Chapter 29 Kai
Kai
Isaw through the first rope section with a serrated dagger edge, the blade finally catching and slicing through with a satisfying snap. The tension releases, but the net still clings, the remaining sections wrapped tighter now around Ulyssus’s spike.
Can you burn the rest off?
Are you fireproof?
I attack another section of rope, my fingers numb with cold and my shoulder screaming.
Blood trickles down my arm, warm against my chilled skin.
Lightning cracks the sky open, illuminating the battlefield below.
The Eryndor forces are regrouping with terrifying efficiency, now concentrated into teams which each seem to target its own draken and rider.
There is too much precision down there. Too little panic down there. They expected us.
Ulyssus’s massive body shudders beneath me as he fights the net's drag. Less talking, more cutting.
Another volley of arrows arcs upward, this one thicker, more concentrated. I press myself flat against Ulyssus’s scales as iron-tipped shafts whistle past. One grazes my calf, slicing through leather and skin.
Blood wells from the fresh cut, but compared to the burning in my scorched lungs and pierced shoulder, it's nothing of note.
The archers below adjust their formation, spreading out in a fan pattern that maximizes coverage.
I've seen that formation before—in Spire East tactical manuals.
They're setting up a kill zone, ensuring that no matter which way we bank, we'll fly through a wall of arrows.
The humans are herding us. The way we’d intended to herd them.
Hold fast. Ulyssus points toward the clouds, his massive wings beating against the wind as he takes us into a near vertical climb to get out of the humans' range.
With the netting around his tail throwing off his balance, we can't maneuver reliably—and the next volley of arrows might have auric steel.
It's just a matter of how confident an archer feels about his shot.
The world tilts sickeningly as we climb, rain lashing horizontally across my face.
My stomach lurches with each wingbeat as Ulyssus battles the storm and his own compromised balance.
Moving back to the saddle ridge while Ulyssus is in hard flight is damn hard in good weather.
It’s near impossible in the middle of a storm when I keep slipping in my own blood.
But I’m not about to ask him to slow, not with how hard he fights for every foot of altitude.
My grip falters just as I finally reach the saddle ridge and haul myself in, leaning close to the draken’s neck to decrease wind resistance. "Come on, you overgrown lizard," I mutter. “Almost there.”
Ulyssus’s responding growl efficiently conveys both determination and a promise to drop me from the sky at the first convenient opportunity.
Just as we level out, Dain's draken gives a soul shredding cry. Dain's body tumbles off into free fall, the draken roaring as he struggles against two nets, his wings beating desperately against the entangling mesh. My hand fists as the draken spirals, but we are too far away.
“Kai!” A dark shape punches through the rain to my left—Kyrian’s draken cleanly slicing through the wind with her wings. They pull alongside us and Kyrian pulls back his hood. “You are a mess.”
“If I knew you were coming, I’d have put on lip paint.” Fuck, it hurts to talk.
“We’re being funneled,” Kyrian shouts over the storm. “It’s a setup.”
“I noticed.” I saw through the last stubborn knot. The net flaps free, tumbling into the storm below. Ulyssus surges higher the moment his tail is clear, steadier now, his fury vibrating through my legs.
Kyrian glances over his shoulder—listening, but not to me. His expression freezes. Then hardens.
“What?” I demand.
“Rowan left the wards. She hasn’t come back.”
The storm seems to fade, though I know it doesn’t. “If Pherix and Ilian -”
“- They didn’t force her out. No one did.” His voice is steady, but I catch the betrayal bleeding through the edges of his control. His jaw locks like stone. “She left. Walked into the forest and didn’t return.”
“She wouldn’t—” I stop myself. I know better than to finish that sentence. For a heartbeat, the battlefield below disappears. All I see is Rowan. Rowan, walking away. Just as my twin sister said she would.
The edges of my control fray. My pulse hammers, breath coming in short, sharp bursts. I force it down—clamp it down—but the hurt and anger still claw beneath my ribs. Hurt at Rowan’s betrayal, anger at myself for believing in my own deception. For seeing what I longed for instead of reality.
“She was always going to leave, wasn’t she?
” I fist my hand, left one, where my shoulder hurts.
