Chapter 7
Screams come from far below, and another blast of fire pierces the sky—tearing through the night and distorting the air. Navigating my cuffs, I push to my elbows as another wyvern hurtles past the blown-out opening and twists around itself, attacking the neighboring tower.
My head throbs, blood dripping from a gash in my cheekbone, but I push to my feet. I lean against a wall and pull a deep breath into my lungs.
Wyverns are meant to be extinct.
The dust settles, and Gemma groans, pushing to her palms.
She scans the space, and her eyes widen. “Where’s Kressa?”
My breath hitches, and I push away from the wall, stumbling as I search the debris. I heave slabs of rock away from the wall, but she’s not here.
Black clouds my vision, and I open my mouth, but nothing comes out—my throat like sandpaper. Gemma scrambles to her feet, and I sprint to the gaping hole in the wall. My inhales are shallow sips, and my pulse pounds in my ears as I brace myself and lean over the edge.
Twenty feet below, Kressa lies facedown, pinched between the roofline of a tower. Blood spreads through the sleeve of her shirt, running down to the cuff.
I stop breathing and stare at her, begging for her to move. Her power in my chest somersaults—not quite extinguished, but suffering. Dying.
“Please,” I whisper.
Her fingers shift over the stone slats, and I heave out a breath. She’s alive. Unconscious, but alive.
The wyvern doubles back on itself and pumps its wings—maw open as it soars toward the neighboring tower. It lands on the spire, sending a handful of shingles plummeting toward the earth. They shatter hundreds of feet below.
With a roar, the creature sinks its talons into the roofline and scrambles along the edge—disappearing into an opening. The same turret leading to the dungeon.
My stomach sinks. “My crew.”
Shrieks fill the night, and over the mountaintop, the forms of at least a dozen more wyverns blot out the moon.
Gemma comes up behind me and shoves a key into the shackles. “You get Kressa, I’ll help your friends.”
“I thought you didn’t have the key.” The rhodium cuffs fall from my wrists, clattering to the floor.
“I lied.”
Power floods my veins, weaving with the petrichor of Kressa’s earth power and the bitterness of fire. My shoulder aches—a distant pain that’s not quite my own. Kressa.
The bond is strengthening.
Fire coats the undersides of my skin, billowing into my fingertips. I hold my hands out in front of me and turn over my palms, but there’s no time to test my power or the foreign one swirling beneath the surface. Gemma strides toward the neighboring tower, stepping over the piles of rubble.
I grab her wrist. “Please, keep them safe.”
She dips her chin. “You have my word.”
I let go, and as she disappears into the darkness, I turn toward the gaping hole in the wall.
Screams sound from down below, and farther out, in the foothills of Ignata, wyverns sweep along the rooftops, blasting them with plumes of fire.
The beating of wings drowns out any noise—matching the pounding of my heart.
Inching forward, I let my toes teeter off the edge of the drop. My stomach somersaults, and I shift back. It’s too similar to the cell Caelus threw me into, with the apparitions that haunted me for hours on end. Bile stirs in my stomach, and I close my eyes, blowing out a breath.
I can do this.
Lowering to my knees, I flip onto my stomach and inch myself over the edge until my feet find purchase on a shingle. Wind howls through my hair, whipping at my collar, and I dive into the bond I share with Kressa.
The door opens in my mind, and I pour my thoughts through it. Can you hear me?
She groans. Get out of my head, Briar.
I can’t help the way my entire body relaxes—the tightness in each muscle loosening a fraction. A part of me wants to shove her with my boot and watch her tumble over the edge to the courtyard far below. I’m her prisoner, after all. But I can’t bear to consider the possibility.
I let go of the ledge and hold my arms at my sides, balancing myself as I creep down the slope toward Kressa.
Can you move? I say, tracking a wyvern as it launches off the rooftop of a home on the outskirts of the castle. It pumps its wings, aimed toward the spire just above my head.
Kressa shifts, but a shingle slides out from under her, and she pitches forward, closer to the edge.
“Stop!” I scream. “Don’t move!”
My heart trips over itself, and I crouch, lowering myself down the roof and into the crevice she’s caught in. The wyvern grows closer, and in the moonlight, I catch a glint of crimson scales—the same one that blasted a hole through the wall.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck, and I focus my attention on Kressa. I take a step, and the shingle beneath my feet snaps in two. My legs slide out from under me, and I swallow a scream as the earth tilts on its axis.
I plummet—grappling for a handhold, but my arms flail over the slick rock as the drop comes closer and closer.
Kressa shouts, but a thunderous roar overpowers her voice, and a stream of fire shoots into the sky.
Loose bits of stone scrape at my arms, and my sleeve catches on a nail.
The fabric rips, but I jerk to a stop inches away from the edge.
A wyvern bursts into the sky on the other side of the roofline, its wings spread wide. Its long, serpentine neck swings my way, and it slams its talons into the stone—propelling itself to the top of the spire.
Kressa’s gaze finds mine, the whites of her eyes stark. “I can’t move.”
“I’m coming,” I breathe, trembling as I free my sleeve from the nail. Overhead, the wyvern rears its head back and shoots flames toward the sky, lighting all of Ignata in a fiery glow.
I brace my legs on either side of the crevice, pressing my hands against the stone as I lower myself to Kressa.
“My foot,” she says, wincing as blood seeps down her arm.
I trace her body down to the ankle, wedged between a gap in the gutters. She shifts her weight, but metal squeals under the movement—threatening to break free.
