Chapter 11
WHAT IN THE BLIZZARD IS GOING ON?
The world spun, the blizzard tearing at my skin like a thousand icy papercuts as we rushed toward the ground.
“Raja!” Kalani cried.
Whoosh!
Raja’s wings flared, and my stomach dipped as we leveled off for a beat before landing with a jarring jolt that rattled my bones. Ice swirled around us, thickening by the second.
Raja whinnied softly, falling forward on his knees.
We clambered off, and Kalani rushed to examine him. The snow beneath him was stained crimson, his side ripped open as if someone had taken a serrated blade and run it down his body. He looked up at Kalani with glassy eyes before keeling onto his wounded side.
“No. No!” Kalani threw herself onto him. “Raja, please no.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, eyes welling at the sight of the widening patch of smoking crimson beneath the chaysavar.
The beat of epic wings rose over the howling of the storm, and lethal shadows circled above. Fuck. The blizzard provided temporary cover, but who knew how long that would last?
I shouted over the raging storm, “Kalani. We need to get out of the open before the blizzard clears and they see us.” I reached for her, but she shook me off, stumbling away from me and Raja’s deathly still form.
My heart shrank at the devastation on her face, but the next moment, her expression smoothed out. Cold. Determined. She nodded once, indicated for me to follow, then broke into a jog.
I matched her stride, the snow sucking at my boots making me work hard for each step. A rock face peeked out at us from between flurries of snow. Hopefully we could find a cave or a nook to shelter in.
Were the nagrata still above us?
A horrific roar tore through the howl of the wind, and the earth shook as a nagrata landed, blocking our path to potential shelter.
We spun to head the other way.
Thud.
The second nagrata landed in our path, spraying us with snow.
We skidded to a halt, gazes locking, my panic echoed in her eyes.
The nagratas’ chests bloomed bright blue through the flurries of snow.
Kalani slammed into me, driving us out from between the beasts and knocking us into the snow. The world blazed electric blue behind her.
Fire.
Blue fucking fire.
“Up!” Kalani grabbed at me, and I scrambled to my feet, pulse galloping like a wildebeest. We ran deeper into the whiteout, the thunder of pursuit at our backs. Rage-fueled roars echoed around us.
Where the fuck were we going? Which direction? My only point of reference was Kalani’s dark figure. With a mournful wail, the storm took that from me, swallowing her whole.
“Kalani!” The wind tore her name from my lips and swallowed that too.
Fuck.
I ran, legs and arms pumping, the tremors beneath my boots intensifying, the nagrata’s roar a sonic blast hitting my back.
The world seemed to still, to go on mute, and then the air was sucked out of my lungs.
Alarm bells blared in my head.
I dove to the right, sliding into a snowdrift. Above me, the blizzard sizzled with blue flame. I rolled and pulled myself up, already mid sprint when the blizzard dropped suddenly, taking the veil of protection with it.
A monolith of ebony scales materialized in front of me. I backpedaled and turned to run, only to be faced with a rock wall. Where the fuck had that come from?
I spun back to face the beast as it lowered its massive head and fixed crimson eyes on me.
I didn’t want to hurt it. It was a puppet. Not evil. But I had no choice.
A chilling calm settled over me.
I curled my hands around the hilts of my axes, vision misting with each heavy breath. A rush of heat coursed through me. I drew my blades and ran straight at the nagrata.
The world narrowed down to my blades and the beast’s underbelly.
The only sound was the pounding of blood in my head as I raced toward the only vulnerable spot on this creature.
A shadow fell over me, and I swerved in time to avoid the talon tip of a wing as it smashed into the ground I’d just vacated.
I adjusted trajectory, stubbornly aiming for my target. A blur rushed at me from the left.
Boom!
Air punched me in a full-body smack. Breath evacuated my lungs in a whoosh, and iron filled my mouth. My boots left the ground, the world flipping upside down as my ears rang, shrill and pure.
