Chapter 95
With each thrash of Rygun’s much bigger wings, he draws closer to the retreating Elding Bird.
Deeper into the frigid cold.
All around us, moons continue to pitch—fast and flaming.
Their living brethren carve through the chaos while they roar and screech for their falling ancestors.
Fiery blooms shoot up with every collision the ground endures, the Ergor Plains now masked by angry smog.
But all the fire in the world couldn’t warm the side of the world that’s never been touched by the sun.
My bare hands are stiff and seizing around Rygun’s frosted spikes, my sweat and wet, bloody binds crystallized by the time we draw close enough that I’m able to make out the black smudge of Arkyn’s frayed cloak whipping in the wind.
Victory feels close enough to touch … until a wobbly surge of Rygun’s wings makes my insides pinch.
Panic flares.
I lean hard left while he works to right himself, my chest in knots as I come to the daunting realization that he’s worse off than he’s letting on.
“Nei. Huk atáh TUíL.”
He tosses his head and roars, a stubborn battle cry coupled with a series of ferocious flaps, spurring us forward with savage intent.
“HUK ATáH TUíL. DAHN NAH.”
Rygun doesn’t respond, like I’m not even here, cutting over the Moving Mists that dimple as they swallow moon after moon, belching tumors of flame and shattered stone.
Ahead, the Elding Bird takes a jagged path through the chaos—showcases a concerning amount of tact and agility—dodging a few violent ricochets.
Rygun follows its erratic path, each gouging sweep of his wings bringing us closer … closer … until we finally draw near enough for him to strike the Elding Bird with his flames.
“Varoughin ail, Rygun!”
He fills his chest with a heave of breath, then throws forward and blasts a spray of sputtering embers, chased by a screeching lament that chills me to the bone.
He can’t produce a flame …
He’s grown too cold …
He tosses his head, growling his frustrations. At the same time, I bellow desperate commands at the pip of a nearby moonstrike, attempting to charm the flaming explosion to rend in our direction. Beg it to douse Rygun with enough heat to melt the ice clotting his blood.
All I get is silence. Like Ignos is too distracted to listen.
“Sheish tah, Ignos. Vush. Vush hiss tha!”
Do something. Please.
Please help him.
“VUSH.”
No response …
With a plowing gust of Rygun’s wings, he presses forward, stretches his neck, and snaps down on the Elding Bird’s spindly tail feathers—the sound reminiscent of cracking bone.
They flick just out of reach, like a dance.
The beast whips its head around to glance at us, slit pupils tightening in a way that makes me feel hunted, even though we’re the ones chasing.
Arkyn does the same, tensing his body, digging deeper into the creature’s feathered plumage.
The only warning we get before the Elding Bird flips, slashing its claws into Rygun’s tender underbelly.
The wall between our shared heartspace tremors with such might a scale chips free. Allows me to feel those claws part his flesh and hack through the muscled meat of his abdomen.
Rygun kicks his head back and roars like never before. As do I, looking over my shoulder in time to see the Elding Bird flip around, then dive headfirst toward the Mists, Arkyn still perched upon its back.
No—
“Duin kai. Atáh marus thun atka-ain.”
Don’t chase. Wait for them to re-emerge.
I scream the same request down our bond, into the echoey darkness beyond the tiny hole. Get nothing in response but the tingling sensation of his wild thirst to make me and my family safe.
With a gnash of pain-riddled rage, Rygun tilts forward and skewers toward the Mists that almost took his life so very long ago. Toward the Elding Bird, washing us with the embers dribbling from its plumage.
“Atáh duin. ATáH DUIN!”
With every pitched beat in my chest, Rygun gains on the sleeker, but much lighter beast, his maw splitting wide.
Ready.
He snaps down, again just shy of the swishing tail as the Elding Bird punches a crater in the Mists and disappears.
A foggy mouth we power into, like one of the falling moons.
Encased, as though we’re caught in an avalanche of white and lost, fluttering larks—a few not diverting in time to avoid slapping against my face, arms, or hands, leaving the odd paper cut.
I’m crushed beneath nauseating fear, picturing Rygun bogged in the ground beneath Miel Et Muíem so many phases ago, thrashing into a deeper grave.
“Hals, Rygun. HALS.”
HALT.
He throws out his wings.
I compound against him, heart pounding at a ferocious speed as he slows to a steady coast through the eerie dim. I push up and twist, hunting for signs of the Elding Bird. An embered trail.
