78. Allie
Allie
“No,” Ryker said curtly as Dax cursed up a storm as he tried to balance himself and the huge wings on the narrow ledge.
“Yes.” My heart raced as the poisoned mist rushed through the streets.
The scent of blood and olive trees hooked itself into my brain, screaming at me to pay attention.
My power, already overwhelmed, trembled as the memories flooded my mind.
I gritted my teeth against them.
This wasn’t Sanctua Sirena.
My father was already dead.
Many more would die if I didn’t conquer these echoes from the past threatening to wreck my future.
“They’re only memories,” Ryker’s soothing voice entered my thoughts, clearing the ghosts away. “They can’t hurt you.”
“They can’t hurt me,” I muttered.
“No, but they can hurt plenty of other people,” Dax hissed, oblivious, as he unfurled the wings. “We have to move!”
“But that contraption can hurt you,” Ryker insisted.
I understood his worry, I did.
I would’ve been just as concerned if he planned on jumping off a roof with nothing but canvas and Dax strapped to his back.
But I would rather take my chances with the sky than the poison.
“The mist can hurt you,” I said. “Meet you there, safe and mostly sound.”
“Allie–”
“I promise.”
With a clench of his jaw, Ryker sighed and contorted his back. I only felt the whisper of bones breaking and a sharp pang in my back before he severed the connection to protect me from the brunt of his transformation.
I pulled back the scorching heat of my drained power. A single body, not even one as strong as his, couldn’t withstand that unnatural speed and the blaze echoing from me into his veins.
As he flitted between fallen warriors, pulling them into his arms and vanishing beyond the trees, I called upon the winds to fight the racing fog.
The blue currents swept down onto the streets, clashing with the green poison. For a flash, they melded together in a sickly shade of molding teal.
Then the wind pushed back.
It revealed dozens of Northern corpses, cheeks and limbs already poxed by the poison. The veins on what remained on their faces were raised and had a sickly green tint to them that turned my stomach.
Beren, Lioran, and Edrin had sent them to die and had left them to rot.
The mist fought back, more hisses resounding from beyond the trees.
No amount of rope was helping us get off this roof.
Dax shook the melted wax off his hands, angry red welts coating his fingers after he’d made sure the fortress looked alive and full.
“When I said the fortress needed to be more lively, this wasn’t what I meant,” he grumbled and strapped the wings to his back. The ends of them had dried water stains from the lake, a reminder that this contraption was truly as unsafe as Ryker feared.
He pulled on the leather straps, looking totally prepared to face the sky again and decidedly unsure about it at the same time. “Ready?”
No.
But there were warriors, frightened civilians, and confused trolls who needed my help for the next wave of assault.
I didn’t fool myself that the Northern Clans would back down now, when they had the poison to scare and kill us into submission.
I fisted my palms and let Dax hug me from behind.
“Gods, you’re scalding,” he said.
“Power always has a price,” I muttered.
He looped a large belt around both of our waists, the holes to the buckle already groaning under the strain.
“If we die, you’ll have to face my parents and tell them you killed their daughter,” I said between gritted teeth.
My hands shook as I reached back and gripped the straps on his shoulders.
“I plan to spend my afterlife in peace and quiet, so we’re not dying today.” He inhaled sharply and caged me in his arms. “But if we do die, it’s been a pleasure. Now RUN!”
With that cheerful thought, we sprinted forward, my feet struggling to keep up with his longer gait.
The edge of the roof rushed into view.
My stomach dropped.
My knees froze, like they wanted to detach from my body.
But we weren’t stopping.
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!” I screamed as Dax propelled us from the roof.
For a breath, gravity claimed us and we were cascading toward the ground.
My tendrils snapped forward, trying to grip anything to keep us from being squashed.
The mist flashed closer.
I didn’t close my eyes.
If death would come, I’d greet it.
Suddenly, the wind yanked us up toward the sky.
I screamed again, throat hoarse, lungs hurting.
The leather belt groaned under our weight.
Dax tightened his hold on me.
We both loosed a breath as the damn contraption carried us higher and further.
“It worked.” Dax gulped and let out a startled laugh. “It bleeding worked.”
Sylvester flew right next to us, as if trying to show us how it’s done. I didn’t miss the way his eyes tracked us, as worried as I sensed Ryker was.
I could only see him when he slowed down to retrieve another injured warrior. Then he morphed back into a blur.
I grasped the straps with all my might, feeling weightless and too heavy all at once.
