by Ivy Asher
I taste blood in my mouth as I lurch to the side, but I don’t bother putting another foot down to steady myself. I completely pull inside of myself and give Pigeon all the room she needs to leap out and start ripping some cheap-shot-throwing motherfucker’s head off.
The roar of rage that bellows out of Pigeon as we erupt into feathers, fur, talons, and wings trumps any evil smile I could ever give. Her snarl raises every hair on my now incorporeal body, and I know shit is about to go down.
Pigeon leaps for Lazza, but a brown gryphon slams into us, keeping our razor-sharp beak from catching Lazza by only inches. Pidge screams and turns her fury on to the shit stain who’s also a fan of not fighting with honor.
We rear back at the same time as our attacker, but instead of swiping at them and getting this party of pain started, another gryphon attacks us from behind. Our wing audibly snaps, and pain rips through us, as what feels like two beaks snap one of our onyx wings. Pigeon and I both scream and whirl around to deal with the attacks coming at us from all angles.
There’s six gryphons immediately surrounding us, but we see more standing in the trees as though they’re waiting for their turn.
“Pigeon, shift! Let me slip us out of here!” I scream at her as she spins and snaps at anything that gets too close.
We’re cornered, and there’s no good reason why Lazza would want us alive.
There’s a part of me that shouts that this can’t be it. He couldn’t have stolen us away just to slaughter us in such a cowardly way, but the rest of me simply scoffs at how naive that is. Lazza doesn’t care about honor or fighting fair, he cares about winning.
Pigeon doesn’t listen.
She leaps at a white and tan gryphon who takes a swipe at us, and she manages to get the upper hand. She buries her beak in the gryphon’s throat and tears at everything that separates this gryphon from death. It feels good to tear into something, but unfortunately, we can’t kill and watch our backs at the same time.
Multiple bodies leap on us, beaks, claws, and talons ripping into us. Pigeon does this rolling maneuver, throwing the now dying gryphon away from us, the body slamming into other gryphons who are charging at us.
Snap!
Another bone in our already broken wing goes, and it hurts so fucking bad it’s hard to focus on anything other than the pain.
“Pigeon, shift,” I beg. “Let me try to get us out of here.”
Pigeon flips and spins, claws, and lunges as she tries to keep attacking gryphons from mortally wounding us. She flashes me my body, and I see how fragile it is through her eyes. Someone sinks talons into our flank, and we snarl and snap for them. Tears drip down my cheeks as Pigeon is slowly brutalized. She won’t shift, because she knows if one of those gryphons gets a hold of my body, we’re done for way faster than we will be if it’s her they have to work to shred apart.
Defiance thunders out of Pigeon with a roar, and as much as I want it to be a rallying cry, I know we can’t defend against who knows how many fucking gryphons at one time. Helplessness rakes through me, and in its wake, rage pours in.
I’ve never tried to activate my runes while in our gryphon form, I don’t know if it will do anything at all, but it’s the only thing I can think to do other than accept our inevitable death. I focus on my core, on the well of magic that I feel there. I pull from what feels like an endless source and don’t bother with finesse or figuring out which runes I can activate while in this form, I call on everything that I have.
A familiar building sensation starts in my chest, and I wait until it gets overwhelming before shoving it out of me. Instead of the magic pulsing out like I expect it to and blasting all the attacking gryphons away from us, the magic ricochets through Pigeon and starts to settle.
I watch in awe as the runes I call in my form adapt to Pigeon’s form, and the next thing I know, the black swoosh blades fit the arc of our wings perfectly, turning the appendages into giant weapons. The whip swords morph into a chainmail covering Pigeon’s neck and chest. The shield runes on my forearms become greaves for her front and back legs, and tasses cover our hind quarters.
Renewed fight pumps through our veins, and this time when Pigeon opens her beak and bellows out a warning, it’s through a metal covering that protects the top of her beak, snakes between her eyes and fits over her ears.
In a blink, we Mighty Morphin Power Ranger-ed ourselves some gryphon armor, and these motherfuckers are about to pay the fuck with us toll.
