Chapter 5
THE SILVER RIDER
Thurayya’s wings beat the air like thunder as we flew through another storm-drenched night.
Sheets of rain lashed the glimmering grey scales that shifted with every powerful wingbeat, making my seat treacherous.
I tightened my thighs around her back, gripping the dark spike in front of me with rubber gloves as the wind tore at us, as if trying to halt our flight.
The hood of my silver cloak thrashed with every rapid gust, but I sat low over her back and endured the cold.
I was glad I’d tied my hair into a knot, and even more grateful for the thick leathers that covered me from head to toe, the exact pearly shade of dyed hide carefully selected so as to not visibly belong to any of the great Houses of Ithanys.
I was content to put myself in danger, but implicating an innocent family was unthinkable, even if I yearned for the white of Naji, my mother’s house.
Night after night Thurayya and I took to the skies, flying from Strava to Basilienn to my ancestral home of Wenton, then deeper into the forested lands and the mountainous regions.
To Flyn and the Fallow Gate. Avoiding the occupied city of Wyfell, we coasted through the dark skies, only the stars and the swollen curve of the moon as our witness.
Tonight, membrane carved through wind and storm to carry us further than ever before, beyond the Wall of Hydaran into the humble mountain villages of Kalder.
It could have been a death sentence, could have easily been my final night in the world, but if I died spreading the warning to save as many people as possible, so be it.
I hadn’t lived my entire life fighting for honour and justice to allow this cancerous darkness to claim my homeland.
Not when I knew so much about where it had begun, where it had planted its dark root, and from where even now its tendrils spread, hooking into more people, growing its twisted legions.
So, Thurayya and I flew over the wall and into enemy territory. If we were to survive this dark battle, this second legendary war, we needed to be united, Kaldic and Ithanysian both. We couldn’t fight a conflict on two fronts.
“Get me as close as you can,” I said, just loud enough to be heard over the wind. The rain was softer here, broken by the wall. I hoped it was still enough to cover our approach, to hide us from those vicious tigers.
Thurayya rumbled caution, but we’d come this far.
Turning back now wasn’t an option. So, we landed on the edge of a mountain, and I leapt down, following its sharp ridge down into the mountain village of Thaern.
And there, under the shadow of the great wall, I gave the same message we’d carried across Ithanys.
The dark queen is back. The Zalaam war never ended, merely slept for a thousand years. The araethawn are rising once more. Raise your protections, ready your warriors, for they are coming, and we will each of us need to fight.