Chapter 30
AMAIA
“Amaia,” Syris gasped out when she saw me, relief in her eyes. “Help me with the eggs—we have to bring them down.”
“Down where?” I asked, already going to a Rythback egg, its glittering shell hard beneath my touch.
Syris was in her nightdress. The incubation door was open to the main hallway, and I saw Ulin race down it, could hear Tarkosh giving orders.
“There’s a cellar in the kitchens,” she told me. “Hidden.”
I nodded. I didn’t ask any more questions, not until the eggs were to safety.
I felt a strange sense of calm overtake me.
I had a purpose. And while I worried about Alaryk, about what could possibly be attacking Grymia, I knew that he would be safe.
My priority was the hatchlings, getting them secure. Then I would figure out what came next.
Even still, I felt my magic rise around me like a simmering veil, at the ready. Such a strange, new thing, but I felt more comfortable with it around me.
Syris gasped when she looked over. “Amaia, your eyes…”
“Ignore it,” I told her. “Here.”
I passed her the Rythback egg, and she tucked it into a satchel, one likely insulated since I saw glowing starstone fragments nestled at the base.
The light of my heartstone magic—glowing in my eyes—illuminated the incubation room in the darkness.
But after Syris’s initial surprise, she paid it no mind, and we quickly gathered the remaining eggs, placing each one, carefully insulated in one of the enclosed satchels, in the hallway, where Ulin was transporting them down to the cellar.
Working together, we got the incubation room cleared out.
“Where’s Moak?” I asked.
“Getting the hatchlings down with Tarkosh.”
I nodded. I followed her to the kitchens, seeing Moak with a leash and chain around Kyr, trying to get him down the stairs of the hidden hatch that had been covered up by a rug.
“Kyr,” I rasped. When he saw me, he stopped fighting against Moak, prowling toward me instead. He was too big to carry, even for Moak, who seemed relieved to see me, handing me the leash and chain.
“Get him down—he’s the last one,” he told me.
“Where are you going?” Syris demanded when she regarded Moak.
“Down to the village,” he said, squeezing her arm as he passed. “Ulin will stay behind.”
“You’re not a rider, Moak,” Syris argued. “Leave it to them. Come down with us.”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her.
She stared at the door after Moak went through it, leaving just the two of us—well, three, including Kyr—in the kitchen.
“He’ll be fine,” I assured her, guiding her down the stairs. “Come on.”
Kyr followed me down without a fight, his bulk making him clumsy as he navigated the stairs.
Down below, Tarkosh was lighting oil lamps, illuminating the small barren space.
There was a rack of shelves pressed against one wall.
Old provisions, I saw, along with barrels of water and dried hatchling feed.
Ulin had lined up the remaining eggs, warm in their insulated satchels, along the wall.
And there was chaos with the hatchlings themselves, all running around, climbing the stone.
“What’s going on?” I asked when I got Kyr down. He was settled, however, staying by my side, thankfully, and not exploding with energy. “What’s happening?”
“Two wild Elthika formations converging over the village,” Tarkosh told me. “A lot of them. They’ve already burned most of the cropland.”
My belly squeezed. How was that possible? “Burned?”
“There’s a Redback among them. At least one. They breathe fire.”
“Not ethrall?” I asked, confused, my mind swimming. I didn’t know such a thing was even possible.
“Only Vyrins have ethrall,” Ulin corrected me, wrestling one of the hatchlings away from the shelving.
“Redbacks are rare, but they’re only here in the Arsadia.
They can’t fly very long distances, so luckily they can’t cross into our other territories.
That’s why we have this cellar. This stone,” he said, knocking his knuckles against the walls, “won’t burn.
When Grymia was built, there were Redbacks all over this territory.
Most of the dwellings are made of this stone. ”
I still know nothing at all, I realized.
“I have to go back out there,” I said.
Tarkosh looked at my sharply. “No, Alaryk would want you down here.”
“People could be hurt,” I said, determination rising. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Her lips pressed together.
“If I’m needed, I can help,” I said, handing Kyr’s chain to Syris, “but I won’t know that if I’m down here.”
Syris looked worried. “Wild Elthika are unpredictable, Amaia. What if you get hurt?”
“Luckily I’m more resilient than anyone I know,” I answered, giving her a quick quirk of my lips. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll go too,” Tarkosh said, squeezing Syris’s shoulder as she passed. “There could be injured Elthika.”
“Be careful,” my friend said, inclining her head. “Both of you.”
When Tarkosh and I got to the top of the stairs, she said, “Close that. I’ll see you down there—I have to get my supplies.”
“Right,” I breathed, not watching as she sprinted down the hallway, firmly tugging on the hatch door until the hinges squealed.
The door was heavy, made of the same stone.
Fireproof. Knowing they were safe—the eggs, the hatchlings, my friends—I ran out of the hatchery and immediately smelled the smoke.
I skittered to a stop, dread settling deep in the pit of my stomach when I saw the battle in the sky.
Elthika, flashes of talons and scales, locked together, a twisted tangle in the sky. Some I recognized, even in the darkness. Some had riders on their backs.
“Gods,” I whispered, scanning the sky desperately for Alaryk and Samryn as I began to run toward the landing field. The croplands were on fire in the distance, illuminating the night in a dangerously orange glow, shadows deepening, ash swirling like mist. “Kakkari, save us all.”
