by Anna Logan
Jaylee rolled over enough to prop herself halfway up on one elbow, halfway on his chest, giving him a wrinkled brow as if he were a puzzle she was piecing together. “Why not? I understand he hurt you. But bad enough that you don’t think you can get past it? Period?”
“No, but…” He drew a deep breath, putting his hand on her waist and sliding it up her back. “You know how our...relationship is. I just...I don’t like him being my father. I like him being my friend. And now that she’s here…” There was no need to clarify who she was.
Jay rubbed her thumb along his cheek, smiling affectionately. “I know. But he is your father. He can’t help that...why can’t he be both?”
He had been. Before Shanteya. Rather than answer, he pulled her closer with his hand on her back, and kissed her.
After a few seconds, she abruptly pulled away, putting a finger on his lips. “So are you going to talk to him?”
He tried to kiss her again, but she pushed him back down with an expectant, sly sparkle in her eyes. Yhkon grinned despite himself. “Maybe. If an opportunity avails itself.”
Smiling with satisfaction, she nodded once, and went back to kissing him.
Until Grrake’s voice came meekly from outside their tent. “Yhkon? Are you awake?”
Of course he was awake, and Grrake knew it. His sleep had improved in the last three years, but he still never slept past six o’clock. Still, it was tempting to pretend he wasn’t...maybe Grrake would leave them be. “What is it?”
Jaylee promptly whacked him and mouthed something he couldn’t understand. Probably an admonishment for his less-than-friendly tone.
It was hard not to feel guilty at how dejected Grrake sounded in his reply. “There’s a messenger. Looks like he rode hard to get here.”
Guilt would have to wait—if the messenger had been in a hurry, it was probably bad news. Jaylee moved over so he could get up. Only taking the time to put on trousers, a shirt, and boots, he slipped out of the tent flap. Grrake instantly averted his gaze and walked ahead of him to meet the messenger. Sure enough, the man’s celith was in a pitiful state. Yhkon hadn’t even reached him before the animal went down to its knees with a wheeze.
Dread settled in the pit of his stomach like a cold weight. “What is it?”
The messenger didn’t even remember to bow. “The Aysa, Silquije. Kaydor set some sort of trap for them...I didn’t get the details, but they had barely gotten away and only after she made such a big wave that she had been unconscious for hours. There were cavalry still following them, and they didn’t think their celiths would be able to outrun them for more than a few hours. That was last night. I came as quickly as I could. She asked me to get you, though they hoped they would be out of danger by the time you could get there.”
If Yhkon’s increasing sense of apprehension was reliable, that wouldn’t be the case. Trusting Grrake to get any more details from the messenger, he was already running back to his tent, yelling as he did: “Everyone up! We live in five!”
Tarol’s voice came from the other Wardens’ shelter. “But we’re already living!” He must have already been awake, his voice sounded too cheerful to have just been woken.
“Shut up and pack,” Yhkon muttered, barely loud enough for the idiot to even hear. Jaylee was already packing up their shelter and must have overheard the messenger, because she asked no questions.
Only when they were almost finished, loading their gear onto their celiths, did she take both his hands, look him in the eye, and give a squeeze. “They’re going to be fine.”
If only he could be so sure.
~♦~
Trees splintered and fell in a rustling, cracking cacophony. Without any idea where all the noise was coming from—or if it was from everywhere, as it seemed—Talea ducked, clinging to Ember’s neck. A tree hit the ground where she had just been, one of the branches slapping Ember’s hindquarters and Talea’s thigh. The mare sprang forward in alarm, a fresh burst of speed brought on by fear. Shards of wood and broken limbs rained down from above and burst around them every time a tree fell.
Worse than that terrible chaos, the way everything was shuddering and creaking and racing down to crush them...was the high-pitched roar of a dragon breaking through the opening it had made.
“Watch out!” It was a useless warning. Skyve, Rikky, and Terindi were as aware of the danger as she was. They all split ways, lest the dragon take all four of them down at once.