When we neared the tops of the pines, I tucked my knees to my chest, fearful my boot laces might catch in the needles.
Down below, I heard Mrs. Thornbrew’s voice, more high-pitched than ever, but very much alive. “Ry, I can walk and I’ve lived a very long life. Go help those young warriors. Honestly!”
I breathed out a sigh of relief, even as my stomach churned and my legs tingled as I stared down. I kept tensing my back against Dax, instinctually trying to distance myself from the deadly plummet.
“Allie, you need to relax,” Dax ground out, pained. “Your bow is an inch away from piercing my ribs.”
“Sorry. We’re flying.” I let out a choked laugh. “I hate it.”
“Yeah, I think I’m giving up my wings if we survive this,” Dax said.
“No,” I said darkly. “We have to survive.”
From up above, the mayhem was even more appalling.
The mist covered the streets and snaked through the trees, singeing the barks. Nothing could survive it.
But the mangled, decaying bodies left in its wake…those hadn’t been my people, but they were people. With concerned families waiting for them at home.
So many of them, dead for their leaders’ greed and pride.
Nadya had killed friends and the closest thing to a family she had on someone else’s order.
Younglings had died and many more would.
This wasn’t normal.
This wasn’t what the world could be turned into.
But it would if we didn’t stop it.
“We can’t let this happen again,” I said as the wind brushed through my hair, cooling me down.
“I hope you do manage to mold this world into your vision, Allie.” He stuttered a breath.
“But this poison–what good is it that we’re trying to be better, faster, more clever, when they can stop us with a drop?
What Nadya did to Vylkor, what these bastards did to their own… without a cure, it’s useless.”
“I have to believe,” I said, eyes tracking the poison’s advance. For a moment, I saw shadows dancing through it. “What in Xamor’s name is that?”
Dax tensed behind me, neck tightening as he leaned forward. I narrowed my eyes, but all I could see were trees and mist–and the roof of the Memory Hall crypt rushing toward us much, much too quickly.
“Dax,” I warned, legs kicking. “Dax!”
“Shit. Hold on!”
My insides dropped as Dax yanked on the pulleys dangling above our heads. The wings turned sharply, swerving us to the right–straight toward the trolls stuck between the incoming fog and the entrance of the Memory Hall.
“Other way, other way!” I yelled.
My lungs slammed against my ribs as the wings swerved in the opposite direction–right toward the jagged stones of the Memory Hall.
We were going to crash.
Suddenly, a blur raced toward the tallest troll.
Ryker leaped onto its shoulders and jumped into the air before the confused troll could even turn around, bewildered.
He raised his arms and gripped onto the leather straps in one quick movement. With his weight, the wings tipped forward.
Ryker grimaced as he kicked against a column of the Memory Hall, changing our direction.
With the new direction, the wings softened our descent.
We no longer plummeted.
We floated.
“Gods.” Dax exhaled loudly. “Thank you.”
“What did I say about this blasted contraption?” Ryker asked, even as I felt relief course through him.
“Hey, I said I’d meet you here, didn’t I?” I retorted. “Thanks for saving us from getting squashed.”
He shook his head, but a corner of his lips ticked up. “You’re welcome. But let’s not do it again.”
“Definitely not doing this again,” I said out loud, unfurling my legs as we approached the ground.
All I wanted to do was walk. For the rest of my life.
Ryker’s feet hit the stones first. He tensed his body, crouching and not letting us go for anything, even as the wind fought to pull the wings further.
“This would be a good time to close them,” he said between gritted teeth.
“I am trying,” Dax said, equally annoyed, tugging quickly on all the pulleys.
All of a sudden, the canvas folded with a snap and we fell.
Ryker caught us both in his arms with a heavy grunt.
The moment my boots once again touched solid earth, I wanted to bow down and kiss it. Ryker didn’t let go as Dax and I swayed on the spot, unbalanced after our flight. We unbuckled and disentangled quickly, already rushing apart.
“Fire.” Dax flung the wings off his back and gestured like he was spraying them with poison. “You’re going straight into the fire.”
I placed a chaste kiss on Ryker’s cheeks, and whirled toward the crypt opening.
The warriors, both standing and wounded, were already gathering among the frightened civilians fretting in the Memory Hall, but the trolls waited in front of the doors. The crypt guardian waved his golden stick around.
Anger instantly burned through me. This was not the time to cling to old beliefs.
I marched right up to them, drawing my bow and an arrow.
“Thank Solkar.” The old man’s sigh of relief sounded raspy. “How do you tell them to go inside? I keep waving at them and nothing.”