I hit the earth, shoulder first, sliding through the snow like a fucking sledge. A band of white-hot pain circled my body and squeezed violently. Electric pulses of agony synced with my heartbeat.
The world blinked into focus, sound rushing back in. I sucked in a breath, and an inferno flared beneath my ribs, denying me the oxygen I needed. I dropped an axe and clutched for my side, a thin high-pitched scream bursting free as pain dug its claws into me with renewed vigor.
Fuck. Fuck. Breath wheezed in and out, my vision darkening as the incessant vise squeezed my torso, determined to crush me, then released suddenly. My ribs sprang back into place with a sickening pop.
I sucked in air like it was going out of fashion, rolling to my feet and away from the trench the nagrata’s tail had bored into the snow.
My right arm throbbed, the whole sleeve torn. The skin beneath was smeared with blood, bruised but otherwise unmarred.
I was healing.
How the fuck was I healing?
Focus, Leela. I snatched up the axe that I’d just dropped. How had I kept hold of them when I was hit? Shock? Reflex. It didn’t matter.
Nagrata.
Underbelly.
Go!
I released a battle cry and ran at the beast in a zigzag pattern.
Its chest blazed blue. I pushed harder, picking up space, closing the distance between us to get close enough to be safe from the incoming eruption.
Hot air beat at my back as the world lit up behind me, and my blade found a home, driving through thick skin to lodge deep enough to draw blood.
“Yah!” I yanked it back in a swiping motion, opening a foot-long wound.
The nagrata screeched, its body twisting.
A gust smacked me in the face. I dropped and rolled, my heart leaping into my mouth as talons cut the air inches from my face. I pushed up and ran straight at its belly again, but it leapt into the air, wings flaring and blocking out the sun.
Whump.
Whump.
Whump.
It hovered above me, its belly burning bright blue. With no blizzard to blind it and no cover to shield me, I was a sitting duck.
My heart sank, but I turned and ran anyway. Like hell would I stand there and wait to be roasted alive.
Heat bloomed behind me, and my stomach clenched, my whole body bracing as I picked up speed. Maybe I could outrun it. Maybe—
My boot hit something. I tripped, fell onto my palms, then flipped onto my ass in time to see lethal blue flame hurtling toward me.
The air hissed as it was pulled from my body.
Would it hurt?
A sharp crack like a gunshot ripped the air, and a figure appeared in front of me. C’ael stood, his back to me, arms out. The flames rushed over us and around us, leaving us unscathed.
“Get up!” he called over his shoulder. “Get up and be ready to run! Aim for the rock face to your left.”
I leapt up, thighs bunching.
The blue winked out. “Now!” he yelled.
I ran, the heat of adrenaline numbing pain and loaning me strength. The rock face loomed. I was almost there.
The air crackled with the telltale sound of another fire blast, and the next moment, a nagrata landed to my far right.
Blue lit up the periphery of my vision. I screamed.
But the flame didn’t hit me because C’ael was beside me, scooping me into his arms as waves of fire, now from two nagrata, battered whatever shields he had up.
I clung to him, my gaze locked on his face. The strain of whatever he was doing to protect us was evident in the tightness around his mouth and eyes.
“C’ael…”
“Leela. You must get to the rock face. Find shelter. I’m…I’m sorry. I’m out of energy.”
The fire winked out, and C’ael vanished.
I dropped. My boots slipped as I caught my balance before breaking into a sprint for the rock face. There had to be an aperture, somewhere I could crawl in and hide. Somewhere deep enough to avoid their fire.
Big asks.
Big hopes.
C’ael…What the fuck had happened to him?
I reached the rock face with the nagrata hot on my heels, then swerved to run alongside the cliff, searching for a nook, a hole, anything.
The air crackled again, and the earth trembled.
There was nowhere to hide.
No escape.
I faced my death, my back to the rock face. If I was going down, I’d do it fighting. I drew my axes and ran at the nearest nagrata, a bellow bursting from my lips. No plan, just the raging need to do harm.
