Warriors of Wing and Flame

by Sara B. Larson

  The Paladin blade shook in my hand as I forced myself to kneel beside him. Though his body was completely still, his eyes still moved, turning on me with such loathing, searing panic burned in my gut. If I didn’t succeed—and fast—he would kill me.

  I gripped the hilt of the dagger in my sweaty hand and lifted it over his neck. Just enough pressure to cut, not kill. He has to be alive while you drink the blood for you to absorb his power. Loukas’s instructions rang through my fevered mind. Sunlight flashed off the blade. The shaking in my hand spread up my arm and out to my entire body.

  I lifted my other hand up to grasp the handle too, and swallowed once, hard. Memories of Barloc’s attack assailed me. Sweat gathered at my temples.

  You can do this, Inara. You have to do this!

  And still, I hesitated.

  “Inara!”

  The shout was distant, barely more than a whisper through the rustling leaves around us. My mother’s voice.

  I clenched my teeth and lowered the blade.

  Paladin steel was unbelievably sharp; it slid into his skin like a hot knife through butter. Blood spurted out around the blade and I quickly pulled it back with a cry of shock. Though he still couldn’t move, there was no missing the agony and terror that replaced the fury in Barloc’s eyes.

  I’d believed myself capable of doing this, but now that the moment had come, the reality of actually drinking his blood made my stomach roil.

  “Inara!”

  “Loukas!”

  The shouts were louder, closer.

  I was out of time.

  With a half-swallowed sob, I forced myself to bend over him and cover the wound I’d given him with my lips. His blood, hot and metallic and awful, trickled into my mouth. I gagged, barely managing to choke down a tiny mouthful. But the second the vile blood hit my stomach, the emptiness inside where my power had once resided pulsed, greedy and desperate. I clamped my eyes shut and forced myself to swallow again, this time a full mouthful of Barloc’s power-laced blood.

  “Inara—no!”

  The scream was so close, too close. Other shouts sounded as well, along with gryphons screeching. I didn’t dare open my eyes. A hint of power warmed my body, trickling back into my veins. Though my stomach heaved, threatening to rebel, I made myself swallow yet again.

  “What are you doing?”

  I thought my father’s shout was aimed at me, but oh, how wrong I was.

  “No—”

  It took a split second for me to realize it was Loukas who had yelled. Less than a heartbeat later, Barloc broke free of Loukas’s control and grabbed my arms, yanking me so hard it made my head snap back. Two heartbeats and somehow he had the knife in his hand, angled at my throat, while he dragged me to my feet in front of him.

  “You are a mentirum!” he crowed hungrily.

  I stared at Loukas, who swayed on his feet, his face deathly pale. The other gryphons circled overhead, trying to find a break in the trees to land. There were more shouts, but I couldn’t understand their words over the thundering of blood in my head.

  Then Loukas’s eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the earth.

  Barloc tried to drag me over to Loukas, but Maddok jumped in front of his Rider with a shriek that stunned Barloc into stillness.

  Three simultaneous blasts exploded around us; the ground shook so hard, I stumbled and nearly fell. Barloc shoved me forward, at Maddok. The gryphon cawed when I crashed into its feathered chest, as Barloc summoned his power and dashed around us to where Loukas lay unconscious—for real this time.

  Instead of ripping his neck open to drink his power, like I thought he would, Barloc merely grabbed his arm with one glowing hand and lifted the knife with his other. For some reason, the knife also glowed with his power, so brightly I had to squint.

  Maddok cawed again and grabbed at the back of my shirt with his beak, pulling me out of his way.

  “Inara!”

  My sister’s shout was a dull echo through the roar in my head as Barloc lifted the glowing knife and uttered a phrase in Paladin then slashed it through the air. Another explosion ripped through the forest, but this time, it knocked me and Maddok backward. I slammed into the ground and lay there stunned for a beat.

  “NO!”

  The gut-wrenching scream shocked me back into action; I scuttled over onto my hands and knees just in time to see Barloc drag Loukas through a glowing tear in the air—

  And disappear.

