “Inara,” I breathed, realization dawning in a rush of guilt. I should have recognized immediately that I was sensing her fear, not my own.

  I twisted around to look for Loukas and my sister, but couldn’t see them through the trees as we descended. Because I was looking backward, I wasn’t prepared for the landing and it jolted me forward, nearly unseating me. Raidyn grabbed my waist to hold me onto the gryphon. Keko landed lightly beside us, but I barely even
glanced at Sharmaine and Halvor, all my focus on that patch of empty blue sky.

  When the last gryphon came into view, the fear I’d sensed escalated into sheer panic. Loukas’s face was ghastly pale, even from where I stood, my hands covering my mouth. He listed to one side, his arms hanging limp below my sister’s, where she clutched the reins. Was she trying to hold him up?

  As I watched in growing horror, Loukas crumpled forward, breaking Inara’s hold. He tumbled off the side, dragging Inara with him. A scream built inside me, but I couldn’t catch my breath to release it as my sister and Loukas plummeted toward the ground.

  “Shar!” my father cried, but she was already glowing, her hands extended. A few feet before they would have hit the ground, Inara and Loukas sank into her shield and then slowly lowered to the earth.

  Inara immediately scrambled to her feet, her face and lips bloodless, eyes wild. But Loukas remained unmoving on the ground.

  “What happened?” Father rushed forward and dropped to his knees next to Loukas.

  “I don’t know!” Inara crossed her arms, squeezing herself tightly. “He was shaking … and he … he just collapsed!”

  Halvor clambered off Sharmaine’s gryphon, all long limbs and urgency, and rushed to Inara’s side, taking her in his arms.

  “He pushed himself too hard,” Raidyn muttered beside me.

  “What’s happening—what’s wrong with him?” Mother hadn’t moved from where Father left her, her hand on Taavi’s sleek feathered neck.

  “He tried to control too many minds for too long,” Sharmaine said, coming over to kneel on his other side across from my father. She took Loukas’s hand in hers and the look on her face was unbearable—sadness and worry and something else, something deeper all wrapped into her downturned lips and drawn eyebrows.

  “I can heal him,” Raidyn offered.

  “No.” Father didn’t even consider before refusing. “What happened today already used up too much power for far too many of us. We must rest now anyway. He will have to regain his energy on his own. We need you at full power as soon as possible.”

  Raidyn’s gaze dropped to the ground, hot shame flashing through him—and me. It was my fault he’d come—because he had, Sharmaine and Loukas were drained, and Raidyn had to use his power to heal Naiki.

  “I’m afraid it might not be safe to stay here.” Halvor still stood beside Inara, holding her hand in his. His sandy-brown hair was windswept and his cheeks were showing the first sign of a sunburn again, as they had been when he first showed up at the citadel.

  “Why not?” Father glanced up.

  “We learned a few things in town.”

  Raidyn’s hand tightened on mine. “What kind of things?”

  I waited for Halvor to tell them, not sure I could do it.

  “Barloc was there last night,” Halvor admitted. He continued over the gasps of horror, “He told this town that it was a group of Paladin on gryphons that attacked the village of Ivra, burning it and all of its inhabitants to the ground—all except him. He claimed to be a survivor, trying to reach the capital to warn the judges of what happened. And the local garrison has sent runners to all the nearby towns and villages to warn them to watch out for a group of murderous Paladin.”

  The only sound in the clearing was the rustle of leaves as a light breeze danced through the nearby trees.

  Sharmaine was the first to speak up, her fingers still clutched around Loukas’s limp hand. “Why would he do this?”

  “Why he did it is far less important than the fact that now all the nearby garrisons will be searching for a group of Paladin on gryphons—which puts us in even more danger.” Halvor shoved his free hand through his already-untidy hair.

  “Actually, Sharmaine has a point,” I disagreed, something itching at my mind, just out of reach, like a flash of movement from the corner of my eye, the type that no matter how fast I turned my head, it was faster, dashing out of sight. Was the amount of power surging through his body, changing him to the most powerful Paladin ever known, also turning him into a madman? Or was there a method behind his lunacy?

  “You think that trying to figure out why he did all of this is more important than the fact that soon every garrison in Vamala will know there is a group of Paladin on gryphons here again? He just succeeded in signing our death warrant.”

  Inara blanched beside Halvor at his sharp retort.

  “Perhaps you should let her finish speaking.” Raidyn’s voice was low—not quite menacing, but laced with enough of a threat that Halvor’s mouth snapped shut.

