It felt like far longer than a few hours before my father stirred and then slowly sat up. I’d hoped Raidyn would be the first to wake, and possibly steal a moment alone, but he was still sleeping as my father gently shook Mother’s shoulder, rousing her and then moving on to the others. The sun had already dropped below the trees, casting the forest into deep shadow, dark and unsettling. It gave us cover, but it also hid our enemies as well.
My eyes burned and my head swam with exhaustion when I sat up, but the panic that was never far enough away for rest, let alone peace, crowded my chest, squeezing my lungs and heart.
“Zuhra.” My father crouched beside me, his eyebrows knitted together. “Did you rest at all?”
I shrugged. “How long do you think it will take to catch up to Barloc?” I asked, knowing turning his mind to the plan at hand would distract him.
“Hopefully not much more than a night. He is on foot, after all—and weakened. Even he will have to stop to sleep at some point.”
“I hope so.”
He reached one hand up to cup my face briefly. “We’re asking too much of you, my sweet girl. But I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Don’t make any promises you can’t keep. I swallowed the words and forced myself to smile instead. “I know you won’t.”
TWENTY-FOUR
INARA
I woke up when my father gently shook my shoulder, jerking back to alertness with a surge of adrenaline that sent my heart racing, until I realized we weren’t under attack, merely packing up to leave.
It was a shock that I’d actually fallen asleep. I’d lain on the hard ground for quite some time, my mind racing over and around everything that had happened that morning. I’d willed myself to keep my eyes shut, to force my breathing to stay even, terrified I would sink into that awful place where fear overtook everything else and humiliate myself in front of everyone. It was a testament to how truly exhausted I was that I’d eventually managed to drift off.
Everyone was quiet as Halvor passed out some of the dried fruit and cheese he’d purchased in the town before … everything that had happened. I glanced over at Loukas, who still lay on the ground.
“Has anyone tried to wake him up yet?” Halvor asked, following the direction of my gaze.
“No,” Father said. “I suppose we can’t wait any longer.”
“I’ll do it,” Sharmaine offered, handing the little bit of cheese she hadn’t eaten yet to Zuhra, who stood beside her. The dried apple wedge I chewed lost all its flavor. My sister looked so fragile, like a slight breeze would tip her over, with deep purple bruises beneath her eyes. As if she felt the weight of my worry, she glanced up and offered me a brief, unconvincing smile.
Sharmaine knelt beside Loukas and shook his shoulder. He moaned but then fell still again.
“Loukas.” She shook him again. “You have to wake up now.”
He groaned, his eyelids fluttered—but then he suddenly jerked and sat up so fast, Sharmaine had to jump back to avoid having their foreheads smash together. His green-fire eyes flashed, wide and wild. “What happened? Where is Raidyn? Is he safe?”
“He’s fine. We’re all fine. You did it, Louk. We all got away.” Sharmaine took his hand in hers, her voice low and soothing.
Did he not remember the flight back to the clearing?
At Sharmaine’s assurances, Loukas’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“How do you feel?” Raidyn stepped forward, toward his friend.
“Beat,” he confessed. “I didn’t expect it to take that much out of me.”
Sharmaine and Raidyn exchanged a look of exasperation. “You didn’t think controlling at least fifty men’s minds at once would take it out of you?”
Loukas shrugged and glanced around at the rest of us, watching the exchange silently. It was difficult to tell in the dimness, but it looked like his neck flushed. “You didn’t have to wait because of me, did you?”
“No,” my father lied without pause, “we all needed a little bit more rest. It’s time to go now, though. Are you up for flying?”
“Of course.” Loukas climbed shakily to his feet, but once he was standing, he threw his shoulders back, his normal cocksure grin back in place. “See? Good as new.”
The look my father gave him made it obvious he didn’t quite believe the bravado, but he didn’t question Loukas. “Then we take off in the next few minutes. There’s no time to waste. Barloc is weakened right now, so there is no better time to track him down.”
I bent to finish rolling up the thin blanket that counted as a “bed” ever since we’d left the citadel.
“Nara?” Zuhra’s hesitant voice took me by surprise. “How are you holding up?”
I almost retorted that I should be asking her that, when I realized she meant the other thing—the hole inside me—not my exhaustion. “I haven’t felt any change yet.”
Relief washed over her face, so deep and profound, she swayed on her feet. Or perhaps that was the exhaustion that hung off her narrow frame like an oversized cloak, dragging her down. “You’ll let me know if anything changes?”
“Yes,” I agreed, even though I had no idea how she expected to be able to heal me again with the condition she was in. I needed to get to Barloc before my father—and I still had to convince Loukas to help me. If the others got to him first and killed him before I had the chance to steal my power back …
Whatever Raidyn and Zuhra had done the second time was lasting longer, yes. But it wasn’t a forever fix, as we all knew. My time was limited, and I wasn’t sure if they’d even be able to continue to “fix” me. There would come a point when I wouldn’t survive it, even with their help. Though the emptiness hadn’t broken free yet, I still felt the wrongness inside me, like a wound that wouldn’t heal, scabbed and itchy and waiting for me to move wrong and tear it wide open once more.
