Chapter 8
Chapter 8
“ N o!” My scream is full of desperation, my arms reaching toward the spot where Gallium fought the darkness only seconds before.
My cry is drowned in the wind, but only for a moment.
Then the storm rapidly recedes. The entire tornado retracts, disappearing so quickly that I lurch to the ground, my hands slapping the cold rock now that the wind is no longer pushing against my body.
The silence is loud in my ears.
I can’t hear Gallium falling.
I can’t hear anything except the blood pounding in my ears and Thaden’s soft breathing as he holds me close.
“Gallium!” My cry echoes around me as I shove myself from Thaden’s arms, fighting his hold so hard that his grip loosens.
“No, Tamra!” Thaden’s alarmed cry washes over me as I race to the edge of the cliff, heedless of the danger of the waiting darkness.
“Brother!” My cry falls into the terrible silence below me.
The darkness is so thick that I can’t see a thing, even with my enhanced eyesight.
Oh, please…
Just as I prepare to scream into the darkness, a flash of lightning bursts across the air, streaming in from my right.
Amethyst-colored energy explodes through the air, dazzling in its intensity.
A mighty bird with inky-black feathers and a dark-purple beak soars across the darkness, swooping downward, the lightning surrounding its body lighting up the space around it.
A fae thunderbird!
And there, finally, I can see Gallium’s falling body, his form lit up within the explosion of light.
He’s throwing his daggers upward, the metal they’re made of extending like ropes from his fingertips and forming hooks at the end, but they scrape uselessly down the side of the rocky cliff face. He can’t slow himself down.
The thunderbird spears toward him in a near-vertical dive, its rider a mere silhouette clinging to the bird’s back with impossible strength.
I recognize this bird, and my heart leaps.
Her name is Concord . She belongs to Elowynn of the Dawn, Queen Karasi’s fierce and formidable Champion, who commands the fae army.
Gallium rode this bird when he went with Elowynn to bring Asha back to Karasi’s castle.
As another burst of lightning explodes around Concord’s body, I can finally make out Elowynn on her back.
Elowynn’s hair is the darkest black, with deep-purple highlights, and her violet eyes gleam in the amethyst energy bursting around her.
The immense strain is visible on her face as she clings to her bird.
Concord is plummeting so fast that I barely hear Elowynn’s scream. “Gallium! Reach for me! ”
He retracts his weapons, the copper metal streaming back to his arms as he stretches to his left, his hand reaching, reaching …
My heart is in my throat.
I can’t do anything but watch as they drop for another heartbeat… and another… and another…
And then, with a scream, Elowynn throws herself off her bird’s back, leaping into the space between her and Gallium, her body arching with the force of her jump.
Finally, her hand closes around Gallium’s.
Her momentum knocks him sideward.
Concord sweeps her wings and somehow—impossibly—carves across the air beneath them.
Elowynn reaches for the bird’s neck and then she’s pulling herself and Gallium both onto its back, where they land, their arms entangled.
Concord soars back up into the air, sweeping her wings with powerful beats that carry them back up the cliff face.
I nearly drop to the ground with relief. Then I remember that I’m in a terribly dangerous location.
Already, I can sense the air moving below me, the scent of blood growing, and the rushing sound of a dust storm building once more.
No doubt it will come for us again.
“Tamra!” Thaden shouts from behind me. “We need to move!”
His voice is rapidly coming closer and my attention is suddenly split between him, where he’s running toward me, and my brother, who is safely on Concord’s back and is soaring up toward me.
With a whoosh , Concord flies up and over me, gaining height with every beat of her wings.
I catch Gallium’s shout as they fly higher above me. “Set me down!”
“No!” The fear in Elowynn’s reply hits me hard, clear in her voice, even though I can’t see her face now. “We can’t land. The blight will kill us.”
As the bird circles around, turning toward the west, Gallium leans out to the side, and I catch the flash of fear and tension in his face.
For a moment, it looks like he might choose to leap from Concord’s back, but even with his power, he would break his legs from that height.
As the bird carries him away, it looks like Gallium shouts back to me, but this time, his words are snatched away by the wind.
I can’t hear him. And already, Concord is disappearing along the mountain ridge, soaring higher as she flies into the west.
In the next moment, Thaden’s hand closes around my arm, his snarl sounding in my ears. “She was following us.”
He scans the sky, turning in a slow circle. “If there are others, they’re staying high enough that I can’t sense them.”
“But it’s dangerous up there.”
His eyes narrow at the boiling clouds. “They must be desperate.”
I’m not sorry that Elowynn was following us, given that she saved Gallium, but I don’t understand why they’d risk following us here.
My forehead creases. “What could be so important that they’d risk their lives?”
Thaden’s jaw clenches. He shakes his head. “We need to move. The darkness is building again. Between the blight and the fae, we won’t be safe until we reach my village.”
Now that my heart rate is settling, new fears grow.
My brother is no longer at my side, and I’m not sure if he’ll be able to make his way back to me. It could be incredibly dangerous for him to try.
I can hear the dust storms rebuilding, and I know they could crash up to the edge of the ridge at any moment. I’ve already passed the point in the landscape where I could travel on my own. As much as I’d like to believe I could do it, my chances are better with Thaden.
Maybe.
I want to rage at the uncertainty of my path and all the dangerous choices in front of me.
Concealing my fear is too difficult, so I don’t try as I turn my face up to Thaden’s.
His expression softens, his scaled hand rising to my shoulder as he speaks with conviction. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Tamra. I promise.”
To believe him would be foolhardy, but by the saints, I wish I could trust that he won’t lead me to my death.
I nod, my mouth dry and my voice a whisper. “Let’s go.”
He rapidly scoops up the fallen furs, along with Gallium’s pack, while I quickly retrieve my own pack.
As I hurry back to him, my gaze passes over the edge of the ridge where the dust storm attacked—the spot where it progressed closer to us than it should have been able to.
My heart plummets to see what lies near the edge of the ridge.
I nearly miss a step before I force myself to continue, wiping my expression clean before Thaden glances back at me.
My mind whirls as we set off at a jog.
I wouldn’t have been able to see this without my power—I wouldn’t have had a chance with human eyes—but I spot three discarded apple seeds.
Little, dead things lying on the rock behind me.
I tell myself they can’t be from the apples we ate tonight, even though I know full well that Thaden would have had many chances to flick the seeds across the stone when Gallium and I weren’t looking…
The leaf may be green, but it’s already dying.
I concentrate on controlling my breathing as I follow Thaden Kane Ironmeld through the darkness.