The beast hesitated a moment, deciding which prey to chase. It dove after Terindi. Talea trusted Ember to navigate the woods, and turned in the saddle to extend her hands toward the dragon that was about to incinerate Terindi and her celith as they uselessly tried to escape. Bringing a jolt of energy into her hands, Talea threw a lightning bolt down onto its back. She hadn’t used enough energy to actually injure it...only to annoy it.
With a growl, it banked right—now coming straight for her.
The fear that gripped her body like a vice made it hard to breathe. She instinctively kicked Ember’s flanks for more speed, but the mare was spent. They’d hardly stopped running from one threat or another in almost twenty-four hours. Even a rested, energetic celith couldn’t outrun a dragon.
It caught up to them, close enough for her to see the savage gleam in its golden eyes. Once a dragon was angry, once it had a target...there was little that could dissuade it. Talea remained twisted to watch it, waiting. It took a swipe at her with talons the length of her forearm. She jerked the reins left and crouched as low as she could in the saddle, gripping the pommel tightly. A claw hooked her shirt, pulling her up a few inches before it tore through the fabric. Distracted by the attack, the dragon flew into a couple trees, making them shudder with the impact. It snorted its frustration, quickly regaining the ground it lost.
Now there was an orange glow in its throat.
Talea shot a boulder-sized orb at it, but she couldn’t muster enough voltage to do anything other than make it flinch at the sting. Skyve threw another at it. The dragon wasn’t so easily distracted this time, however. Without straying from its pursuit of her, the orange became hot red as it opened its jaws, drawing in a deep breath. She knew what came next. Talea slapped Ember’s hindquarters, begging for a little more speed.
It wasn’t enough.
The dragon released a torrent of fire. In the same moment, Rikky threw a massive lightning bolt at it. As the heat blanketed her, the creature screeched, recoiling from the hit. Not before the flames burned through the back of Talea’s shirt to her skin. A small cry escaped her lips before the pain made it impossible to breathe. Ember squealed and staggered to a stop, twisting her head back, trying to see her rump where the inferno had blistered her too. Talea tried to pull Ember away from the dragon, to cue her back into a run, but her muscles were rigid. Her whole body clenched as tears squeezed past her closed eyes.
She heard Skyve’s worried shout before he appeared beside her, taking Ember’s halter and forcing the mare to keep up with his gelding. “Just hold on, Talea!”
Her lungs finally loosened, gasping in deep breaths that sounded more like sobs. Hold on. Why? The dragon was after Rikky now. How long before it killed him? How long before it killed all of them?
Rikky and Terindi were working together to divide the dragon’s attention, dodging, throwing orbs, weaving back and forth while it tried not to collide with trees.
Until they all broke through the treeline. And ran into a volley of arrows.
Skyve and Terindi had time to jerk their celiths back, Skyve also pulling Ember clear. Rikky didn’t see it in time, his attention on the dragon. One arrow embedded in his shoulder, three in his celith’s chest and neck. The animal went down with a strangled scream, Rikky with it. Seeing the opportunity, the dragon dove.
Skyve released Ember to fire a beam of electricity into the dragon’s side. By the brightness, it was a powerful current. He was keeping it steady, but Talea could tell it was exhausting. But it worked—the dragon reeled away fro
m the shock, and away from Rikky.
That left her to look ahead to the new threat. The arrows had come from a sea of soldiers, already spreading out to encompass them. They were foot soldiers, so the four of them on their celiths could simply go back the way they’d come...except for the three additional dragons hovering over the army. Now that they’d sighted their prey, the creatures were flying toward them.
They had barely been avoiding one dragon for the last fifteen minutes, and now there were three more. The soldiers were knocking arrows to their bows again. Her back still felt like it was on fire.
Skyve’s beam had brought the first dragon to the ground, where Rikky had stabbed his sword through its thrashing neck, but now the other three were bearing down on them. They flew over the wards’ heads then circled back, coming from behind to drive them into the army.
All her senses were overwhelmed. She couldn’t think. She could only react.