Something.
But all I see is white bruised with distant flares of flame, each explosion chased by Bulder’s agonized groans.
We need to get out of here …
“Gash utun ath, Rygun. Ruif.”
Fly toward the sky. Please.
Through the tiny gap in his wall, I show him visions of us being struck by a moon before we have the chance to finish this. He tosses his head in disgruntlement, but I feel his resolve in the loosening of his body.
He tilts, powering skyward as a single ember floats before me—
Splayed claws spear down at us from above.
They clamp down on either side of Rygun’s neck to the tune of a shrill squawk, the Elding Bird now using him as a perch, its back to me. A maneuver that grants unobstructed access to Rygun’s defenseless face.
I feel the moment the first peck strikes, gouging into his right eye. Feel it pulp beneath the force of that hooked golden beak. The sound Rygun makes is shrill and cracked through; a shuddered screech loud enough to bleed a heart.
The world blurs. Everything but the plume of feathers flitting back and forth as the Elding Bird continues to stab.
Stab.
Stab.
That, and the black smudge of Arkyn’s frayed cloak being smacked around by the wind.
I push up, steady despite Rygun’s chaotic motions. Like Clode is softening my traverse along his icy, spiked neck.
Snarling through short, sharp breaths, I dodge the tail feathers, biding my time until the beast squats down against Rygun’s neck before I leap, fisting ruddy plumage.
Something I expect the Elding Bird to notice, except it’s too busy trying to burrow through Rygun’s brain, each pierce ripping out more of him.
Rygun continues to pound his wings, screeching. A plea that drives me forward, muscles burning as I strain to drag my body up … up …
I draw close enough to whiff Arkyn’s body odor. Hear his seething commands to kill.
Kill.
KILL.
I pull the sword from the sheath at my spine, hating that it’s come to this as I raise it high, then stake the weapon deep into the Elding Bird’s plumage—fast—gouging through the tough exterior, into the softness beneath.
In the next beat, I launch, snatching Arkyn’s cloak.
Jerk him back against my chest, reaching for my dagger—
The Elding Bird snaps its head around so fast the motion blurs.
I stare down the bloody, open maw of the beast, past layers of piercing sabers all pointing back toward its contracting gullet. Its red tongue is a blade that flicks up as the beast makes a wet hissing sound, like a serpent preparing to strike.
Arkyn heaves and bucks within the confines of my iron grip as I gouge my boots against the sword plowed into the bird’s back, fist a handful of feathers, and scream, “SHATHUN, RYGUN.”
SHAKE.
His roar is a blast of assent before he tosses about, like a snapping whip. With only two points of contact, the Elding Bird bears the brunt, lashing so hard it’s forced to release, vaulting through the mist and smog. It flounders, wings pulsing in frantic disarray, threatening to throw us loose.
Arkyn’s crown flings free.
I crunch closer to the bird, digging my knees in.
Lose track of which way is up or down.
Pah’s words bang about my head as my grip begins to fail, telling me how fucking weak I am. I rage against them, fists clenched on both my thrashing brother and his screeching beast, digging my boots against the sword’s knobbed hilt.
We begin to stabilize, Rygun nowhere to be seen as Arkyn seethes flaming commands that seem to go unheard. I release my fisted hold, whip my arm around Arkyn’s neck, and squeeze.
His voice tapers into a choked gurgle as he writhes and bucks against me, then jolts.
I feel a sudden blow to my gut, like he just thrust his hand back and landed a blind punch. For a split moment, I think that’s all it is.
A punch.
Until I’m hit with the familiar flare of warm, stabbing pain. Register the foreign object now lodged in my abdomen.
I roar, about to loosen my hold on his beast—to free my other hand and risk falling into the flaming nether to snap Arkyn’s fucking neck—when Rygun hits from the side.
It happens so fast all I see is a hot, cavernous throat and a slash of glinting teeth before he bites down on the Elding Bird to the popping, crunching tune of breaking bones and its shrill, harrowed screech.
Arkyn convulses, choking through a roar while I wrestle to keep him contained, the sound so grieved it bleeds past my hard, vengeful outer shell, plucking something that twinges.
Rygun’s plumed breaths batter my leg as he growls through his messy mouthful, then tucks his wings and careens toward the veiled ground with such plummeting velocity, I realize he has no intention of landing safely.
My heart pitches so hard and fast the world smears into a ruddy blur.
