Chapter 61
61
G RAYLIN HELD HIS breath as the Sparrowhawk plunged through the dark clouds over Dalal?ea. He did not know what to expect, or what he’d find. He heard an ominous rumbling coming from below.
After learning that Nyx had climbed up into the Shrouds, Graylin had challenged Darant to prove how swiftly his hawk could fly. While racing toward the cliffs, Graylin had kept his eyes fixed to the tall balloon of the second warship. Then a spear of blinding light had torn through the ship, splitting it down the middle and sending the wreckage plummeting below. Once at the summit, smaller boats had shot into view and sped away. Ignoring them, Darant had fired his ship’s forges and dove into the clouds.
As they descended through that dark pall, Graylin stood to the left of Darant. Kanthe had taken up a post on the pirate’s other side, with Jace at his shoulder. All eyes stared below as the swyftship dropped out of the clouds into a landscape from Hadyss’s worst nightmare.
No wonder everyone fled from here.
A dark expanse of stone spread below. Smoke masked much of it, lit by burning shipwrecks. The two halves of the warship had crashed, forming mountains of fiery ruin.
Graylin saw a large hole directly under them. The ground quaked steadily, breaking into jagged cracks that seemed to spread from that pit. More smoke churned from those fissures.
“Nothing could survive that…” Jace whispered.
“Take us lower,” Darant ordered his daughters.
Graylin placed a palm on the pirate’s shoulder, thanking him, knowing all he was risking.
Darant glanced over. There was none of his flippancy, only fear shining there.
Then Kanthe jerked straighter. He gasped and pointed off the starboard bow. “There! See that torch moving through the smoke and rubble.”
Graylin crossed to the prince’s side to see better. He followed where he pointed and made out what looked to be a suit of molten armor, striding across the landscape.
“Shiya…” Jace said.
Kanthe nodded.
The two had given Graylin a sketchy account of events after Nyx and the others had leaped from the Sparrowhawk. He hadn’t placed much credence on a story of a living statue, but plainly he should have.
“Get lower,” Kanthe pleaded breathlessly. “Follow her.”
Darant nodded and spun his wheel to glide them in that direction, while his daughters deftly dropped the ship.
“Look.” Jace pointed toward the bronze woman. The torch of her body now revealed four figures trailing her fiery path. “That’s Frell and Rhaif. I think two of the Kethra’kai.”
“Nyx?” Graylin asked, trusting their younger, sharper eyes.
Jace turned to him, his expression grim.
No.
Kanthe leaned until his nose was touching a window. “Shiya is taking them somewhere, rather than toward the nearest gate in those walls.”
Graylin clenched a fist, praying and hoping.
B URIED IN SMOKE and heat, Nyx still knelt on the trembling stone with Aamon’s head resting on her lap. He no longer panted, just breathed hard and heavy. She rubbed the base of his tufted ears.
She saw no reason to move, not after a blast of brilliant light broke the skies. She remembered the gonging bell from Shiya’s chamber. Here was the ruin it foretold. The world was now fire, smoke, and shattering rock. She heard the screams of the dying. The ground continued to quake. But where she had come to rest, the immediate expanse of stone held for now.
So, she stayed.
She would not leave Aamon.
Bashaliia kept vigil with her. He crouched on his haunches, occasionally flapping one wing to clear the worst of the smoke. He settled closer and leaned against her, still surprisingly light for his size. He brushed her with his cheek.
His chest vibrated gently against her. Though he wasn’t keening aloud, she felt the purr inside him. She closed her eyes and listened. I remember this. She had been warm under wings, a belly full of milk, nestled against velvet. He had purred then, too. She fell back to that time, enveloped in love both maternal and brotherly.
She heard the song in that purr and added her own, a hum of contentment and happiness. Golden tendrils, so fragile a gust could break them, flowed between them. But they were not the only ones listening. Aamon whined softly, asking to be drawn in. She stretched her strands to him, brushing against his wildness, his feral heart, but she also found the suckle of a nipple, the sweetness of a mother’s milk, the batter of brothers and sisters, still blind to the world with tiny sealed eyes.
She drew them all together and felt no fear. They sang together, entwined deeper than bone and blood. There was no fire, no breaking stones, no suffocating smoke. Time passed, or didn’t, she couldn’t say.
Finally, Bashaliia stirred, the fragility of their song wisping away. Aamon growled faintly, but he was too weak to raise his head.
She searched for what had alarmed them.
Then to her left, the smoke brightened with approaching fire, heralded by thunder and shattering stone. She tightened, expecting the worst. Only the flame that approached grew golden, shimmering with hues of bronze.
She shifted, keeping a palm on Aamon’s cheek.
Bashaliia sidled to guard her. His wings shouldered higher, spreading outward. She calmed him with a palm, with a whisper from her heart.
“It’s all right,” she said.
From the smoke, Shiya strode forth, blazing like a sculpted sun. She stared down at her, at the others, lingering on Bashaliia. “I heard you,” Shiya simply said, “and came.”
Behind her, Frell and Rhaif stumbled into view, covered in soot, bleeding from multiple cuts. Two Kethra’kai followed, their eyes haunted and lost. They all kept their distance from the dark sentinel shadowing Nyx.
Shiya craned her neck to the dark skies, which were beginning to tatter.
Nyx then heard what had drawn the bronze woman’s attention.
The roar of forges.