I exhaled softly, reassured by his distressed tone, and turned to the trolls, grunting and huffing.
How to tell them, indeed.
Behind us, the mist drew closer.
Despite the blaze in my veins, I called upon the blue tendrils once more, letting them seep inside the crypt. The civilians jumped out of their way.
The troll leader roared, protesting being trapped inside with so many humans.
“Please,” I said, arms shaking from the adrenaline of the flight and the poison’s approach. “It’s just like a cave, but with more people.”
“And we have food!” Mrs. Thornbrew puffed a sweaty, frazzled hair out of her face and waved around a piece of dried meat. “Made it myself, I can vouch for the quality.”
“And sweets!” Mrs. Mallowmere appeared behind her, her curls decidedly less bouncy after an entire day locked inside a mausoleum full of dead ancestors and their statues.
The trolls sniffed the air, but still didn’t move.
Shouts erupted from beyond the trees.
More hissing, more poison gliding toward us.
That finally convinced them.
The leader grunted and bent down almost at the waist to pass through the doors.
The more trolls followed, the more the grumbles inside grew.
“Oh, sod off, Patrysha,” Mrs. Thornbrew snapped. “They were there fighting the Northerners while you were here gorging yourself on preserved winter berries. Don’t think I don’t see the sugar on your fingers!”
One by one, the trolls bent their bodies and slipped inside, Dax, Ryker, and I keeping guard behind them.
“Everyone else inside?” I asked, keeping my arrow cocked and my eyes alert. I knew I’d seen something in the mist.
“Everyone still alive,” Ryker said. “The windows are bolted. We have enough food and water hidden in the Memory Hall labyrinths to last us and the trolls an entire week. And plenty of places to hide. Just in case.”
In case us and every warrior would fall and the Northerners somehow breached the crypt.
“We can fight again once the poison clears and regain our force in the meantime,” Ryker went on. “They can’t have an endless supply of it and they can’t approach until it’s gone.”
“I can use my powers to dissipate the last of it once the time comes.” My thoughts echoed with his.
“Perfect. Then we’ll exit in a shield formation and–”
His words died as shadows emerged from the mist.
Walking through the poison as if they didn’t feel anything, even as the fog sizzled their dark robes.
My heart fell near my ankles.
Masks shone in the moonlight.
Dozens of those blasted masked figures marched toward us.
“What in Xamor’s name are those?” Dax breathed out.
“Something which should not exist,” I whispered.
The bow shook in my hands.
“Get them in!” Ryker shouted, terror reflecting between us. “Faster!”
He and Dax began to push the trolls toward the opening, not bothering with their grunts and snaps.
I drew my bow string and sent an arrow flying. It hit the first masked figure straight in the shoulder.
He turned to ash, just like his brethren had done back in the crater’s entrance.
Dozens more slunk from between the trees, as if the poison and darkness birthed more of them under our very eyes.
We thought we’d surprise the Northern Clans, but they had been ready to stun us.
One of the figures raised a gnarly bow.
My heart froze.
I barely had time to raise my hands and hiss an incantation before the first arrow hissed toward me.
It hit a shaky blue wall, inches away from my face. A sickly green liquid oozed from the tip.
The same poisoned arrows which had decimated my Clan.
Tanthe Issa’s accusing, lifeless eyes stared at me from the forest.
I shook my head, arms quaking from the strain.
More arrows barrelled into the blue wall. Sickly green trails dripped down, scorching the grass.
“Hurry!” I yelled.
Ryker and Dax pushed the trolls in faster.
The poison was so powerful, it disintegrated some of the attackers as they walked. They simply fell to the ground, uncaring that they were gone forever.
Like someone was controlling each of their steps and they were powerless to fight it.
But they could fight us.
Their sharp weapons glinted in the moonlight.
The closer they got, the more I trembled.
The rain of arrows didn’t stop.
Pressing.
Menacing.
If this wall of power fell–if I fell–all those arrows would cause another massacre.
My knees shook under the pressure.
Suddenly, I was yanked back with unimaginable speed.
The arrows suspended in the air fell to the ground with a sickening clink.
The wall of power shook as Ryker carried me inside the crypt.
The warriors closed the massive doors as soon as we rushed through the threshold.
A thick, wooden beam slammed down, sealing us inside.
I barely managed to slump into Ryker’s arms when another arrow thumped against the door.
The old wood groaned and fizzed on the other side.
The door wouldn’t hold for long.
The masked attackers were coming–and we were trapped.