Chapter 37
VARIDIAN
Kamaal and I exchanged a single glance, then a nod.
We would follow the wyverns and crush them between our legions before they could reach their next target.
They were a threat we wouldn’t allow to live, not after Wyfell, Tourlestyn, and now Strava and Morysen.
I hadn’t seen what became of the town where Ameirah was raised, but rumour said smoke rose in multiple thick, grey columns.
What lies above here? The lightning soul asked, the first words she’d spoken in hours.
Woodsurn, I replied, picturing the terrain. Fallow Gate. Then above that, the wall. On the other side, they could reach Orvynna in Kalder.
Fallow Gate, she echoed. There’s an access point into Kalder?
There used to be. It’s been fortified for decades. Every now and then we got rogue threats crossing the wall there, but it was guarded day and night by both a legion and ground warriors.
But someone could still gain access to the wall there.
Yes. I frowned, pushing my knee into Mak’s side to guide him after that dark legion. Why?
There is something you should know. Something I hoped wouldn’t be necessary to tell you. The wall wasn’t built after the war, as you were led to believe. Only a handful of people knew, and all are dead.
Knew what? I bit out, scanning the sky, my heart thumping my ribs even as I tried to calm it.
The wall was built by Zalaam warriors when they realised they would lose the war after a slew of defeats in battle. None of my kin ever knew why, only that they hurried to build it. I think it was to contain something. To hide it.
I stared at the wall that towered over everything this close to the border. You’re telling me the Wall of Hydaran is Zalaam made and protects something so important to them they built a wall so we didn’t discover it.
I hoped we were wrong. But there’s been too much activity near the wall. The emissary said people were missing on the other side. Tigers, too. If the dark magic hidden by the wall has claimed them…
More enemies. Just what we needed.
I glanced over my shoulder at where Ameirah flew at the tail of our formation, a slight knot easing from my chest at the sight of her.
Her eyes blazed with ferocity, visible even from here, and there was something so satisfying about seeing her in the crimson and vipers of House Marrakchi.
Something even more satisfying knowing what spilled over her skin beneath those leathers.
I would never send her away again, could never send her away again. Not only because it had made everything worse, or because I could barely survive without her, but because she’d proven she was deadly in a fight; we needed her. I needed her.
“Varidian,” Zaarib shouted, Dahab’s golden nose nudging forward, until we flew side by side. “There’s a rider at the head,” he said, pointing at the enemy legion. “Look at him.”
I did as he bid me, ignoring the ripple of unease in my gut as I assessed the wings blotting out the sky.
I saw the rider, straight-backed on a wyvern at the head of the formation.
Broad shoulders stretched the dark leather he wore, and his tight black curls were tied at the base of his neck, golden skin visible.
There wasn’t one thing I could single out as familiar, and yet it nagged at me.
I knew this man. And worse, I knew exactly who he was.
“Burhan,” I said. Zaarib nodded, his expression tightening at the suspicion confirmed.
“What do we do?”
What did we do about the man who trained us in wyvern flight and combat, now leading a legion of our enemy up the wall? I sighed, the heavy weight of decision-making familiar even if it wasn’t easy to carry.
I signalled to my legion, to Kamaal and Silverstorm, and we dipped below the treeline, landing hastily while the two brothers of his legion remained above, tracking the dark wyverns.
On the ground, I laid out a brief plan and simple orders, and we were airborne again in minutes. The tension that had hovered over us all morning tightened until my chest hurt, but I didn’t let it show.
Within minutes, we were upon them. Fyrevein drove in from the right while Silverstorm hammered from the left.
Amr, my brother’s warrior, froze the wings of the creatures closest to Burhan, and I fought a shudder as the temperature plunged.
Ice crystals crawled over scales, startling the wyverns enough that their tight formation scattered.
Taking advantage of their panic, Nabil threw his magic in a brutal strike, shattering frozen wings on impact.
It was almost too easy to use the shock to sweep in and separate Burhan from his legion.
I braced for the impact when Mak slammed his tail into the jade green wyvern Burhan rode.
Not the dark grey he’d flown when he trained us.
The Zalaam queen had corrupted him somehow, had made him into a dark warrior, the same way she tainted araethawn people.
We brought him down just as the path that wound towards Fallow Gate came into view.