Someone’s hand closed over mine, warm and comforting, fingertips callused from hours and hours of writing. I squeezed Halvor’s hand back, but I wondered if he could sense my agitation. He didn’t know the turmoil that gnawed at me, growing sharper and more insistent with every passing day. We’d had no chance to talk, for me to confess the terror that lived with every stolen heartbeat, every whoosh of blood through my veins that held no Paladin power.
“What’s wrong? Have you seen him again?” He bent to whisper in my ear. The movement wasn’t missed; my father’s sharp, glowing eyes were on us. At night the blue-fire that wreathed the Paladin’s irises was even more striking, burning through the darkness.
There had to be a way to reach Barloc first, to take back what belonged to me before they killed him.
But … how?
“No, I haven’t. He hasn’t used his power again. I’m fine, just tired,” I finally said with a plastered-on smile.
With one last searching look, Father lifted his hand and rotated it through the air. “Everyone saddle up. We’ve lingered here far too long.”
Ice-coated fear slithered from the crown of my head down my spine. I’d assumed we were safe after what Loukas had done—but perhaps I was wrong. Was the mind control he used permanent? Or did it wear off? Would those guards change their minds and come looking for us?
Everyone dispersed quickly, heading in pairs to their gryphons—except Halvor wouldn’t release my hand when I tried to break free. “Are you sure you’re fine?” He peered down at me, as if he could somehow stare hard enough to know if I was lying or not.
Did I tell him about Barloc and why I needed to find him? I wanted to confide in him, but something kept the words stuck low in my throat, choking me. “I really am—for now,” I managed to force out. It was enough of a half truth that I hoped he wouldn’t sense the ping of guilt.
He lifted his other hand to smooth my hair back from my face. I could only imagine how I must have appeared after the long hours on the back of a gryphon and sleeping on the ground. Halvor didn’t seem to mind as he cupped my jaw, staring down at me.
“
Are you two finished yet?”
Halvor flinched at Loukas’s question, but let his hand drop and stepped back. “We better get going,” he said, and I nodded, though I wished we could somehow make everyone disappear, even for just a few moments alone.
“It’s not like our lives depend on not getting caught or anything,” Loukas added.
“Louk!” Sharmaine snapped at him.
I flushed and spun away from Halvor, stalking over to where Loukas waited by Maddok, glowering at him darkly. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Apparently not, if you think staring into each other’s eyes while the rest of us wait is a good use of time right now.” He didn’t even pause for me to lift my leg, grabbing me beneath my armpits and hefting me up into the saddle, then immediately climbing on behind me.
“That is enough, Loukas.” My father’s voice brooked no argument. “I know we are all frightened right now, but you will treat my daughter with respect.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Loukas retorted, reaching around me to grab the reins, “the guards from that town are confused and upset about letting us go. They’re preparing to come searching for us as we speak. So forgive me for being rude to your daughter, but we really do need to go. Now.”
My anger dissolved into alarm.
“How does he know that?” Zuhra asked at the same time I twisted in the saddle to look at him and said, “How do you know that?”
“There’s a cost for what I can do,” was all he said.
Even Father had paled at his words. “Everyone follow my lead—we will fly higher tonight. Even though we might be more easily seen, it will keep us out of range of archers. Let’s go!”
Taavi leapt forward and took off, soaring into the sky. The other gryphons and Riders quickly did the same. My stomach lurched as Maddok went airborne. Naiki flew next to us; the whites around Zuhra’s eyes flashed in the darkness. I stared back at my sister, the word “archers” echoing over and over in my mind.
Please, keep her safe, I pleaded silently with the Great God.
* * *
The first few hours of the flight passed mercifully without incident. The farther away from Dimalle we got, the more Loukas relaxed, even though every wingbeat brought us closer to Barloc and the far greater test of his ability. We were quiet for most of that time, silent but alert.
Father had claimed we would catch up to Barloc sometime in the morning. So, though I was terrified to broach the subject, as the first blush of light warmed the horizon, I knew I was running out of time to convince Loukas to help me. During the hours of silence, I’d thought of at least two dozen ways to bring it up. I didn’t want to dive right in after going for so long without speaking. So, instead, I started by asking him about something that had been bothering me since he’d left me in the forest.
“Loukas…”
He made a noise to indicate he was listening.
“When I was alone in the forest—after you told me to go after my sister if I wanted to—I sensed something strange. It reminded me of when I did have Paladin power … of how the air felt after I’d used it, how it smelled, even. I thought maybe it was cotantem, but no one had used any power anywhere nearby and definitely not a large amount of it. What else could it have been?”
Loukas was quiet for so long, I wasn’t sure he’d heard me. Finally, he said, “I’m not sure what it was. Maybe you were imagining things.”
“I was not imagining it!” I had to exhale twice to wrangle my temper back under control. I hadn’t known very many people in my life, it was true, but I’d never met anyone who could anger me as quickly as he could. “There isn’t any other explanation or reason I might have felt that?”
“Nothing comes to mind, no.”
So much for getting him talking first. Acidic frustration pooled in my belly, making it burn. We were short on time, and I was short on patience. “Do you remember what I talked to you about yesterday—what Sachiel told me?”
