Chapter 20
Chapter 20
T o my surprise, Erik doesn’t argue. His tension disappears, and he gives me a smile, that breathtaking smile that makes sapphire light glow in his eyes.
“Malak used death to make himself more powerful,” he says. “You are not Malak.” He puts his sword away, sheathing it at his back. “Your power is yours, Asha. It’s entirely your choice how you use it.”
I turn back to the bird, recognizing the aspects of its body that remind me of the thunderbird who carried me to the fae castle.
That bird’s name was Concord. She belongs to the Fae Queen’s champion, a fierce warrior woman named Elowynn. It was Elowynn and her sister, Gliss, who healed Erik when he was dying the last time.
This bird is not as big as Concord, but when its wings shiver again, small sparks of lightning flicker and glow, seeming to originate from its chest—which is currently obscured from view because of the way it’s lying.
I gasp. “Erik! Help me lift it.”
His tension returns, his focus on the bird’s talons, but he doesn’t question me. Without further hesitation, he crouches, reaches around the bird’s shoulders from behind it, and hefts it up against his own chest so that it’s now lying at an angle. His left arm supports the uninjured side of his head. As strong as he is, there’s a strain in his neck muscles as he fights to keep it in that position.
Hefting a thunderbird onto its side is probably something he never imagined himself doing.
I can’t help my lopsided smile.
Fuck, I love this man.
With that thought, power surges through my heart and down my left arm.
I quickly lift my hammer and press it to the bird’s upper chest, where the flickers of blue lightning dance with every shiver of its wings.
Then I close my eyes and send my impulses through my weapon.
Be whole and live.
I sense the resistance in the metal, not to my impulses, but to the realities of its own form.
Unlike a medallion, this hammer is fixed, not malleable. Even if it doesn’t want to spill blood, it was made for hammering, striking, not soothing. Not molding to the shape of a beast’s heart or its pain.
A moment later, I sense the bird’s breathing stop. Its chest no longer pushes at my hammer with the rise and fall of indrawn breath.
The lightning that danced across my closed eyelids only moments ago has also stopped.
My shoulders slump even further as I berate myself.
I can’t save monsters.
I open my eyes, withdrawing my hammer and looking at Erik, preparing to tell him to place the bird back on its stomach, only to be bowled right over.
A giant, feathery form knocks into my chest.
My back hits the snow, and then I can’t distinguish between the flurry of feathers so close to my face, the playful growls filling my ears, or the sizzling energy suddenly flickering across my vision.
Just as quickly, the thunderbird leaps off me, leaving me staring up in shock at the dark sky.
Erik steps into view, his hand extended to me, a grin on his face and a barely controlled laugh in his voice. “Congratulations, Asha. You created a wolf-bird. Get used to being knocked over.”
“Um… huh?”
He helps me to my feet since it seems I’m too stunned to get up on my own.
I spin to the creature that’s crouched in the snow, only ten paces away from me.
It has four legs. Paws like a wolf. But its wings, body, neck, and face are like a thunderbird’s.
It hunches down, its legs and torso visibly tensing as if it were preparing to pounce on me again.
I point my finger at it. “No.”
It cocks its head at me, blinks for a moment, and then renews its crouch, its eyes bright.
“No,” I say again. “No pouncing.”
Beside me, Erik gives a short, sharp growl. It reminds me of the growls made by the dominant alpha wolf we encountered in the mountains on our journey to find Milena.
The bird’s focus instantly shifts to him.
It gives him a defiant stare, head raising, lightning suddenly visible across its chest.
He growls again, even more sharply this time, at which the bird slumps to the ground with a soft whine.
It looks so forlorn that I feel bad. For a moment. And then I’m simply relieved.
It’s alive.
I’m grateful it’s alive, although… I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it since it hasn’t given any indication that it’s going to fly away.
Erik reaches my side and folds his arms across his chest, but his smile fades as he turns his attention to the sky.
The heavy scent of blood-rain has remained in the air. “Something isn’t right,” he murmurs.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I say. “This creature was clearly impacted by Blacksmith magic, but… where could it have come from?”
“There was never anything like it in these forests when my family hunted here,” Erik replies. “And nothing like it in the mountains around the city. I’d never seen a thunderbird until we stayed with the fae.”
“Could the fae have created it somehow?” I ask.