He’s going to drive the Elding Bird straight into the solid, unforgiving ground. Break the beast against it.
Break himself in his desperation to finish this.
I turn, staring deep into his sooty eye as he finally lifts that wall between us, like wrapping his ribs around the most tender part of my soul—exposing me to his side of our shared heart. Usually a chamber of roiling, ruddy flame, it’s now empty, bar a single ember glinting in the gloom.
My throat clenches so hard my next breath chokes.
He’s driven himself to his limit …
This final act is everything he has left …
Rygun’s gaze softens, and through our bond, he urges me to let go. To jump. Save myself. When I don’t respond, he bellows it—like clawed fists pounding against my soul.
I offer him a sad smile. “Aburr—ath tuíl, Rygun.”
We’re in this together.
He snarls through his mouthful, then tosses his body in a mighty shake that loosens my grip on the Elding Bird’s plumage. With a pained cry, I fall away from Rygun with Arkyn still clenched against my chest, screaming for his beast.
The Mists move too quickly between us, and I flex my anger into my hold on the male responsible.
We plunge for a moment. A lifetime.
Rygun strikes the ground first. Though I don’t see it, I hear him roar in unison with the thunderous collision and Bulder’s dredging clamor.
My own impact feels like a slap compared to the pain radiating through our bond, all my breath battering loose as we tumble through the snow and ice. By the time we slow, I’m rippling with so much blood-bubbling fury I’m numb and blind to everything but the sniveling male in my grip.
I land atop Arkyn, knees either side of his ribs, one of his arms pinned. The other claws at me, the ground jolting with another fall that paints the Mists red.
The seismic blast strikes with an orange glow that illuminates every gnarly contour of Arkyn’s half-melted face.
His eyes bulge as he chokes breath, his hand no longer clawing, but raised between us like a shield. “I’m your blood. I’M—”
I snatch his wrist. Slam my palm against his jaw with such might I almost pop his head off his spine.
His eyes flash with fear as he flails with desperate, tensing might, grinding out muffled sounds of distress while he tries to buck me off.
I wonder if he’s seeing Pah, too aware that of us all, I’m the one who bears the most resemblance. Perhaps he even thinks I’m about to pull on our Daga-Mórrk bond and cast him in Rygun’s dragonflame.
But I’m not Pah.
Even if Rygun had any flame to spare, I wouldn’t.
Nor will I gnash words at the Creators until Ignos finally listens, offering him this male’s flesh like he so eagerly offered Raeve’s.
But I will avenge my family and put an end to Arkyn’s misery; the only cure befitting one so irreparably riddled with bloodlust.
My hand tightens around his jaw.
Arkyn’s eyes widen as he blasts another series of sounds against his clenched teeth. Silenced, in the way he silenced me while I watched him burn Raeve to the bone.
“You hurt my love,” I grind out, then release his arm, crunch my hand into a fist, and swing at his face, feeling his cheekbone crater.
He makes a pitched sound that trembles, his hand slashing about, trying to snatch and shove at me. But I’m a mountain of iron will.
Immovable.
“You hurt my daughter.” The words rumble with the ferocity of a growling dragon, and my fist collides with his jaw this time. Strikes so hard his entire face changes shape, blood and teeth spraying as his head tosses.
Another slash and strike of his hand, weaker now.
“You imprisoned my sister.”
Punch.
“Maimed Rygun.”
Punch.
He chokes through a series of gurgling noises while he claws at me with nails too blunt to rip at my skin, legs thrashing, body contorting. Eyes wide and shot, blistering with panic as he no doubt realizes his moments are precious few.
His heartbeats limited.
I’m struck with a pang of pity that reminds me I’m not dead inside.
Let it fester. Let it leech any remaining warmth from my heart before I lift my blood-soaked fist again.
“You are no blood of mine,” I snarl, then punch my knuckles so deep inside his face that his brains mulch free, blood splatting my cheek and chest as I’m struck with the reek of his piss and shit.
Without pause, I crack his neck, then fist his hair and lift. Rip out the dagger he struck me with, using it to slice through his neck in short, slashing drags.
It loosens much slower than Pah’s did, without the help of a serrated edge, the snow stained with a pool of red by the time his upper body finally flops back, still leaking like a faulty spigot.
I drop his head.
The act doesn’t need a moment to sink in. Its claws are already entrenched, wrenching my guts up my throat.
Moons are still striking the ground as I twist to the side and vomit.