  Maddok screeched beside me. Hardly even knowing what I was doing, I sprang to my feet and barely managed to grab his reins and swing my leg over his back before he lunged to his paws and talons and charged forward after his Rider.

  “Inara—no—”

  Zuhra’s shout echoed after me as Maddok leapt into the blinding slash of light and everything went silent.

  PART 2

  WARRIORS OF FLAME

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ZUHRA

  Naiki landed with a thud. Raidyn launched himself off her back before she’d even completely stopped and hurtled toward the slash of light, seconds after Maddok and my sister—her mouth and neck covered in half-dried blood—charged through it and also disappeared.

  But an instant before Raidyn reached it, the light exploded out again with a deafening boom, knocking Raidyn backward to land flat on the ground, then vanished.

  I stared at the now-empty air.

  An inhuman cry rent the air, and it took a moment for me to realize it had come from my mother.

  They were gone.

  My sister was gone.

  “Where are they? Where did they go? Where is Inara?” Mother’s shrieks barely penetrated the growing buzz in my ears.

  There’d been nowhere to land, no break in the trees to reach them. The Paladin each had to use a blast of power to create a narrow strip of space. Too little, too late. Always, always, too little, too late.

  What had Barloc done? Where had they gone?

  Twin fists of icy panic clutched my heart and belly.

  Raidyn climbed shakily to his feet as my father and Sharmaine rushed forward, Halvor and my mother not far behind. I was the only one who remained on a gryphon, too numb with shock to move. Carved out with disbelief.

  Sharmaine’s cheeks were tear-streaked as she ran straight to Raidyn and threw her arms around him, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. I felt nothing but a detached sense of disbelief as he hugged her back, his gaze going to mine over her head. I stared back at him, shaking so hard, I was afraid I might fall off of Naiki.

  “I’ve never … I don’t understand…” Father faltered. I’d never seen him so defeated, not even when his father died, not when we’d nearly lost Inara the first time. Taavi let out a low keen behind him, stepping forward to nudge his beak into his Rider’s back, as if he could sense Adelric’s devastation.

  Halvor was as white as the benign clouds that passed overhead, heedless of the horrors taking place below. “What … what do we do now?”

  “We have to go after them, right?” Mother clutched Adelric’s arm. “We have to go get my daughter!”

  “Our daughter,” he said softly. “And we can’t. At least, not here.”

  Sharmaine pulled back from Raidyn. “What do you mean ‘not here’?”

  My father put his arm around Mother’s shoulders. “The only place they could have gone is Visimperum … somehow. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I think he might have created a temporary gateway with all the power he has.”

  “Is that possible?” Sharmaine gaped.

  “It must be. It’s the only explanation I can think of.”

  “So do it!” Mother’s lips were bloodless.

  “I can’t!” It was the sharpest tone I’d ever heard my father take with her. “Don’t you think I would have already if I could?”

  She flinched, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

  “We have to get back to the citadel. Our only hope is to open that gateway and go back to Vamala. And pray we find them in time.
”

  Before Barloc killed them both.

  Raidyn’s bleak, grief-stricken expression matched my own—because the horrific reality was that he probably already had. What chance did an unconscious Loukas and powerless Inara have against him—a Paladin so powerful, he could rip gateways between worlds?

  Bile burned its way up my throat. My chest caved in as though someone had reached in and wrenched my heart out. After everything we’d done, after everything that had happened to save her life over and over, I had to resign myself to the fact that Inara was gone. And Barloc most likely had claimed Loukas’s power for himself now too.

  “Everyone saddle up. Now!” My father barked out the command, startling us into action—everyone besides me, who still sat on Naiki’s back, the forest blurring. Even Raidyn, hurrying back to his gryphon, was wavy and unfocused. His burning blue-fire eyes glistened with his own unshed tears. Naiki swung her head around when he reached her side and climbed on behind me, nipping at his boot softly with a low hoot.

  “Thanks, girl,” he murmured as he stretched his arms around me and picked up the reins.

