We took off, the three remaining gryphons well rested after having to wait for me to heal. Their wings beat strong and fast; flying as quickly as they were able, back the way we’d come only a few days ago, so full of hope that we would succeed in stopping Barloc.
I still couldn’t let myself fully think about what had happened. If I tried to face it straight on, the pain would have consumed me, so my mind skipped over the edges of those memories, blurring them, darting across the horror of it, like a stone skipping over water, barely touching the surface of those awful few minutes when we’d tried to reach Inara and Loukas in time—
And failed.
Raidyn’s arms were secure around me, his body warm and solid behind my back. I leaned into him, forced myself to focus on the living, breathing reality of him, or staring at the horizon—anything to keep myself from falling apart.
When the citadel finally came into view, a few hours after another shorter stop, my lungs constricted. We were returning home—but it would never feel like home again. Not without Inara. I could barely stand the thought of facing her gardens and orchards without her.
Or telling Sami what had happened.
My eyes stung as the gryphons wearily winged their way up the mountain, the hedge growing ever larger. But the closer we got, the clearer it became that something was terribly wrong.
“Is that smoke?” I squinted, not sure I could trust my eyes.
Raidyn tensed behind me. “I think so.”
I couldn’t tell if the thin, black tendril winding lazily up toward the cloudless sky was from the grounds or the citadel itself. It was either the very end of a fire or the beginnings of one. Part of me wanted to tell Raidyn to turn around, to go somewhere else—anywhere else. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more tragedy. But I kept my mouth closed, my heart in my throat, choking me with fear.
Those last few minutes to reach the hedge seemed longer than the entire flight combined, somehow. Why did such dread fill me? Surely nothing that awaited us could be worse than what we’d just gone through.
We soared over the hedge, and I realized the smoke was coming from within the citadel—through the broken window in the Hall of Miracles.
Perhaps the horrors were just beginning.
* * *
The gryphons tossed their heads in agitation, their beaks clacking as they touched down in the courtyard. It was eerily silent. I hadn’t expected Sachiel and the others to be watching for us and come out and greet us … but there was a quality to the silence, a heaviness, that pressed in, making the absence of sound ominous and wrong.
“You all stay here. I’m going to go—”
Before Father could finish his sentence, a soul-rending shriek rent the air. Naiki shuddered, straining against the reins, but stayed still when Raidyn pulled them back, forcing her head down.
I twisted in the direction of the scream and wished I hadn’t.
A body dangled from the broken window of the Hall of Miracles, barely visible from where we had landed. Bloodied and torn, the only way to recognize her was the long braid down the back of her shaved head.
“Sachiel!” My father’s shout was thunderous.
He grabbed my mother around the waist, roughly set her down, kicked his heels into Taavi’s side, and took off.
Sachiel turned her head toward us, and even from this distance, sorrow was visible on her gore-splattered face. She hung on to the edge of the broken window, her body twisting over the thousand-foot drop to the bottom of the waterfall far, far below.
Every beat of Taavi’s wings was matched by the thudding of my heart, slamming against my ribcage. The gryphon shot through the sky, with an ear-splitting shriek.
A bellow sounded from within the citadel, and Sachiel’s head snapped back up.
Father bent over Taavi’s neck, urging the gryphon even faster.
But it wasn’t enough.
A monster—a rakasa—appeared in the broken window, and slashed at Sachiel’s already-battered body. Claws ripped through flesh and bone, and seconds before Father would have reached her, she fell.
Her scream echoed across the peaks that stood as silent witness to the horrors that had happened here. Her arms flailed, her braid floated up into the air, above her head, and then she dropped out of sight.
Father yanked back on Taavi’s reins, barely stopping him from soaring within range of the monster’s reach, and instead sent him into a nosedive, plummeting after Sachiel.
My heart pounded once, twice, and then they also disappeared from sight.
The monster loosed a horrific roar, so loud it reverberated through my body. Naiki shuddered beneath us.