21
If it were me in charge, I would have cracked my knuckles ominously and taken a moment to really build the tension and impending doom I wanted my attackers to feel. But Pigeon is a give no fucks kind of girl, so she just goes balls to the wall and starts cutting bitches up.
One of our wings is very badly injured, so it’s more tucked against our back protectively, but the wing blades are the shit, and just one of them slicing through a crowd of honorless gryphons does a satisfactory amount of damage.
Pigeon embraces her inner rhino and charges through the gathering attackers, using her protected bits to lead the way and all her sharp bits to exact as much damage as possible. Unfortunately, that means that more gryphons get tagged in from the outskirts, and just as we take one down, another hops in to take its place.
It’s a fucking flood of assholes, but we’re not dead yet, so there’s that.
I keep hoping that somehow Wekun will portal an army in at any moment, but the oncoming night is filling with snarls and cries, death gurgles and pain, and I have no idea how long Pigeon can keep this up.
A hurricane of air slams into us and sends me and all the gryphons around me flying. Pigeon and I try to fight against the sudden onslaught, but it seems Lazza is tired of waiting to watch us get ripped apart and wants in on the action.
I think back to when I first started training with Treno on how to use the runes he gave me that grant him an affinity for water. I learned that day that his brother, Lazza, has runes that allow him to manipulate air. I realized then, that was how he almost killed Ryn back in Kestrel and what he used to try and kill Treno—and subsequently me, Zeph and Ryn—through the Vow when we’d escaped.
Lazza’s affinity for air does its best to crush Pigeon and me. Pressure pushes against us from every angle, and it feels like we’re stuck in an invisible trash compactor. I try to shove magic into every inch of our gryphon form to combat it, but I’m discovering that I can activate my runes on behalf of Pigeon and protect her with them, but I can’t shove magic out of her body like I can mine.
“Shift, Pidge!” I encourage again now that there isn’t an attacking horde right on top of us—or at least not a visible one—and thankfully she finally agrees. But before she can fully relinquish our body back to me, Lazza’s unrelenting air pressure takes its toll.
Agony splinters through me and Pigeon as multiple parts of her body break under the weight of the air that’s being used against us. I feel our other wing fracture in several places, as well as our arms and legs. Pigeon’s body lights up with white hot pain, and then instantaneously it shuts off as she crumples into unconsciousness inside of me.
One second I’m a bystander to Pigeon’s gryphon, and in the next, she’s gone. Panic ripples through me, and I release the tsunami of violet magic that’s been gathering inside of me. The pressure around me cuts off, and I scream for Pigeon, terrified that I can barely feel her inside of me.
I can tell she’s hurt badly, and I’m reminded of Treno’s panic in Kestrel City when he found out I couldn’t shift and told me that it’s possible to hurt your gryphon so badly that they can’t come back from it.
I wrap what I feel left of Pigeon inside of me in soft warm layers. “Pidge, I’ll be right back. Don’t you fucking go anywhere, you hear me!” I demand as I clear my cheeks of tears and swallow back the sobs that are trying to climb out of my throat. “I love you, you rotisserie chicken, so you just stay right here. I’m going to get you some help!”
I drop steel bars
of protection around her and focus on what I need to do.
It’s time to end shit once and for all.
I push to my feet and clothe myself in magic. My runes and weapons are ready to go, and I may still go down, but I know I’ll be taking that power-hungry asshole with me.
“Lazza, you limp dick motherfucker, where are you?” I scream, my rage pouring out of me and coating me in a protective layer of hate and rancor.
I look through the gryphons trying to create a wall between me and where I suspect he is. “You weak ass piece of shit! Stop hiding, Syta, and face me!” I challenge, utterly pissed off, terrified, and ready to face whatever may come.
A presence closes around my throat, trying to choke me out of nowhere, but I force my purple Bond magic to climb up my throat, and the sensation immediately disappears.