He grunted, which I took as agreement.
A haunting shriek from underneath the cover of the trees far below us, the sound of some animal dying, sent a shiver scraping down my back. Loukas shortened Maddok’s reins when the gryphon tossed his head in agitation.
I clutched the front of the saddle, digging my nails into the supple leather. “We can’t let them kill him before I get my power back. We have to get to Barloc first, somehow. If we don’t…”
“Your father said we’re not stopping until we find him, so there’s nothing we can do about that anymore.”
“There has to be a way to get to him first!” I couldn’t give up hope. Maybe I should have told everyone what Sachiel had told me. But I was afraid of what my parents would do if they knew what I was planning.
Then an idea—albeit a dangerous one—began to take shape in my mind.
“What if … what if we forced them to stop?”
“Have you met your father?” Loukas snorted. “Once he has his mind made up, nothing will change it. You’re not going to convince him to take another break.”
“You’re right, I probably can’t. But you could.”
There was a long pause with only Maddok’s wings beating to fill the silence. Thankfully whatever animal had met its end below us had fallen quiet.
“I have a feeling I’m going to regret asking what in the world you’re talking about.”
I grinned, even though he couldn’t see me, and told him my idea.
TWENTY-FIVE
ZUHRA
We rode and rode, through the cover of darkness and on into the first flush of dawn. Father pushed Taavi into a faster pace than he had on our previous flight, forcing the other gryphons to work harder to keep up. Raidyn didn’t comment on it, but I sensed his frustration. He spent much of the ride telling me stories of his childhood and growing up in Soluselis. He never brought up what had happened at Dimalle, and I didn’t either. Neither did we broach the topic of what would happen when we did find Barloc. The soft, musical cadence of his voice, the warmth of his memories, wove a peaceful spell around me, chasing away my fear. Encircled by his arms, his lips moving by my ear, I finally felt as if I could have dozed off—even this far off the ground, on Naiki’s back. I couldn’t remember ever being so tired in my life. Only the bite of the cold night wind kept me from falling asleep.
The sun slowly began to rise, the horizon brushed amber with the first light of dawn that gradually melted into gold. When the sun broke over the horizon, the air quickly warmed, even as high off the ground as we were.
“Did you feel that?” Raidyn tensed, sitting up taller.
“Feel what?”
“A hint of cotantem. You don’t feel anything?”
I strained to stretch my awareness out, to catch that flicker of lingering magic that we had hoped would trail Barloc with how much power he had absorbed, claiming as his own. At first there was nothing—only the clean, clear wind, the warmth of Raidyn’s arms around me, and my own exhaustion. But then … a flicker of heat that had nothing to do with the sun, a hint of bitterness on the breeze that wasn’t the loamy scent of earth or the crisp smell of evergreen and leaves. Cotantem.
“Yes,” I breathed. “I think I do.”
“We might be catching up to Barloc.” Raidyn’s arms tightened around me.
Perhaps it was because I was so intent on trying to feel the cotantem that I didn’t sense my sister’s emotions until it was too late.
A scream ripped through the air, even over the wind and wings—one I would have known anywhere.
Inara.
Raidyn and I both twisted around in Naiki’s saddle, to see Loukas slumped over on top of her, crushing her into Maddok’s neck. At any sharp movement, he would fall from the gryphon—again—possibly taking Inara with him. Another scream tore through the air.
“Do something!” I yelled at Raidyn, grabbing his arm with one hand and shaking it.
“Shar!” he shouted, and when that didn’t get her attention, he let go of the re
ins with one hand and pushed his fingers against his tongue, giving off an ear-shattering whistle.
Both Shar and my parents looked back at us. Raidyn pointed at Maddok. Shar blanched and my mother’s mouth opened in a cry that I couldn’t hear over the wind. Father immediately yanked on Taavi’s reins, wheeling him around, shouting something to Sharmaine as he passed her, rushing toward us.
Taavi came even with Naiki and my father gestured toward Maddok’s left side. “Raidyn—take Naiki and help me create a blockade so they don’t fall. Then we all land together!”
I glanced down at the thick foliage beneath us, wondering where we could possibly land, as Raidyn pulled Naiki’s reins, following after Taavi. Each gryphon came up on either side of Maddok, only a few feet lower so their wings didn’t entangle. I looked up at Loukas’s arms dangling over Inara’s, and gulped. Were we supposed to catch him if he fell? He was even bigger than Raidyn. He’d crush us both.
“Where are we going to land?” There was still no break in the trees below us. From what I understood, Father had chosen a route that kept us away from the main road and as many towns as possible to avoid the garrisons, but that meant there were few breaks in the forest.
“I don’t know.” Raidyn’s arms were stiff around me, his entire body tensed.
Sweat slipped down the back of my neck.
“Nara, are you all right?” I called up to her.
“I’ve been better,” came her muffled response. “He’s really heavy!”
“What happened?” Raidyn asked.
“I don’t know! He said he still wasn’t feeling well and that he needed a break a while ago!” Her voice was strained, each word accentuated by a puff of air from Loukas’s weight pressing down on her.
Warriors of Wing and Flame Page 18