Before I even realized what he was doing, Raidyn had pressed a kiss to my forehead, and then grabbed me around the waist and yanked me from Naiki’s back, setting me on the ground beside my mother. I stumbled and barely caught my balance as Naiki took off, Raidyn’s veins already filling with the glow of his power—power that was most likely still depleted from healing me the day before.
“No! Raidyn!”
But my cry was whipped away by the wind from Naiki’s beating wings.
“Shar—help him!” I shouted, spinning to face the last gryphon.
Halvor was already climbing off Keko’s back. Shar’s veins lit with her power. Her fire-bright eyes met mine and she nodded. Then Keko leapt forward, her wings spreading as she chased after Naiki, the two Paladin going to face down the rakasa in the Hall of Miracles.
“Where are the rest of them?”
I barely heard Mother’s question, as I stared at Raidyn and Sharmaine, waiting to make sure they were able to kill the rakasa and return to us safely.
“Zuhra”—she grabbed my arm, yanking me around to face her—“where are the other Paladin? And the gryphons?” Her face was winter-snow white beneath the sunburnt cheeks and nose, her lips bloodless.
Another growl sounded, not nearly as loud as the first, but much, much closer.
We both whirled to the citadel.
Something moved in the shadowed entryway visible through the still-ruined front door, where Barloc had blasted his way out.
Panic, hot as boiling water, surged into my blood, scalding and useless. I was useless. An enhancer, with no true power of my own.
We were weaponless, defenseless, easy prey for whatever stalked forward with another throaty growl.
I tried to open my mouth to scream for help, but my jaw refused to obey, clamped shut. Every muscle in my body clenched; the terror coursing through me had turned my muscles into stone, except for where Mother’s hand, still on my bicep, trembled so badly, it made my whole arm shake.
When the monster stalked forward into the light, even my heart seized with horror.
My brain supplied the name from that forbidden book I’d hoarded for so long, as if it were detached completely from the terror coursing through the rest of my body.
Chimera. Head of a lion, body of a goat, tail of a serpent. Breathes fire.
Mother’s nails dug so deep into my arm, pain shot down into my hand before my fingers began to go numb.
The beast moved toward us slowly, purposefully, its yellow eyes vicious, intelligent. It knew we were two little mice, caught by a very, very large cat.
We would not escape.
A black tongue darted out, curling over fangs so long, they were visible even with its mouth closed.
Mother slowly began to back up, somehow mustering the strength in her small body to drag me with her. The beast made no move to speed up, enjoying our terror, licking our fear out of the air and savoring it as an appetizer.
My gaze darted to the sky, where Raidyn and Sharmaine’s gryphons hovered, their backs to us, barely out of reach of the rakasa in the hall, sending blasts of Paladin fire at it.
They wouldn’t see us, couldn’t save us.
The Chimera watched as we continued to scramble away—desperate, hopeless—its massive clawed paws sending little puffs of dust up into the air with each deliberate st
ep. Soon we would run into the hedge and there would be nowhere else to go—nothing else to do except await our doom. I hoped it would burn us to death, praying that was a faster way to go than if it decided to truly treat us like a cat with mice and play with its food before devouring it.
Mother and I reached the fat, heavy leaves of the hedge at the same moment, both of us slamming to a halt when our arms brushed the vines. It fluttered behind us, but didn’t open. Even if it had, I didn’t think we were anywhere near the gate.
There was no escape.
The Chimera’s throat vibrated with another rumbling snarl. An eager, hungry noise that sent a shiver of dread through me.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered, reaching for her hand and clutching it in mine.
“I am the one who should apologize, my sweet girl.” She squeezed back, so hard, as if she were trying to force the truth of her words into me through the strength of her grip.
The Chimera’s serpentine tail swished back and forth. It was close enough now that I could smell it, the reek of putrid meat. Its maw was stained with blood—wet, fresh blood. It had already feasted somewhere inside this citadel.
“I love you, Zuhra. I hope you know that.”