  All eyes turned to me, even Father’s. Their gazes had weight to them, heavy with fear and worry and an unexpected twinge of hope—looking to me to say something that could help us still succeed in our quest to stop and kill Barloc. “I keep trying to think of why he would have attacked the village then pretended to be a survivor—even giving them his true name,” I began slowly, trying to pull my disjointed thoughts together. “And then announced where he was planning on going next. It’s almost as if he wants us to know where he is. But if that’s the case, why would he say it was a group of Paladin on gryphons that attacked Ivra—making it so that every garrison will be searching for a group that matches our description?”

  “Those men said he was not in his right mind because of grief,” Halvor pointed out with a frown. “Perhaps they were partially right. Maybe stealing the power from three Paladin has made him lose his mind.”

  I flushed, wishing I hadn’t spoken up. “I don’t think that’s it.”

  Loukas moaned and everyone turned to him, thankfully looking away from me. Sharmaine’s eyes brightened, her irises flashing with hope, but when he fell still and silent once more, her shoulders sloped forward and she gripped his hand tighter, pulling it into her lap.

  “What if he’s trying to lay a trap for us?” Mother’s unexpected question took me off guard.

  “What?” Adelric looked up at her. She stood a few feet away, her dark hair falling out of the braid she’d been forced to adopt rather than her normal bun, dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks drawn.

  “What if he’s trying to get us to follow him—but he’ll have a garrison waiting for us if we catch him?”

  I stared at my mother.

  “If that’s the case, how will we ever take him off guard now?” Inara was still pale, staring down at Loukas’s unmoving body on the ground.

  “The goal was never to take him off guard. It was to get him to come to us,” Raidyn pointed out.

  “The plan stays the same,” Father said. “At least we know which direction he’s heading. We get ahead of him, lay the trap the way we planned, and proceed. Now, more than ever, he must be stopped.”

  Sharmaine looked down at Loukas’s hand clutched in hers on her lap, then at his face, his eyes still shut and his skin wan. “We won’t have a chance of succeeding until Loukas is back to full strength.”

  Father rocked back on his heels, his expression calculating rather than concerned. “True—if Barloc were at full strength. But it would have taken a tremendous expenditure of power to destroy an entire village by himself. He is drained right now too. Weakened. We must track him down as soon as possible.”

  He looked around at each of us in turn. It suddenly dawned on me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him smile, the last time his eyes had crinkled at the corners like they had so often in Visimperum. The lines around his downturned mouth were etched deeper than ever into his skin.

  “Everyone try to get some rest. As soon as Loukas wakes up, we don’t stop until we find and kill Barloc.”

  * * *

  Though we were supposed to be resting, and I was exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. Too frightened that a garrison would stumble upon us and we’d wake up only to die. Too scared of what lay ahead if—when—we found Barloc. There were so many variables to the plan that could go wrong. And most of them resulted in me—and everyone I loved—dying.

  Would Loukas even recover enough
to be able to control Barloc?

  “The weaker the mind, the easier it is for him to use his ability,” Raidyn had quietly murmured to me, when he’d caught my worried glance at his unconscious friend as we spread out our meager bedrolls to try to sleep on for the rest of the afternoon, beneath the cover of some of the trees on the edge of the clearing, before the undergrowth became too thick. “So though he did push himself by spreading it across so many minds, at least it wasn’t a large group of Paladin who knew an onslaught was possible. After a few hours of sleep, he should be much better.”

  I lay on my side, the slow hum of insects buzzing in the midday summer heat overhead, the occasional susurration of a breeze brushing my cheeks. It was futile to even close my eyes; when I did, there were too many images and near-misses to flood my mind, shoving my exhaustion below the surface of my panic, drowning any hopes of sleeping. Instead, I watched the rise and fall of Raidyn’s chest beside me, almost close enough to touch—but not quite. And beyond him, Loukas, who still hadn’t moved, except for another moan when the men had moved him out of the middle of the clearing into the shade of the trees.

  The gryphons surrounded us as best they could, though there were inevitable gaps. Naiki and Taavi were on the far sides, majestic golden and night-black endcaps to our little band of travelers. Maddok took a spot in the middle, closest to Loukas, while Keko, Sharmaine’s gryphon, prowled through the trees behind us. I wasn’t sure how long it had been, but it felt like at least an hour, when Keko nudged Taavi, and the two gryphons switched spots—Keko lowering herself to the earth and resting her head on her talons, while Taavi took up the vigil through the trees. I marveled at their intelligence.

  The sun moved steadily overhead, the leaf-speckled light growing weaker as the afternoon slowly passed through the trees. Birds coasted drowsily between the branches, unhurried and utterly free. I thought back to the day everything had changed, the afternoon when I’d felt so trapped in the drawing room, watching the birds outside the window so easily escape the hedge, flying off into freedom without even realizing the gift they possessed. Now I, too, had escaped, but I still wasn’t free. We were hemmed in by unseen threats, by Barloc, by the garrisons, by the terror that still drove the people of Vamala to fear and hate the Paladin.