“With Blacksmith magic they don’t control?”
I shake my head. “If Milena was their ally, and not the humans’, it might have been possible, but she wasn’t. What about farther east, where the blight has taken over?” I ask. “Could it have flown from the poisoned land out there?”
“Maybe.” He rubs his chin for a moment. It draws my attention to the shadow of growth across his jaw and the tiredness around his eyes that I suspect he’s trying to hide from me now. “It’s a long way from there to here.”
I grimace, murmuring, “The chances of it coming all that way are slim.”
Erik’s lips press into a worried line. “The most likely option is the wasteland.”
I turn in that direction, even though I can’t see it because of the trees.
“If it came from the wasteland, then it means a thunderbird died there at some point.” I shudder. “The fae said that Malak assassinated their former Queen. Could he have taken her thunderbird?”
Even as I ask the question, I don’t expect Erik to have the answer. Neither of us was alive when the assassination happened.
To my surprise, he nods. “Actually, he did. He told me so.”
I consider Erik’s grim expression. On the night I first met Erik, he made it clear that he knew all of Malak’s secrets. He forced Malak to tell him everything before he killed him.
I try to suppress another shudder. “So he killed their Queen, took her bird, and buried its body in the wasteland alongside so many other creatures. Quite probably right next to a wolf in this case.”
And now they rise.
All of the monsters are malformed by the creation magic churning within that soil.
I consider the bird with a new sense of dread—my focus now on the fact that the city bells aren’t ringing, which means this creature didn’t raise any alarms.
Which means there’s a high chance that it flew straight to me instead of attacking the city.
“Blacksmith magic is attracted to itself. If this bird rose from the ash all the way down on the plain and didn’t understand its existence or know what to do…” I cast Erik a worried glance. “Would it avoid the city and seek me out instead?”
My stomach sinks as a horrible realization dawns on me, and I continue speaking before Erik can respond.
“All those monsters… If my siblings and I hadn’t been in the city, would the monsters have even attacked? Would they have turned away and come looking for us instead?”
Erik’s hands are firm around my shoulders. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“But—”
“Asha, listen to me.” He points at the bird, which has—rather impossibly—continued to obey Erik’s command to stay where it is. “This is a creature of the air. It has the ability to fly to you without harming anything along the way. But other monsters—wolves, bears, stags—they could have razed the city on their way to you. Or just because it’s in their nature. Trust me.” He releases my shoulders to thump his chest. “I know the mind of a beast.”
Erik is a wolf.
He’s whole now, his mind no longer splintered, but it wasn’t always so. He understands what it means to wake up changed and overcome with rage and want nothing but blood.
I push at my fear, trying to find the light in the dark. “Well, other than the time Thaden arrived, at least only one monster has ever risen at a time. And regardless of the reason, this one didn’t attack the city, so?—”
My speech is cut short by the bird’s earsplitting shriek.
I’m startled by the way it jolts backward, its eyes wide, its focus turned to the sky.
A second later, jagged, red lightning slashes across the dark air above us, snapping and snarling like a living thing.
Thunder crashes immediately after it, so loud that I slap my hands over my ears, my cry of alarm drowned out by the noise.
I drop to a crouch, and Erik drops with me as a storm of crimson snowflakes washes across the tops of the trees, heading toward the clearing.
They’re swept up in swirling tornados that rage overhead and smash against the rock face behind the cabin.
The bird drops low to the ground, its wings held tightly to its sides, pressing itself down beneath the onslaught like we are.
Despite the raging thunder and the sudden snowstorm, I’m aware of Erik’s hand on my arm, anchoring me where he remains crouched low beside me.
His head is turned to the left. The direction of the city.
The lightning, thunder, and snowflakes are all coming from that direction. And they don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon.
Beneath the maelstrom of sound and the snowflakes raging overhead, I make out a whisper in the air.
Wake up…
My shoulders tense, and my heart begins to pound as the echo continues.
Wake up, wake up, wake up…
Another sound joins it. Faint and far away, but it makes my heart sink.
Bells are ringing.
Familiar bells.
Singing out into the air like they always would when a monster was about to rise from the wasteland. The humans would hide in their homes, and I would be called to fight the beast.
Only hours ago, I struck my hammer down onto this very snow and commanded the dead to rise.
Wake up , I screamed.
And now I wonder… What the fuck have I done?