She stared up as a ship rounded into view, wafting smoke. She feared it was the last of the legion, drawn here as inevitably as Shiya. Instead, as the ship’s descent billowed away the smoke, she recognized the craft. She struggled for the reason behind this miracle.
The Sparrowhawk lowered to a hover. The stern door was already open. Shadowy figures bailed out and rushed forward. She spotted Kanthe and Jace. Graylin and Darant. Even Pratik and Llyra. A large furry shape bounded out and rounded past Graylin with hackles raised, growling menacingly.
Aamon chuffed a greeting to his brother.
The others skidded and stiffened as the full view of the site opened. Several swore. Weapons were drawn. All attention focused on one spot.
Nyx gently slipped Aamon’s head from her lap. She stood, needing to ensure there were no mistakes. She stepped in front of the tall bat and lifted her arms, like protective wings.
“This is Bashaliia,” she said.
Only a few expressions softened with her explanation.
Kanthe was the first to move closer. He raised an eyebrow and inspected her companion. Then he simply shrugged. “I have to say he’s grown a bit.”
Graylin edged closer as the ground shook. “Everyone aboard quickly.”
Nyx stopped them. “Wait. Aamon. He’s…” She stared at Graylin, not sure she had the words or the strength to tell him. “I won’t leave him here.”
Graylin circled the bat enough to see Aamon’s sprawl, the blood soaking his fur, the twist of his legs. Still on his side, Aamon saw him, too. He pawed his front legs, as if trying to run to him.
Graylin rushed forward to stop his struggle. Anguish strangled his voice. “Aamon…”
Darant came up behind him. “We’ll get him aboard. Don’t you worry.”
A blanket was used as a makeshift travois. As they hauled Aamon up and carried him toward the ship, Nyx kept close to one side, Graylin on the other.
Bashaliia followed, crabbing on his wings and hindlegs.
Darant looked skeptically back at the bat, but Nyx waved him onward. In moments, they all retreated into the dark hold. Bashaliia balked at the confinement and burst upward, clearly preferring his own wings.
Once everyone was aboard, the forges flared under the Sparrowhawk. The ship shot upward, leaving the final destruction of Dalal?ea below. As if it had been waiting for them to depart, the ground shook violently, tearing apart the rest of the stone plaza. Walls broke and tumbled. Gates collapsed. Standing stones sank into the rock like foundering ships in a stormy sea.
Then the Sparrowhawk crested into the clouds, and a moment later, into bright sunshine. Nyx kept near the open stern door. She searched the skies, then saw a familiar black crescent glide into their wake and follow behind.
Satisfied, she turned to the two forms bent over the travois.
Graylin knelt next to his dying brother. Kalder sniffed, nosed, then slumped beside Aamon, pressing close against him. Nyx hung back, not sure if this was her place to intrude.
Graylin spotted her and lifted an arm, then dropped it, plainly not trusting himself to speak. Nyx edged over. She settled to her knees. They flanked Aamon’s head. The vargr’s tired eyes were closed. His breathing slowed.
“He… He was so… stupid,” Graylin said.
She glanced over, shocked, but he was smiling sadly, tears shining.
“Trying to train him.” He shook his head. “Kalder caught on quick. Aamon… he preferred to splash at trout in a stream, nose any crotch, chase after anything that bleated or squawked. He had an ongoing war with cricka’burrs in my cabin, searching nonstop for their chirping.”
She tried to imagine this stout-hearted champion being so carefree. She closed her eyes, seeking that happy heart. She placed her hand on his furry crown. She started with a hum, soft, just a summer’s warm glow. She layered in breezes through the woods, the rattle of leaves. She sang of dewy grasses, dappled streams. She let those strands sink through his bloody fur, past a pain nearly faded.
She lured him with birdsong and chirping cricka’burrs.
She felt him rise to her, casting out threads of winter woods and ice that broke branches. That’s your home, isn’t it. He answered with the warmth of a hearth, the absentminded scratch, the pride in a voice, even the scold. She saw a bed too small for all three. She tasted offal tossed from a kill, shared by all.
She understood his heart, what he was saying in the end.
This is my home, always my home.
She reached a hand and found hard fingers and a calloused palm.
Yes, here is your home.
As she held that hand, she sang deeper, drawing in one brother, then the other. Kalder whined, weaving in the raucous trail of the hunt, the wild run across sunlit meadows, the tussle of brothers. It came with the scent of frost in the morning, the call of a mate, the warmth of a den. Graylin softened next to her, maybe not hearing that song as clearly, but still sensing it. She twined them all together, letting them all share one another, to say farewell as best they could.
She knew this was why Aamon had held out through all the smoke and misery. To rejoin his pack, to savor its warmth one last time. Now that he was here…
She withdrew herself, letting these three brothers sing this most private of songs together. She waited and listened from afar. She heard Aamon’s song slowly fade, drifting farther and farther away. It passed her briefly, nudging her gently. For a moment, she saw a tall forest, full of endless trails and misty distances.
Aamon glanced back once at that threshold—then turned and raced off into that last wilderness.
She sighed her farewell, knowing he was gone.
Graylin shook next to her.
Kalder moaned softly, mournfully.
Graylin draped over Aamon, gripping Kalder, too, as if trying to hold the pack together by sheer will. But no one had that much strength.
She touched Graylin’s back. He reached an arm over to her. She drew nearer, to a man who might be her father. She let him pull her even closer. She leaned into him, until they were holding each other, comforting one another.
At long last, what a birth in the swamps had failed to bring together, sorrow finally did.