Two gryphons off to my side move, and between them I spot the leader of the Avowed. His hand is buried in the hair of Saner, the green-eyed female lie detector, who Ryn had mark me with my dead Vow rune.
Well, I guess that answers how I got here. It seems that rune wasn’t as dead as we thought.
Saner has very clearly been tortured. She’s barely conscious and more black, purple, and bloody than her previous peachy complexion. Her green eyes look hollow, like she’s no longer in possession of her body, and I can only wonder how far she had to recede inside of herself to withstand what’s been done to her.
“This is your final warning, Vow traitor,” Lazza snarls at her, jerking her around by her hair. Saner doesn’t respond at all. “Give me control over that rune, or…” Lazza trails off, and another set of unshifted gryphons carry a male out into the middle of the field.
I’m shocked when the male is brought into Saner’s lifeless line of sight and she wakes up and starts to struggle immediately. The male has been battered too, but he also seems to register that Saner is there, and he weakly battles to go to her.
I’m not sure exactly what Lazza wants from her, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with my rune, which means whatever it is, is going to be a hard pass from me.
It’s clear from a mile away what’s going to happen. Lazza is going to kill Saner’s mate if she doesn’t do what he wants, and if she does, he’s probably going to kill them anyway. I don’t even think about what I’m doing. As easy as breathing, I call on my runes and slip from where I’m standing in the middle of a bloody clearing and step back into existence right behind Lazza.
My heart hammers in my chest as I reach out and grab the back of his neck, everything in and around me slows, and purple magic crackles angrily across my arm as I squeeze his nape. Lazza freezes, and I can feel a wave of shock and confusion pulse out of his now tense muscles.
I call up the memory of my father coaxing me to do exactly what I’m about to, the words suddenly dancing in my head like some karaoke video with a bouncing ball over the right word of the song so you know exactly what you’re supposed to sing.
“Nusht fialow odreece tamod kle,” I snarl, enunciating each word of the language my father taught me, more than willing and ready to strip Lazza of the stolen power of my bloodline that he’s wielded unworthily.
I can’t wait to look him in the eyes as I strip everything he’s ever wanted right out of his maniacal hands. Lazza screams and tries to rip out of my hold. Power builds in my chest, and I wait for the rune to crumble under my touch and end this war once and for all.
Only it doesn’t.
Lazza spins and slashes out at me.
Confusion fills my head like noisy static as I watch the long dagger in Lazza’s hand move closer to me millisecond by millisecond.
Chaos erupts as I try to untangle what went wrong with the sudden dread pooling inside of me. I’ve missed something. I thought I said the words perfectly, but maybe I fucked it up in some way. Was there more to that memory? The blade that’s going to pierce my stomach at any moment doesn’t give me enough time to work it all out.
I call on my runes for my swoosh blades and manage to get one between Lazza’s blade and my body. I can’t stop his momentum all together, and the dagger still cuts into my side. I keep it from hitting anything vital, but it hurts like a son of a bitch. I lift my other blade, ready to take my own swipe at him, but a fist connects with the side of my head, knocking me sideways, and I’m forced out of striking distance from the Syta of the Avowed.
I stumble and struggle to keep my feet beneath me, as the hit I just took properly rings my fucking bell. Unshifted gryphons move to surround Lazza, making it impossible for me to shift close to him and try again. My thoughts are muddled with pain, but I go over the words again and again, trying to see what I did wrong.
I shake my head to clear it, but I don’t see what I missed. I touched the magic, said the words that destroyed the power in the rune. It should have worked.
“Who are you?” Lazza screams at me, his tone just a tad hysterical. I didn’t break the Vow, but it’s clear to see that my attempt isn’t lost on him, and he’s rattled as fuck.
I look down at the cut on my side; it’s not gushing, so hopefully that’s good. I look up and narrow my eyes at Lazza and his dumb fucking question. “I’m Falon Solei Umbra, you worthless piece of shit,” I snarl at him.
I can practically see his thoughts racing as he tries to figure out what’s going on. That’s fine with me though, because while he’s doing that, I’m activating Treno’s water runes and using them to turn Lazza’s guards into waterless gryphon husks.