Flame lanced toward me, and I swerved to avoid it, heat blasting my face as I kept running toward the beast.
Heat singed my back. I veered left on instinct to avoid the blast of fire.
I was almost on the nagrata when it took to the air.
A sob of frustration clawed up my throat. “Fuck you!”
A hissing sound filled the air, and in the next beat, a dark swirl appeared in front of me. I staggered back, my heart in my mouth as a large male figure ran out of the strange portal. A man with silver hair laced with deep blue and eyes like sapphires.
I was dead.
I had to be dead.
It was the only way he could be here.
How was he here? Was I hallucinating?
Flame lanced toward him.
Hallucinations did not get flambéed. “Watch out!”
Pashim spun and threw up an arm, creating a shield of shimmering water. The fire hit it with a sizzle, spreading outward and dissipating.
Gods, he was here. He was really fucking here. How was this possible?
“Leela. Move!” he ordered.
Weeks of obeying his commands galvanized my limbs into action. I ran toward him, my stupid heart in my mouth, joy exploding in my chest even though we were being attacked by nagrata.
The air behind me spat and rumbled, and I didn’t even give a shit.
Pashim was here.
The fire died, and Pashim drew his sword, spinning away from me and toward the nagrata as I came abreast of him.
“You ready to bring this thing down?” he asked.
“Yes.” The word was breathless, probably because of the hearts in my eyes.
He glanced down at me for a beat, his expression softening a fraction. “Then let’s do it.”
He snagged me around the waist, hauling me against his hard, very real, very alive frame, and then shot a stream of water at the ground, using it to propel us into the air.
“Blades up!” he called.
The nagrata’s belly met our blades, and we dropped with the jet of water, dragging a sharp path down its abdomen and spilling its guts.
Its scream was like needles burrowing in my head. We dropped, but it remained in the air for a beat longer before crashing into a crater of snow and ice.
I looked up into Pashim’s eyes, one palm pressed to his chest, my heart thrashing against my ribs, and for a moment, there was just us. No dead nagrata. No live one barreling toward us.
Nothing but him.
“I know,” he said softly. “Now let’s finish this.” He grinned, wild and wicked, and my pulse kicked up because I knew that look from training. The I’m about to hand your ass to you look, but in this case, we were going to hand the nagrata its own ass, or whatever.
We faced the incoming beast, and I prepared to launch myself at it. The wind began to howl, the blizzard starting up again, but the crimson-eyed nagrata remained focused on me. On ending my life.
It thundered toward us, wings splaying in preparation to take off.
Shit.
Movement in the air above it caught my eye.
Yudh and Dhoona!
They dropped onto its back.
The nagrata stalled, twisting and turning, trying to get a bite out of the brothers.
But the real threat was below it in the form of Kalani. She hurtled across the snow and buried her blade into the nagrata’s belly. Once. Twice. A third time. Her bellow of rage echoed across the distance, through the rising blizzard, striking a sharp clear note in my chest.
Grief.
Loss.
Vengeance.
Raja was dead.
C’ael was gone.
My stomach trembled as the beast keeled over in the snow.
The following silence was deafening, and as if offended by it, the elements rose to fill it with sharp whistling and eerie moans.
My gaze met Pashim’s, joyous warmth bursting in my chest. I bridged the distance between us and fell into his waiting arms, a half sob breaking from my lips as he crushed me to his chest, enveloping me in his familiar scent.
He cupped the back of my head, pressing kisses to my crown. How was he here? How was he alive?
I pulled back to look up at him, questions burning a path up my throat.
“Later,” he said. “Right now, we need to find shelter.”
The others joined us, eyeing Pashim not with wariness but with curiosity. He’d just saved my ass, after all.
“This way,” Kalani shouted over the rising wind. “I found a cave.”
Pashim took my hand, and we followed Kalani through the burgeoning storm.
Later couldn’t come fast enough.