“I love you too.”
Fingers intertwined, shoulder to shoulder, we faced our doom together, words that should have been said so long ago, at last given voice, here at the end.
A bellow—a human roar—sounded from our right, shocking all three of us, including the Chimera, into swiveling toward it.
Halvor.
In my terror, I’d forgotten about him. He held a large branch like a sword, wielding it like it could possibly do anything to stop the beast that had halted, its head cocked, inspecting this new prospect for prey.
No. No. No!
But the words stuck in my throat, turning to ash in my mouth. I was a coward, too afraid to draw the Chimera’s focus back to me and my mother.
“Go!” Halvor shouted, his eyes never wavering from the Chimera’s, though tears rolled down his cheeks. “Get away while you can!”
Something in my chest caved in when the beast changed course, swinging its leonine head toward Halvor, a feral roar rumbling up from its throat.
“Go!” he shouted again. “And if you ever do find Inara—if she survived—tell her I love her!”
Then he charged at the monster.
My scream was drowned out by the horrific roar the Chimera loosed, making the earth shake beneath our feet. Mother took the hand I still gripped and yanked me the opposite direction of the Chimera. I let her force my feet to break into a run, but I looked over my shoulder as the Chimera leapt forward, its jaw opening and a stream of flames erupting out, enveloping Halvor in fire.
“NO!” I stumbled, my knees slamming into the earth.
“Get up, Zuhra! Don’t let his sacrifice be for nothing!”
The world blurred as she dragged me back to my feet, jerking my arm so hard, something in my shoulder popped. I couldn’t look back again, couldn’t bear to see the Chimera slaughter my friend.
Mother cut through Inara’s garden, toward the citadel. Where did she think we could go? We were trapped, surrounded on all sides by death and hopelessness. Each step was only prolonging the inevitable. Any moment now the Chimera would come for us, after it finished with Halvor.
He’d bought us a few precious seconds, but for what?
“Raidyn! Sharmaine!” Mother’s yell rose above the carnage in the courtyard.
I glanced up, not even daring to hope they’d hear—or have enough power left to save us.
But neither of them responded as another roar echoed above us from the hall, and behind us, halfway across the courtyard, an answering one sounded.
Mother shouted for them again.
I turned to see the Chimera facing us once more. But this time, it didn’t stalk forward—it charged toward us, tendrils of smoke curling up from its bloody maw.
THIRTY-SIX
INARA
The gryphon, whose name I didn’t even know, ducked her head, as if she were a little bit bashful after “marking” me.
“Why did you walk over to her?” Loukas asked, his gaze moving to me.
“I … I’m not sure.” I rubbed the wound on my shoulder; I could feel my heartbeat pulsing in the cut she’d given me through my blouse. “She seemed … sad. I felt like I needed to comfort her. Like she needed me.” Even as I said it, I realized how ridiculous I sounded.
When Loukas just continued to look at me, without responding, my cheeks grew warm.
The wide door at the end of the hallway slid open and we both turned to see Ederra striding toward us.
“I thought I told you to take my granddaughter to a room where she could rest,” she said without preamble.
“He tried, but I—”
“What happened to your shoulder?” She cut me off, her eyes going to the bloody, torn shirt.
“Er…”
“This gryphon marked her,” Loukas supplied, as though he were commenting on the weather. But there was a tenseness to his stance, a tightness in the way he held his shoulders, that led me to believe he wasn’t as nonchalant as he seemed.
“You must be mistaken.” Ederra looked sharply at the gryphon. “Sukhi’s Rider only died two days ago. For her to choose a new one so fast … and a powerless one, at that … It’s unheard of.”
“And yet, she has both chosen a new Rider two days later, and a powerless one at that.” Loukas lifted one eyebrow, his voice a tad sharper.
Sukhi. My gryphon’s name was Sukhi.
It took half a heartbeat to realize I already thought of her as mine.
Ederra turned her burning gaze on Loukas, her eyes narrowing.