Lazza mouths Umbra, and realization dawns on his face.
At the exact same time, I force his circle of protection to drop dead, and slip back to him. I don’t go for his neck right away, just in case he anticipates that. Instead, I pop into existence right in front of him and slash out with a swoosh blade. He blocks me, but when he eyes the weapons I’m using, his aqua eyes darken with rage.
“So Awlon the Dark sent you back to clean up his mess?” he growls at me, trying to knock me away with a harsh blast of air as he reaches out to slash me with his other dagger-filled hand. I give him a taste of my secret sauce and block the wind with Bond magic, while blocking his blade with the hand he assumed wasn’t dominant.
His eyes widen for a fraction of a second in surprise.
That’s right, fucker, look...both hands.
And then karma promptly kicks me in the face for getting cocky.
Okay karma doesn’t do it, but some other gryphon I don’t see coming does, and as I fall to the ground, I decide it’s about the same thing. I shove back to my feet, but Lazza is on me in a flash.
His fist knocks my head to the side as it connects in the exact same spot the kick just did, and black spots battle for my attention. I fight to stay on my feet, but I quickly learn that, while I have mad skills for training only a week, Lazza has been training his whole life.
He wraps his massive hand around my throat and squeezes viciously. I blast him with Bond magic and shove him away, but his eyes spark with something, and he suddenly changes the way he’s looking at me. He reaches back and rubs at the back of his neck like my power pulse is doing something to him.
“I can feel your magic waking mine up,” he tells me creepily, and I suddenly feel like he’s looking at me the same way a person addicted to their cell phone looks at a phone charger when they’re down to one percent of their battery.
“I planned to just kill you or, better yet, kill your mates in front of everyone if they showed up to try to protect you, but now I think there’s a much better use for your coveted abilities.”
The look in his eyes makes my skin crawl, and when he takes a step toward me, I have a spear in my hand before I even realize I’ve called on the runes. I stab out at him and feel the sharp end sink into his flesh.
Rage fills Lazza’s face, and I ready myself for the hit I know he’s going to deliver. What I don’t expect is for him to explode into his gryphon. Power shoves me back as Lazza loses himself to his massive light gray gryphon. A sharp charcoal-colored beak
snaps out at me, and I flinch back, just barely dodging the snapping maw. What I don’t dodge is the swipe he sends my way. I go flying at least ten feet from the hit. I land on my side, blood pooling in my mouth and what feels like half my ribs screaming in protest. I’ve been hit in the head so many times at this point it’d be a miracle if I didn’t have a concussion.
Surrounding gryphons watch the struggle lazily like this is just some everyday event. I figured they’d all jump at the chance to kick me while I’m down, but no one moves near me.
I try to push up from the purple-tinted ground, but this time I can’t. Lazza’s gryphon leaps for me, and I can’t tell if he’s going to kill me or snatch me away. I call on my whip swords, unable to stand but not willing to go down without a fight.
The air shifts oddly around me, and I prepare myself for another attack from Lazza’s rune fueled air ability. A roar fills the air all around me, and then out of nowhere, an almost pure ebony-colored gryphon slams into Lazza, knocking him away from me.
Lazza’s gryphon squeals and snaps at the sky shadow, but Zeph is all over him like shadows in the night.
Relief floods me, but I’ve learned my lesson about letting my guard down. I white knuckle hold my whip swords as I slowly and very painfully look behind me to see gryphons pouring into the dusky night sky through a portal I’m sure Wekun is responsible for.
Help is here.
I sigh and try to stay up on my one elbow, but man I’m heavy. Way heavier than the guys always make me look when they get all manhandly.
“Falon!” Ryn screams out at me, and then he’s there scooping me up and quieting my pain-filled whimpers. “I have you. Fuck, what did he do to you?” he snarls, panic and fury filling his voice. “Shhhh,” he tries to reassure me, and I don’t even know I’m saying anything until Ryn drops his ear closer to my lips to try and hear me over the sounds of war all around us.