The burn in my flesh is easier to bear. “She was never going to abandon her people—not for us. That damn human bleeds loyalty like it’s carved into her bones.
Fucking hell. It’s the reason I fell in love with her to begin with. ”
“Kai—” Kyrian runs his hand through his dripping hair and I realize that I’d said the last part aloud. And then I realize that it's true.
I fell in love with Rowan. I’m still in love with Rowan.
My lungs seize, breath caught somewhere halfway out. I can feel my pulse in my teeth, hammering too fast, too hard. The world tilts. “Eryndor isn’t pressing forward, they are going after the draken. You need to change the deployment pattern.”
“Kai.”
“The nets—”
“- I love her too. So does Logan.” Kyrian tips his head back and draws a breath. “We aren’t just going to let this go. Let her go.”
“Rowan isn’t ours to keep!” A dam inside me breaks and I shout into the thundering wind.
“We kidnapped her. Forced her to play bride. We'd even bonded her without bothering to ask. Everything she did was with a bloody blade to her neck. Every time. Every step. It always seemed like the right thing to do, didn’t it? Weaving a tapestry of one wrong covering another, covering another as if the final product could be anything but a pattern of lies.”
Kyrian’s hand closes around the pommel of his sword and he looks down at the melee unfolding below, pretending he didn’t notice my cracking apart.
“The forest beyond the wards isn’t some quiet night walk; it’s teeth and shadows and the kind of danger that eats hesitation alive. Even if she walked off by choice…”
I stare at him, not sure I heard him correctly, because every fiber in me wants him to mean what I think he does.
“I can’t leave,” Kyrian says, voice low.
“Not when I’m supposed to be in charge of this chaos.
And Logan is down there single handedly holding the line right now.
And you…” he jerks his chin toward my shoulder.
“You are half useless here already. Go. Make sure our girl is safe. Whatever she is doing.”
I don’t need to be told twice. Ulyssus and I spin about before Kyrian can finish his last word, the draken’s muscle coiling beneath me as we point toward the draken field.
It’s not a far flight, but the balance between swooping low enough to make out the shapes on the ground but high enough to avoid highlighting the draken field as an area of interest takes constant calculations of cloud movement.
Reaching inside me, I find the tether that connects me to Rowan and follow it.
Just like all the other times I’ve tried, the chord of magic goes dark before I can get much useful information from it.
I can’t tell where Rowan is. Can’t tell if she is afraid.
I just know she still exists. Because if she didn’t, I’m not sure I would either. Which is less than helpful.
What good is a lifeline if it doesn't tell you which direction to pull?
I’m still contemplating whether Rowan shut me out on purpose, when I finally catch sight of movement on a forest trail that runs just shy of the draken field.
Not a lone figure though, but multiple shapes.
Moving toward the nest. If Rowan is among them, she’s not alone.
Which means she’s either walking with them…
or being marched. Either way, it’s a problem.
I can’t get closer, Ulyssus warns. Might as well light a beacon over the nest otherwise.
I don’t disagree. Which means I need to go to ground.
I hate giving up my line of sight to the humans, but there is no choice. I prepare myself as Ulyssus banks toward an old hollow to the north of the trail, where the ground dips into a bowl that breaks the line of sight from the ground. There is no landing spot.
Ulyssus swoops into a low glide, geography and storms joining forces to cover his approach. I watch the trees. The ground. The shifting wind.
Now, Ulyssus orders, wings beating backward to bring him to something poorly resembling a hover.
I jump.
Mud splashes up to my knees when I hit. The roots taking most of the impact. I roll, crouch, and hold still until the only sound is the rain drumming on bark. Ulyssus lifts back into the clouds, gone like smoke.
I drag myself up the slick embankment, pain lancing through my shoulder with every movement. At least the hot jolts help keep my attention off the water that pools inside my boots. This storm is officially… irritating.
Getting my bearing, I start silently toward the human gaggle I’d spotted from the skies.
The sun is setting and my shadows darken the already dim pockets of dusk.
Making me all but invisible in the forest. The rain drums ceaselessly, masking smaller sounds and limiting visibility—a mixed blessing since everyone else here is doled the same lot.