“Aliah,” I yelled. “Rally the guard from the gate.”
She peeled off, Habiba flying as fast as an arrow for the nearby gate, for the backup we badly needed.
In minutes, we’d followed Burhan to the ground, forced to fly single file as the mountains grew closer, thrusting sharp spears into the sky. I fixed my stare on my old training officer as Amr’s ice magic crawled across the wings of his wyvern.
I could roast him, Mak offered. One blast of fire and he’d be toasty. And no longer a problem.
I want to know what the fuck he’s doing here. We need to question him.
And if he’s a traitor…
Then you can roast him.
A rumble moved through Mak’s chest as he tucked his wings in, falling like a star from the sky with his full attention on the jade wyvern.
When we landed, meeting the rocky ground so fast that a yell of reproach blasted from my chest—and Mak vibrated with laughter—Burhan was already stumbling away from the jade wyvern.
The glare on his face was familiar from a hundred training sessions, and I couldn’t deny that this felt wrong as both legions landed on the rocks, surrounding him from the rocky path to the ridge that jutted out from the closest mountain.
He was supposed to be one of us, not on the other side of a dark war.
He had no wings, not like the creatures we saw in the swarm over Torn Isle.
But as I dismounted and stalked closer, Ameirah reaching my side so quickly she must have run, my heart missed a beat when I got a better look at Burhan’s face.
His eyes were black from edge to edge, and dark veins spilled down his cheeks.
“What the hell are we doing?” Ameirah hissed, glancing up when Shula fell in on her right, Nabil and Zaarib beside me.
My brother’s legion approached from the other side, enclosing the man who I’d trusted just this morning.
I even wrote to him to ask for his assistance when I sent letters to all the commanders I knew.
“Questioning him,” I replied, giving my wife and mate a once-over and finding only confusion edged with determination.
“We’re miles from Shyra,” she pointed out. “This will slow us down. And mean we lose that dark legion.”
“He leads that dark legion,” I said quietly. “And once, he led Zaarib and I.”
Her eyes widened, then turned hard. “And now his eyes are black and he flies with the Zalaam wyverns.” She brushed her gloved hand over mine. “If you can’t do what needs to be done, I will.”
The thought put a lump in my throat, but I nodded. This wasn’t the Burhan I knew, even if that was his face and even the way he moved was familiar. Every movement had purpose and power, even with his eyes pitch black and corruption visible on his face.
“Varidian, Zaarib,” he greeted when we came within two meters of each other, stopping as if an invisible demarcation line cut through the rocky ground between us. So he knew who we were and was capable of rational thought.
“Strange company you keep,” I remarked, barely able to crush the rage out of my voice. “Where are you flying to?”
Burhan smiled, lips tugged back to show teeth too thin and plentiful. The sharp, needle teeth of a fish. “I don’t answer to legion commanders who I outrank.”
If he took orders from the king, he might think his actions were on behalf of Ithanys. “King Bakshi is dead,” I told him, my voice as flat as I could muster. “Did you hear?”
His smile remained. “I heard. But we answer to no king, only the queen and church.”
“The church,” Zaarib hissed, jerking forward a step. I caught the back of his jacket, digging my fingers into the leather. “You mean the zealots who mass-slaughtered innocents at Wyfell? Who burned Strava and collapsed the mines at Tourlestyn? Is that your fucking church?”
Burhan was unmoved. “You can’t see the bigger picture, boy. Everything has happened as it was meant to happen. There have been tragic losses, but soon, there will be greatness and liberation.”
“From who?” Ameirah’s voice went through me like a lightning charge.
I had to press my mouth flat, had to swallow down words.
As terrified as I was that she drew his attention instead of staying quiet, safe, I wouldn’t repeat mistakes.
My wife wasn’t a woman to be sent away, and if fear was the price I had to pay to keep her with me, I would choke down my gut reaction and bear that fear. “Liberate us from who?”
“Not who. What.” Burhan considered her, his stare probing deep enough that I growled.
Behind us, every wyvern in our legion echoed the warning.
Not just Mak and Raheema—everyone. “There is an imbalance in Ithanys. For too long, warriors have fought for gentry who cloister themselves in their glittering cities, sheltered from the slaughter. Who dictate who can and cannot bond a wyvern, leaving most of the poor and non-gentry defenceless.”