As the dragons first dove for Skyve and Terindi, their celiths bolted forward, toward the army. “Rikky!” Talea brought Ember to where he was retrieving his most necessary gear from his dying stallion. He was up and behind her in an instant. His arm brushed her raw back, partially exposed where the fire had burned holes in her shirt, and she cried out.
“Sorry!” He carefully placed his hand on her waist; whether for her benefit or for his balance, she didn’t know.
Talea kicked Ember into the best gallop the mare could manage, catching up to Skyve and Terindi as they tried to keep their celiths from running straight into the army, while still avoiding the dragons. “Hey!” Once she had their attention, she pointed to the left side of the soldiers. “Around the left flank! You three deal with the army, I’ve got the dragons!” She hoped she did, anyway. They were about to find out just how much energy she had left in a body that felt like a rag wrung dry. “Skyve, lead!”
Skyve took the head. He clearly didn’t have much in him, after the beam that had taken down the first dragon. Terindi came behind him, already engaging the infantry as they raced toward and around them. The men weren’t to be so easily flanked—they were sprinting to cut them off, requiring that the wards either cut their way through, or run their celiths the extra distance to get around. Knowing they didn’t have the energy necessary to get through, Skyve kept them going around.
It was time to deal with the dragons that were about to incinerate them.
She couldn’t do it facing the opposite direction. Rikky must have guessed her intention and helped keep her steady as she swiftly—clumsily—pulled her legs up, turned, and straddled Ember again facing backwards. It put her into a sitting, hug-like position against Rikky, but there wasn’t time for awkwardness. She leaned into him, using his shoulders as a platform to steady her hands, while he directed Ember.
The first dragon was seconds away from engulfing them in flames. A burst of painful sparks in its face was enough to temporarily distract it, while she focused her attention on the next. With one hand, she shot a beam into its chest, as Skyve had done earlier, simply maintaining the current. It was enough to slow the creature down, as it struggled against the electricity wracking its body, roaring in rage. The third, however, was rapidly descending on them. Keeping the beam steady with her right hand, she used the left to fire lightning bolts on the other two, just big and powerful enough to keep them at bay.
The drain was taking its toll. Dizziness shrouded her vision, until she couldn’t even see the dragons. Hearing a groaning wheeze from one, she released the beam. Her vision cleared enough for her to see the first dragon collapse to the ground.
The other two weren’t even injured. Just irritated.
Relaxing her body with Rikky as support to put all her strength into the electricity, Talea aimed another beam on the nearest dragon, and distracted the other with small bolts. The black dots came again. With her vision failing, she could only rely on hearing to keep track of the dragons. The beat of their wings, the angry snorts and wounded cries. She couldn’t maintain the beam any longer. It fizzled out. All she could do was blindly throw weak lightning bolts at the dragons.
It wasn’t working. Their screeches became fewer, telling her she wasn’t hitting them as often. Expecting to feel an inferno at any moment, she stopped the onslaught entirely, forcing herself to take deep breaths as she waited for her vision to clear. It gradually did...to see that the dragons had caught up. To see one of the beasts diving at them with glinting teeth.
Talea took everything she had from her core and sent it into two giant lightning bolts, one into the back of each dragon. Everything went black.
The first sensation to return was her heartbeat, thudding through her whole body. The second, her cheek against the damp leather of Rikky’s pauldron, his warmth where the minimal armor didn’t block it. The third, the hot agony that covered her back.
She blinked open heavy eyelids to a blurry battlefield. What must have been one of the dragons was thrashing on the ground, but not chasing them anymore. And the moving smudge of silver, the Kaydorians, was fading behind them.
Her chest heaved in a silent sob. Tears trickled down her cheeks despite how she squeezed her eyes shut. Even crying was exhausting, sapping strength she didn’t have, yet she couldn’t stop it.
Rikky put his arm around her upper back, where her pauldron had protected her from the fire. His hand burrowed into her hair, holding her head against his shoulder. “It’s okay. Shh, it’s okay. We’re past them. I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.” His voice was low and soothing in her ear, helping to tune out the dragon’s pained roars, the army’s shouts and clattering movement, the slowing hoofbeats of their weary celiths.