Sukhi suddenly cawed, drawing all of our attention before Ederra could deliver whatever scalding statement she’d been about to make. The gryphon lifted her head up and down twice, short, jerky motions, visibly agitated.
“Sukhi, what is it?” I stepped forward, lifted my arm to try to calm her, and—
Pain exploded in the patched-up void beneath my heart.
I staggered backward, hands clutched to my sternum. Distant voices echoed dully, murky and indecipherable through the pounding of my heart and the darkness that spilled out from within me, like blood pouring from a wound. This time was different; it was sudden and vicious. I dropped to my knees, barely able to draw breath.
Hands grasped my shoulders before I collapsed. An arm slid beneath my knees, and another behind my back. The ground fell away.
Sukhi’s agonized keen cut through the chaos in my head, clearing my mind enough to find her umber eyes in the dim stables as Loukas lifted me into his arms, cradling me against his chest, as though I were a child … or something precious and fragile.
“She needs healers—immediately.”
Loukas’s voice was a low rumble against my cheek where it rested on his soft shirt. I bounced in his arms; it took two laborious breaths to realize he was running. The pain came in waves that broke over me, pulling me under the darkness, sweeping away all awareness of my surroundings, until it ebbed away again. The respites lasted in small spurts of cognizance; flashes of sensation and sight—the sound of Loukas’s boots slapping against the floor of the castle, a glimpse of the green-fire in his eyes darkened to burning moss, the tendon in his jaw flexed from clenching his teeth, Ederra’s voice shouting for a name I didn’t recognize, the softness of a bed but a sudden chill replacing the warm security of Loukas’s arms.
And in between it all was the roiling, starving darkness, eagerly shredding the healing my sister and Raidyn had sacrificed so much to accomplish, desperate to devour … to destroy. And pain. Endless, everlasting pain. It writhed, it clawed, it shredded. Hands pressed against me, pushed me into the soft embrace of the mattress, but everything hurt and I needed to escape, I needed it to end.
I needed to end.
More hands, grasping my arms, pushed against my sternum, burning hands—heavy and hot
and powerful. But not powerful enough. I felt them try, I felt a presence enter the darkness, but there was too much and not enough; the pulsing black emptiness tore right through the Paladin flame, dousing it as it hemorrhaged out into my body, my mind, my heart.
I tumbled into the bottomless abyss, falling and falling and falling, where no Paladin power on earth could find me.
THIRTY-SEVEN
ZUHRA
Mother’s screams grew even more desperate.
The Chimera’s paws pounded against the ground as it leapt forward.
Time slowed, narrowing those last few seconds before inevitable death reached us into a strange montage of details:
The scent of Inara’s orchard, crisp apples and green leaves and the musk of earth.
The beating of my pulse against the too-thin skin of my neck.
The softness of my mother’s hand that still gripped mine.
The heat as the Chimera’s jaws gaped open, wider than should have been physically possible, so wide, I could see the flames gathering in the back of its throat.
My final exhale, my chest collapsing as the last air I would ever breathe escaped.
The flames exploded out of its mouth. The heat hit me before they did—
Something crashed into me, slamming me and my mother into the ground, sending us rolling in a tangle of legs and arms and heads slamming hard, dry dirt as the stream of fire soared overhead, so close, the pungent scent of singed skin and hair burned my nose.
A shriek split the air, simultaneous to a roar that made the earth tremble beneath my body. Instinctually, I curled into a ball, pulling my knees into my chest and covering my head with my arms.
“Zuhra—get up!” a voice I’d believed I’d never hear again shouted, and then his hand closed over my bicep, pulling my arms away from my face, yanking me to my feet. I stared at Raidyn’s sweaty, dirt-streaked face for a split second before he shoved me toward the hedge. “Go! Run!” He spun away from me, lifting his still-glowing arms, though the fire in his veins was so weak, it barely lit them up at all.
Warriors of Wing and Flame Page 26