The smoke was acrid and bitter, and my lungs were pumping full of it as I sprinted. There was an Elthika down in the landing field, lying on their side, a stream of Karag all around them. Hurt? I wondered. Or dead?
My legs pumped harder until I was gasping. Overhead, I heard a whistling scream, the flash of an orange Elthika, the likes of which I’d never seen, and I watched in horror as a stream of fire billowed from its jaw, aimed directly at another Elthika flying toward it.
The heat was searing. Luckily the other Elthika dove, swirling in the air, escaping the fire. Myzalla, I saw, recognizing her Elthika and her dark figure on its back. But she had it under control, and I heard the impact her Elthika made as it careened into what I could only assume was a Redback.
Where is Alaryk? I thought, looking for the merest glimpse of Samryn in the sky, my head swinging. As I neared the landing field, more Karag were milling around, the sound louder as they rushed buckets of water forward, trying to put out the floating embers from the farmlands.
I saw a familiar figure.
“Brune,” I gasped out, racing toward him.
His face was smeared in ash, but there was determination lined in his expression as he passed a bucket to the next person, more Karag villagers making a line that funneled its way down toward the croplands.
“Trying to save the grain field and livestock pasture,” he gasped out, hacking up a cough through the smoke. “There’s a chance. The Elthika, Amaia.” He jerked his chin toward the landing field. “They’re hurt. Go.”
I sprinted away, nearly running into a familiar Karag, who took the bucket from Brune. The male who’d spat at my feet today.
The landing field was close, and by the time I reached it, I was panting hard.
Even more chaos exploded here. Elthika were battling above us.
I could hear the snapping jaws, the terrible sound of scales meeting scales, the scratch of talons, and the screams of fire.
The Grymian healer—Raran—was kneeling over a prone rider, wrapping his arm in a bandage to stop the bleeding from a large gash.
When Raran saw me, she pointed to a large Elthika on the far end of the field. “The bleeding won’t stop. Can you help him?”
I nodded, racing to him, drawing my magic up. It was fed by my sheer determination, my need to help these creatures.
Villagers were surrounding him, climbing up to keep cloths—anything, really—pressed to a deep gash along his side, to keep him from bleeding out onto the earth. But they all backed away when the glow of my eyes illuminated them all.
They gave me space, and when my magic spread over the panting Elthika the healer had directed me to—one with black scales tipped in silver, a Rythback—I felt it flood. It poured out from me, as if before I’d only controlled a mere trickle and now it was a rushing river.
As I did with Samryn, I looked for a way inside, my magic crawling up the rivulets in his scales, little rivers and pathways, all following the blood that was dripping.
When I dove into the wound, the ache and weakness hit me like a wall…and yet it was nothing compared to Samryn’s curse.
I can do this, I thought, determined. Even without Alaryk’s aid.
I didn’t know how long I worked on the Elthika, envisioning a weave of thread, looping my magic back and forth to close it, just as my mother would do as a seamstress.
I did this though, all around me, I felt the heat of a Redback’s fire, narrowly missing another Elthika’s body in the sky, knowing that at any moment, it could aim its weapon at us on the ground instead, incinerating us where we stood.
While I heard the terrible screeches and animalistic groans as the Elthika of Grymia defended themselves against the wild packs.
And then, there in the sky, I saw the familiar red of Samryn’s scales, flashing in the fire’s light.
He appeared to glow, like a beacon in the night.
And Alaryk was on his back, a dark shadow, locked into a riding position as Samryn swooped and veered, hunting down a large wild Elthika whose scales shimmered blue.
My magic slipped as worry rammed into my chest, but I shook myself, focusing back on the Elthika before me, whose wound had finally stopped bleeding. The flesh beneath the scales—which had been ripped away—closed like a scar.
I blew out a breath when it was finished, stumbling back when my vision swayed. A Karag male caught me, holding tight onto my arms as I blinked away the ache, though it lodged itself deep into my insides.
“You all right?” the male asked, his voice hushed and hurried, his red eyes bright in the night, like Samryn’s.
“Fine.”
“Amaia,” called a familiar voice. Tarkosh. She was huddled over another female rider, who’d been dragged in from the outer fields.
Though my legs were still wobbly, I raced over, skidding to the ground, my magic already rising, a warm ball that I spun outward when I saw shredded flesh on the rider’s leg, white bone peeking from the wound.
Nausea rose. I’d never seen anything so terrible, but I swallowed down the flood of saliva, closing my eyes, Tarkosh’s presence beside me as she comforted the moaning rider helping to center me.
I heard the gasps from a few other huddled Karag. Time had stretched and slowed in my mind, but I knew what I would find when I opened my eyes. I was weaker than before, a sharp sting throbbing down my own leg, mirroring the rider’s injury.
Smooth skin greeted me, the rider’s gaze one of disbelief. Her eyes flashed up to mine.
“Th-Thank you.”
I’d only healed two…and already my stamina was waning. These were deep wounds, though, and one had been Elthikan.
And I was still needed. I would use my heartstone magic until I collapsed.
Alaryk could help take away the rising pain, I knew, but he needed to defend his people, his outpost. And when I saw another Elthika—and its rider—fall to the earth halfway between the cropland and the landing field, I knew I had to push through.
There was no choice.
I took off running.