  “There’s no point,” I said, despondent. “They’re gone.”

  “I know.” His voice broke as he squeezed Naiki’s sides. She stretched her wings in the small space and jumped up into the air, flapping as hard as she could to rise back up into the sky.

  No telling me I would know if my sister were gone, no attempt to seek solace from his mother’s words as he had in Visimperum. Any lingering hope I may have clung to shattered.

  The three gryphons cleared the forest once more, turning back the way we’d come, leaving the empty thicket where the only sign that Loukas, Barloc, and my sister had ever been there was some blood-stained bushes. The air was still thick with cotantem; the acrid after-scent of magic even coated my tongue, bitter and sharp.

  “But,” Raidyn continued, low and uneven, “even if they are both gone, we have to at least try to get to Vamala and warn everyone that he’s there—and how powerful he is. If he can rip gateways into either world using just his own power, who knows what else he’s capable of now.”

  I nodded, unable to bring myself to speak, my grief choking me. Inara. Oh, Inara.

  What had she been thinking? Why, why had she and Loukas gone after him alone? And why had she been trying to drink his blood?

  Questions that I would never get any answers for.

  Only endless, all-encompassing grief.

  * * *

  We only stopped twice that day. None of us was able to sleep, so after letting the gryphons eat and drink and rest for a bit, we pressed on, but with every passing hour, the gryphons grew slower and slower, their heads drooping.

  Raidyn finally pulled up even with my father and shouted, “Sir, I know you’re in a rush to get home, but we have to let the gryphons rest longer!”

  Father looked ready to argue, but Taavi let out a low keen, as though he’d understood Raidyn’s words. Adelric’s shoulders caved forward in defeat and he nodded. “You’re right.”

  We landed in the next small clearing we found near a stream, the gryphons eagerly rushing over to the clear, cool water.

  “We need to find them something to eat,” Shar said, watching Keko noisily slurp up water in great, heaving gulps.

  “I’ll go hunting,” Raidyn immediately volunteered. “Keep them here so they can rest. I’ll bring back what I can find.”

  I watched in silence as he stalked off into the forest, his entire being humming with a volatile mix of grief and anger. We’d barely spoken during the flight back; the journey passed in a haze of anguish. It all blurred together into a kaleidoscope of sun and wind and tears and helpless fury.

  “I have a little food left,” Halvor offered, his voice as lifeless as his eyes. “If anyone is hungry.”

  I turned away from him, unable to bear his grief on top of my own. My stomach was too much of a riotous mess to eat anyway. There was a large tree stump near the stream bank; I walked over and dropped down on it. My body felt far heavier than normal, weighed down under the crushing reality that I’d lost my sister again—and this time, I couldn’t fathom a way she had survived.

  I went over and over the conversation I’d had with her lying on the hard ground before she’d left with Loukas—when it had seemed like she was saying goodbye. Was there anything I could have done to stop her? To prevent what had happened? Why had Raidyn and I succeeded in healing her—twice—only to lose her like this now, to Barloc yet again?

  I stared at the water, watching it flow over rock and stone, so clear I could see weeds and moss beneath its crystalline surface. It burbled softly, sweet and calming, but nothing could soften the knife-sharp pain that cut deeper and deeper with every beat of my heart, every shallow breath I took, flaying me apart from the inside out.

  I was gutted with guilt, so sick with it, I couldn’t eat, and sleep was out of the question. While the others spread out their blankets and lay down, trying to rest a little bit, I sat on the trunk and watched the stream. The gryphons curled up around the rest of the group, though Naiki kept lifting her head, looking toward the forest where Raidyn had disappeared quite some time ago, or peering at me, her bright orange eyes concerned. She’d settle back down for a few minutes, then lift her head again. Until she suddenly jumped up to her haunches, her front talons pressing her chest up off the ground and her head perked toward the trees.

  Father sat up as well, his face gaunt underneath the thick stubble covering his jaw and lower half of his cheeks. Mother stirred beside him but didn’t wake. Sharmaine also opened her eyes, but stayed lying down.