“Stay still.” I lift my foot and balance it on the lip of the roofline, maneuvering myself to her feet.
On the spire, the wyvern stretches out its wings. The full moon filters through the leathery skin, reflecting off its curved talons. With a high-pitched whistle, it falls backwards off the castle, disappearing from view.
“Hurry,” Kressa breathes. “I think it’s calling the rest of—.”
A second round of whistles fills the sky. Dozens, hundreds of wyverns answer, and their call reverberates the air, shaking the roof beneath me.
I stop breathing. The beating of wings grows louder and louder, and I crouch at the very edge of the roof. All that separates me from a hundred foot fall is a row of shingles and a thin metal gutter.
I pull on Kressa’s pant leg, but it doesn’t give. I curse under my breath and lean closer, tugging on the hem. A nail sticks out of the fabric, pinning it to the gutter.
“Hold still,” I say between clenched teeth.
The outline of wyverns crests up the hill, shooting toward us. My heart lodges in my throat, and I wrap my fist around Kressa’s pants and tug. The nail shifts, and the fabric tears down the middle.
“Go! Now!” I scream, boosting her up.
She climbs the incline, her boots finding easy purchase on the shingles, and I follow close behind. A roar rattles my head, and I trip over a loose shingle, slamming to my knees.
Kressa grabs my collar. “Get up!”
I brace myself on her arm and heave myself to my feet as a war cry comes from the wyvern at our back.
We close the distance to the castle wall and come to a halt.
“It’s nearly ten feet up,” Kressa breathes, studying the hole blasted into the castle wall. She wraps her arm around my waist. “There’s a balcony on the other side of the tower. We can—”
A screech pierces the air, and the hair rises on the back of my neck.
“We won’t make it.” I pull out of her grasp and lower my shoulder. “Step on, I’ll lift you up.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t leave you.”
“You have to, or we’ll both die.”
She splays out a hand, and a boulder lifts from the debris overhead. Wincing, she throws it at the wyverns. It spears through the air, but the wyverns dodge it—their wings not missing a beat.
“My power,” she pants. “It’s weak from the fall.” She takes a step and cringes, grabbing at her arm as she cries out. Blood drips from the cuff of her sleeve.
I steady her. “You’re losing too much blood.”
She grits her teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Well right now you’re a liability.” Another wyvern roars, and my heart pounds in time with their wings. I crouch down and motion for Kressa to get on my back. “I’m coming up right after you.”
Her eyes find mine, searching.
I give a solemn nod. “I promise.”
With a final glance at the wyverns closing in on us, she nods and lifts her boot to my shoulder.
I brace my legs against the slope and shove her up, swallowing a cry as the tread of her boots digs into the skin of my neck.
“Higher!” she calls.
Grimacing, I lift onto my toes and close my eyes, keeping my balance steady as her arms flail above her head.
“Still not enough!”
A wyvern dips, and its talons squeal against metal as it rips the gutter free from the castle. I teeter, losing my balance as it clambers onto the roofline, tearing off shingles as it advances on me.
It’s the crimson one.
We lock eyes, then it takes off, disappearing into the night.
Kressa’s weight disappears from my shoulders, and my breath hitches as I look up.
“Don’t move!” Elias yells, disappearing from view as he pulls Kressa to safety.
I swallow.
The wyvern drops from the sky and slams onto the roof a handful of feet away.
I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. It lowers its head and slinks closer, a low growl rumbling from its throat. Stumbling back, I press my back against the tower. It’s nearly half the size of my ship, the wings rivaling the breadth of my masts.
Behind it, at least three dozen wyvern flap their wings, but they don’t come any closer—hovering midair.
Unfurling my fingers, I dive into my power—searching for the sea. A pit forms in my stomach. It’s too far away for me to wield.
The crimson one creeps closer, then freezes, sniffing the air. Its slitted pupils widen, and a string of trills come from it as it tilts its head, studying me.
My brow furrows, and this close, I can make out the weariness in its eyes. A deep exhaustion.
A boulder slams into its middle, knocking it off the side of the castle. It screeches, and a rope appears in front of my face.
“Grab on!” Elias shouts.
I wrap my hands around the rope and hold tight as he heaves me up the side of the tower. Smoke billows into the sky from the streets far below, and screeches sound—human and wyvern alike.
A pause fills the air, then a whistle echoes from the far reaches of the mountain range.
The wyverns halt mid-air and turn on themselves, flying toward the mountain peak.
Within seconds, the darkness swallows them.
I break over the lip of the hallway and splay onto the dust-covered runner. Pushing onto my palms, I suck in a deep breath.
“What just happened?” Kressa says.
I lift my head, but she isn’t looking at me. Her gaze is set out toward the retreating wyverns, arm hanging limp at her side.
Elias loops his hand under my arm and lifts me up. “What happened, is your prisoner just saved your life. And if it wasn’t for her rhodium cuffs being gone, I never would have found you.”
Kressa looks at me—something indistinguishable hiding in her expression. She swallows and strides to the edge, circling behind me as she peers out.
A cuff clamps over my left wrist.
Before I have a chance to fight, Kressa slams the other over my right.
“Kressa,” Elias breathes.
Her attention jerks to him, and she backs away from the edge. “You know why it has to be this way.”
I gape at her. “Even after I saved you?”
“Especially after you saved me.”
The softness in her eyes has disappeared, and like she slammed a door, our connection disappears—her thoughts in my head nothing but a memory.
“Let’s go,” she says, gripping my upper arm. “We need to speak with my father.”