“So you decided to bring the slaughter to them?”
“Our queen and church will share power with everyone. We will be equal, each one of us valued—”
“Power,” Ameirah scoffed, throaty and raw. “I’m tired of hearing men speak of the power they crave.”
Movement drew my eye to the mountain, to Habiba descending carefully on wing and claw, not exactly conspicuous with her wine-red scales.
“The king was desperate for power, too,” Ameirah said, stalking forward two steps.
I released Zaarib, the bond gripping my chest and dragging me after her, as if I wouldn’t have followed her without the compulsion.
“He had my mother killed for it, had me conceived for it—all in his great pursuit of power.”
Her sneer was a thing of beauty, the hatred in her voice powerful in its own right. I didn’t look away from her, even if I was aware that Kamaal’s legion drew closer.
“You’re attempting to herd me closer to the wyvern descending the mountain face,” Burhan remarked, his black eyes light with amusement. “There’s no tactic or strategy that I don’t know.”
And that was an issue. If the queen had filled her ranks of commanders—and he had to be a commander, to lack the dark wings Ameirah saw illustrated in the journal—with military officers possessing clever minds and decades of experience, there would be no way to out-manoeuvre them.
I flicked a signal to Aliah, and Habiba launched off the mountain face, aiming claws, talons, and teeth at my old training officer. Instead of drawing a sword or racing for his wyvern, he reached into a pocket and withdrew something small and metallic.
“What is that?” Shula yelled, grabbing Ameirah’s arm and tugging her back.
“A whistle,” I said with a frown, giving a silent command to fall back.
Kamaal, on the other hand, gestured his legion forward.
I spiralled down into my magic as silver light erupted from Kamaal, frost dropping the temperature as Amr skidded across the stone towards my old training officer.
Trying to stop him blowing the whistle he lifted to his mouth, because no good could come of it—
Ameirah shrieked and threw her hands over her head. I spun to catch her just as her legs gave way.
“Get that thing off him,” I snarled, drawing Ameirah away, my heart racing as pain cleaved through her soul into mind. “Ameirah, look at me, dearling.”
Her cry of pain faded, but only because she clamped her lips together, fingers digging into my leathers as I pulled her further from Burhan, behind the line of our wyverns. Raheema’s head thrust towards us, silver eyes round with worry.
“It feels like,” Ameirah said through gritted teeth, “my head is being ripped apart. I can’t shut it out. I can’t—” The stiffness left her body at once and she sucked in a breath, leaning against me. The sharp lance of pain left our bond, but it echoed, like scars left behind. “It’s gone.”
Cold made me shudder as I glanced back towards Burhan, finding Amr with his scarred hands around the man’s throat, ice crawling up his face.
It was a brutal way to die, and I looked away before I could see the killing blow, even if I knew how it would form: spikes of ice driven through each eye into his brain.
Ameirah stroked my back, as if I was the one who’d experienced such blinding pain.
Habiba launched for Burhan’s wyvern, driving it into the ground. Dahab jumped forward and helped her pin it to the ground as Aliah’s magic wrapped the creature like a shroud of mist. In seconds, it was dead.
“This fucking thing,” Shula snarled, her boots smacking the stone underfoot like she was punishing the mountain itself. “There’s a dark thread of magic attached to it. Feels the same way those wyverns do.”
Ameirah held out her hand, but I snapped my hand up to claim it first, unable to stand the thought of her touching it. Yet it was only metal in my hand, silver and cold. I felt what Shula mentioned, the curl of magic wound around it, but it was no legendary weapon, no deadly artifact.
“He must have thought it would save him,” Ameirah murmured, frowning at the whistle in my hand.
“Varidian,” Aliah panted, running towards us, aether still streaming from her fingertips. “The guardians of the Fallow Gate were all killed. Their bodies have long cooled.”
I straightened, biting back a curse.
“And there are others across the wall, on the other side. Wyvern, most without riders, but there were twenty I counted with.”
“How many riderless?” I asked, slipping into a cool, distant place within myself. A place where there was no panic, no emotion.
“Thousands,” Aliah breathed. “There are thousands of enemy wyverns just on the other side of the wall, and the gate lays wide open.”
And as if to punctuate it, a thunderous beat sounded, synchronised and loud enough to drown out Shula’s hissed curse.
Wings. Thousands of them.