  Moments later, Raidyn strode back out of the woods, a trio of limp rabbits gripped in one fist. He tossed one to Naiki first, who eagerly gulped it down with only one bone-crunching snap of her beak. Then he gave the remaining two to the other gryphons.

  “Thank you, Raid.” My father’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  Raidyn nodded in return. Without a word, he walked around the diminished group lying on the ground and came over to where I sat. He crouched in front of me, his eyes traveling over my face. I wondered what he saw—what he felt. The maelstrom of his emotions was a tidal wave that threatened to crash over me and pull me under, the force of his suffering combined with mine more than I could bear.

  “Why aren’t you lying down?” he murmured, low and concerned.

  “I don’t dare close my eyes,” I answered honestly.

  Raidyn reached up and put one of his hands on top of mine. “I’ll sit up with you then.”

  As much as I would have preferred to have him do exactly that, I said, “If you can rest, you should try to get some sleep.”

  “I doubt I can either.” He glanced at the group, where my father had lain back down, and Sharmaine had closed her eyes again. I wondered if they were actually sleeping or just trying.

  Now that Raidyn had returned, all three gryphons were asleep as well.

  “Besides, someone needs to stay up and listen for any patrols.”

  “I can do that,” I said. “I’m already sitting here anyway. Lie down, see if you can get some sleep.”

  His mouth twisted, but he finally relented. “Fine, but I’ll lie down right here. And we can switch off in a little bit, so you can try to rest too.” His gaze softened. “I can tell you stories if that will help.”

  I nodded as he pulled his blanket out and spread it over the dirt right in front of my feet. He lay down facing me, his head pillowed on his arm. He closed his eyes, but the intensity of his emotions didn’t relent one bit; he was having as much trouble sleeping as me, it seemed.

  * * *

  He eventually did doze off, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. I wasn’t sure, but it felt like two or three hours before my father sat up and gently shook my mother’s shoulder. Within a minute or two, everyone was sitting up, blinking and stretching. The gryphons also stirred, climbing to their feet and shaking their feathers and tails out.

 
I bent over to softly touch Raidyn’s cheek; his eyes immediately shot open.

  “I think we’re getting ready to go,” I said.

  “You didn’t wake me,” he accused.

  I stood, my legs stiff. One of my feet prickled like I’d stepped on a hundred tiny sewing needles. “You need the sleep. I’ll be fine. Maybe I can doze off during the ride.”

  The sun had begun to set. Color bled across the wide expanse visible above the treetops, day leeching into night; crimson streaked across the fading blue, like blood staining the sky. Almost a whole day since we’d lost Inara, Loukas, and Maddok.

  Everyone quickly packed up their blankets and headed over to their gryphons. Raidyn helped me get on, but right before he climbed behind me, all three gryphons’ heads simultaneously snapped to the woods across the stream from us.

  We turned to follow their gazes, my heart jumping to my throat.

  “Everyone, quick—”

  Before Father could finish whatever order he’d been about to give, an arrow whizzed out of the woods, imbedding in Halvor’s shoulder, too fast for anyone to react. He tumbled off Keko’s back with a cry of agony.

  “Halvor!” My scream was drowned out by the sudden shouts of at least fifty men who sprinted out of the woods, straight for us.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  INARA

  I was momentarily blinded, clutching a handful of Maddok’s feathers and the reins with all of my strength. Then the flash of light was gone and we burst out of the suffocating silence into the air above a sharp cliff.

  Maddok screeched as our momentum sent him tumbling over the edge. I barely clung to his neck, my legs clamping onto his sides as he spread his wings, caught an updraft, and leveled out. But then, with another cry, he suddenly nosedived, plummeting once more. I barely caught sight of Barloc lying unconscious on the edge of the cliff, his gore-covered neck and face pressed to the rock face as we dove past him.

  “Maddok! Maddok, stop!” I shrieked, flattening myself onto his neck, barely able to cling on to him without tumbling over his head to the earth far, far below.