Chapter 31
Stay calm, stay calm, just breathe. Don’t think about the fact that a fall from this height would almost certainly break your neck, and the only thing keeping you in the air is your husband’s magic.
“I’ve got you,” Kier murmured against my ear, his arms wrapped around me and my back plastered to his chest. I might have had a death grip on his forearm. I might have left bruises.
Far, far below, the deep woods around Lazankh stretched out, their treetops too dense to spot Cleodora’s elite team, but Cherish said they were there and I trusted her.
“We’ll be visible for a few seconds as we descend,” Kier said loudly enough that the others could hear him. “Shields up.”
Since my shield was a thirty-pound feline and a jaguar, I decided to ignore that advice.
The stone of power was cool against my skin beneath my flexible leather jacket, though, and I remembered the way it lit up when I used the sword.
What power could I channel through this? Hopefully I wouldn’t have to find out.
The tens of thousands of soldiers lining up outside our home meant that was a very optimistic hope. For that reason, I’d brought the sword too. It might have little power now, but it was sharp and pointy and capable of killing a goblin. Or a human.
That thought made me queasy, so I avoided it, and avoided the memories of all the humans I’d already killed. Even if they deserved it. Valour’s low rumble within me firmly agreed.
Kier waited until the clouds shifted, and his dragon—who didn’t have a name, for some inane reason—rode it down through the sky, trying to use its fluffy substance to hide.
Moisture hit my face, dripping from the end of my braid.
Nobody told me clouds were so wet. I was distracted long enough for Kier’s dragon to pump its—his?
—wings and drive us towards the tree canopy.
“Hold on,” Kier commanded a millisecond before we hit the branches.
“To what?” I yelled, nothing in front of me except scales of rich, shimmering magic.
Kier’s arms turned to iron around me, keeping me upright as the dragon tipped its nose to the ground and whipped a broad, cobalt-blue tail through the trees to clear a path.
It didn’t seem like a sound technique for flying, but what did I know?
Somewhere behind us, Jakoda swore viciously, though not nearly as much as Aerona cursed when we told her she’d be staying behind the walls, safely ensconced within Lazankh. This was too risky to allow a fifteen-year-old to ride with us, and the memory of losing Zaugustus was too raw.
The landing was as abrupt as our sudden descent, and I grunted at the impact that whipped through my neck, my arms, my stomach.
“Ugh this feels like that time I crashed the cart in Periwyn,” I groaned.
“You told me the wheel fell off,” Jakoda huffed behind us, sliding down the dragon’s scaled side, her boots thumping into the twig-strewn path below.
“It did,” I replied, my stomach shooting into my throat when Kier’s hands found my waist. He lifted me off the dragon’s back, throwing me carelessly to the ground to die a horrible, grisly death.
Okay, fine, passing me down to Rook who was already waiting to catch me, but it felt careless and grisly.
“Because I crashed it,” I panted, waiting for the jellified shakes to leave my limbs.
“Here,” Kier said, suddenly closer. I was passed from one warm body to another, the strong arms that banded around me instantly recognisable, safe. “I’ve got you.”
“He’s a very pretty dragon,” I panted, throwing my arm out to pat the warm, blue scales, “but I thought I was going to die.”
“She,” Kier corrected.
I lifted my head from his chest to look at his creature and found her watching me with pale sky eyes. “That explains why you’re so pretty. And probably why you didn’t drop me. Much obliged.”
“I knew you were crazy, Letta, but talking to a bit of magic?” Ryvan remarked. “You know they only have the personalities we imprint upon them, right?”
The dragon’s stare snapped to Ryvan and narrowed.
“No, you can’t eat him,” I chided her with a sigh, feeling stronger, less likely to collapse into a heap on the ground. “He’s a friend.”
The look she shot at me was dubious, skeptical.
“Very sure. No eating.”
She sighed, her cool breath rippling our clothes.
I pulled out of Kier’s arms—with effort, and a kiss for bribery—and surveyed our new collection of people.
Most of my troupe were here, minus Aerona.
Xiona stayed behind to oversee the extra shields being added to the wall, but Rook was here with an arsenal of potions, as well as Fiarron, a tall, pale man I suspected he had history with (a whole wealth of lingering glances, and Fiarron stood a little too close to be considered polite.)
Rounding out our group were the dark-skinned woman from the council who’d scaled the watchtower in her heels and Nidash, a halfling man with golden-brown skin, flowing black hair, a perfect smile, and a shit-tonne of necklaces. Almost as many as Hames had rings.