She made no effort to sit up, turn back around, or otherwise leave the security of his embrace. There was no effort for her to give.
The noise of the Kaydorians gradually faded behind them. As did their celiths’ speed. Soon they were cantering, then trotting, and eventually after an hour and no sign of pursuit, they let them slow to a walk. No one asked Talea for direction or leadership, and she didn’t offer it. After a while she adjusted to sitting side-saddle for comfort’s sake, but Rikky seemed willing to keep the reins and let her rest with him as her pillow, and she was willing to stay there.
It wouldn’t be the last attack. She didn’t have the sort of foolish optimism needed to believe that. The Kaydorians would be back. The only one of the four wards still fit for any sort of fighting was Rikky, and he still had an arrowhead in his shoulder. Their celiths would be useless for any fast getaways, even from coliyes, maybe even from foot soldiers.
The attack would come. And when it did, they would not be able to surmount it.
All Talea could hope for was that the Wardens would arrive before then. It was late afternoon, the messenger had predicted that they might be there by evening. If the Kaydorians would just save their attack for a couple more hours, maybe it would be okay. Maybe Yhkon would be there to take care of everything.
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted nothing more than for him to appear on Eclipse, swooping in for the rescue. Only then could she find any peace...if even then. It was all she had to hope for. She would have prayed for it, she would have begged Narone, she would even beg the Irlaish goddess of mercy, Ema, but she couldn’t formulate a string of words in her head to do it. Every thought she tried to grasp ended as nothing more than another tear, another sinking feeling of despair, another shiver of terror down her spine.
She finally shifted her position into a normal riding seat, facing forward. She still kept her head against Rikky’s chest, twisting her back a little so it didn’t touch him much. Every time something brushed the raw skin, the painful burn became excruciating again. “Rikky…” Her voice was hoarse and feeble. It had been awhile since she’d had the time or the willpower to drink some water. “Are we going to get out of this?”
He lifted a hand to brush some hair from her face. The end of her braid must have been singed off by the dragon’s fire, because her
hair had ended up loose around her shoulders, shorter than it should have been. She noticed its distinctive burnt smell, too, now that her nose wasn’t so flooded by the other, worse odors of battle. “Yes.”
How do you know?
It was as drowsiness finally began overpowering the fear that had kept her awake, and her eyes had finally closed, that Talea heard distant hoofbeats.
She sat upright, listening. Celiths...and far too many to be the Wardens. It would be only a few minutes before the force was close enough to see them. Rikky had heard too, she could feel his muscles tensing. Skyve and Terindi, a stone’s throw ahead of them, showed no sign of noticing. Terindi might have even been asleep, bent forward over her celith’s neck.
There wasn’t the immediate panic that Talea would have expected. Hardly even fear. Just a strangely cold, resigned sort of dread. With it, clarity. She knew what to do.
If only Rikky were still on his celith, or riding with Skyve or Terindi instead.
Grabbing the reins from Rikky, she gave a sharp tug backwards, stopping Ember. He started to protest behind her, so she spoke quickly and quietly. “If you and I stay behind...maybe Skyve and Terindi can get away.”
There was a moment where he waivered. Then he kissed her forehead. “Let’s go.”
The kiss surprised her. There wasn’t time to worry about it, however, so she just nodded and turned Ember back, toward the oncoming enemy. Urging the wasted mare into a limping lope, she finally was able to say a prayer to the silent void that was supposedly Narone. Please don’t let Skyve and Terindi notice. Let them get away.
Whether it was the silent void answering, or a simple coincidence, Skyve and Terindi didn’t look back. They rode on, oblivious, until they were out of sight.
Ember managed the pace until they could see the Kaydorian force, then she stumbled to a halt, unable to continue. So Rikky dismounted and helped Talea do the same. They each took their swords from the saddle, then left the mare to weakly wander off, probably looking for water.