Cherish lifted her arm just as a sapphire gleam blurred through the dense leaves, a hawk landing on her forearm in a flutter of feathers, all the gems on her necklace alive with magic. “Most of the elite team I saw are still in the same position, but one broke away. I lost track of them.”
“We’ll find them,” I assured her, resting my hand on my sword, giving Baby a slight nudge to encourage him to leap from my ring. He did so with a jaw-cracking yawn, and sank into a deep stretch on the forest floor.
Aw, sorry baby, were you sleeping?
His slow-blink told me he wasn’t mad.
“They can’t have got far,” I finished, giving Cherish a slight smile. “We were only in the air for—”
“Oh, no longer than fifteen minutes, I’d say,” the voice of my nightmares interrupted. Ice dumped into my bond with Kier, swiftly followed by red-hot rage.
I spun, drawing my sword. Baby had already leapt in front of me with a vicious hiss, but we both faltered at the sight of Cleodora in one of those frilly confections of a dress with a ragged-edged knife at Kier’s throat. “How the fuck did you sneak up on us?”
Were there more traitors among us? One of the council, or Rook’s ex? I refused to entertain the thought of more of my friends betraying us; it hurt too much.
A smile softened Cleodora’s face, but there was no hiding the smugness in her eyes. “My new husband told me about Kier’s blind spot. All these years later, and you still leave your left side open.” She tutted.
Oh goody, our two worst enemies were newlyweds.
Kier went still, all the rage wiped out of his soul like a candle snuffed, and horror seeped into its place.
Kill her, I ordered Baby, tightening my grip on the sword and diving for the monster who held my husband’s lift at her blade’s edge.
“Ah-ah-ah,” she taunted. “One more movement, and my knife might just… slip.” She angled her face to say something we couldn’t hear to him.
The thin line of blood that welled on Kier’s throat made me erupt, but I reined myself in, my arms trembling with the arrested movement. I lowered the sword’s tip a fraction, my heart pounding. We were surrounded by people with immense magic, the most powerful in Lazankh; surely someone could—
A blue streak raced at Cleodora’s side, so fast that it had to be a creature, magic. One of Cherish’s hawks? Or something Hames kept in one of those many rings.
The sight of it was like a trigger, and I wasn’t the only person darting forward, frantic to get to Kier.
Rook was right beside me, Ryvan on his other side.
I was close enough to grasp Kier’s hand now, close enough to push Cleodora’s blade aside, to see it was made up of tiny braided filaments of emerald power, close enough to realise it wasn’t magic that slammed into her, but Cherish herself.
Pure fire radiated from her face, rage like a living flame in her golden eyes.
Jakoda sprinted for her, as white as a sheet. She opened her mouth to snap, to call her a foolish girl or a reckless child. Instead, what emerged was a howling scream.
I grabbed Kier when Cleodora’s knife dipped, relief like a punch to the gut.
There was a thin line of blood on his throat, but he was intact, and that blinding glow that fell over us was his dragon surging towards us to defend him.
He was alive. But we needed to retreat now.
Fuck taking out the elite team; we needed to get back behind the walls.
“Kier,” I gasped, grabbing at his shoulders with unsteady hands as adrenaline charged through my body.
My voice was drowned out by Jakoda’s screaming.
I didn’t want to know why she was screaming.
Couldn’t bear to look beyond my husband’s flat, dead eyes.
“Kier,” I repeated, my soul surging into his.
I hissed at the cold, frozen lake on the other side.
Shit. What the hell did the queen say to him?
“Cherish!” Hames roared, his guttural voice piercing the ringing in my ears as Jakoda’s scream fell suddenly, deadly silent. I didn’t want to look, to see, to know. I couldn’t bear it. Not again. I dug my fingernails into Kier’s shoulders, trembling, barely aware when Cleodora turned towards us.
I had a split second to nudge Kier behind me towards where Rook, Khali, and Nidash raced towards us, the latter two aglow with so much magic I could barely make out their faces.
“You don’t get to hurt him again,” I snarled at Cleodora, angling my sword up, hatred boiling in my heart, my stomach churning, tighter with every pass. Why did Jakoda scream? Why did Hames roar Cherish’s name? What had happened to my friend?
Baby threw himself at the Greenheart queen’s leg at the same moment Valour burst into the air, guarding Kier with a low, threatening snarl, her lips curled back.
I was so prepared to defend Kier that when Cleodora’s hand snapped out, green vines ensnaring the crossguard of my sword, I nearly lost it.