Chapter 9
Nine
The dragon and the griffin seemed to be everywhere, their battle wide-ranging and deadly. I tried to evade their shadows, but there was no escaping.
The griffin shrieked—a piercing, metallic sound that split through my skull—and I looked up just in time to see it changing.
Its wings spread wider, feathers bristling with unnatural light.
The longer I watched, the larger it seemed to grow.
Its body swelled, shadows stretching across the clearing until it matched Fieran’s dragon in size… and then surpassed it.
The two collided again in midair, shimmering black meeting feathers, the two of them rolling through the air around each other in a way that defied gravity. For now. Fieran breathed flame, and sparks rained down like shooting stars.
Sudden pain lanced down one shoulder, accompanied by the scent of burning fabric, and I tore at my clothes, trying to beat out the flames. My palm burnt and an animal sound rent the air—my own, I realized—but the flames were gone.
Still, the ground trembled. My teeth rattled in my skull.
I whirled, desperate to get away—to find somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t beneath them—but my own panic betrayed me. My boots skidded on loose growth as I stumbled forward, down the slope and straight through a shimmer in the air. It felt like plunging into ice water, every nerve sparking at once.
Horror shot through me. The air here was too still, too dense, humming with wrongness. It smelled of iron and ozone, the tang of magic stretched too thin. My chest tightened as the realization sank in. I was inside the trap—their trap.
If Fieran triggered it now, he would send the griffin straight to the cages at the Trials. That would be a smart tactical decision.
But it would take me with it.
Claustrophobia clamped down on me. I ran for the other side of the rip, and I was moving before a desperate hope rose for me. Please be going in the right direction.
I was confused from spinning around, beating out the flames. What if I rushed the wrong way?
A scream overheard brought me to a stop. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear anything else.
The griffin and dragon were locked together. Fieran breathed out another blast of fire, and I threw my arm up instinctively to shade myself. I missed the next beat of action, but when I heard the dragon’s roar of rage and pain, I looked again.
Fieran was bleeding, and the griffin was gulping down chunks of his flesh.
Dragon shifters, like the Fae, were technically almost immortal. But very few of them lived to old age even by mortal standards. Panic rushed through me, but this time, it wasn’t panic for me. I couldn’t help him. All I could do was wait and watch and hope he survived another fight.
Fieran reared back, then lunged forward, releasing another blast of flame.
This time, I ran.
Then I almost tripped over something at knee height. I barely caught myself. A stack of wood limbs, like we built outside the cottage to feed the fire. Except it shouldn’t be here.
Because it was something else.
It was round. A ground nest.
And inside, glimmering under the moonlight, were two round, pale shapes.
I’d never seen griffin eggs, but I would bet that that was what these were.
That was why the griffin had attacked. Because this was a safe place for it to set up its nest, and we were trapping it on our side of the rip.
Not far beyond the nest, I could see the faint glow of the ward stones that marked the boundary. We weren’t that far. Gods, I’d really gotten turned around.
I looked back to where the battle raged. The griffin hadn’t entered the trap. But if I could get the griffin to follow me, to draw it in here, then I could escape out the other side…
Fieran roared again now in pain, a sound that froze the marrow in my bones. My pulse jumped. My decision was made.
“Sorry,” I apologized to the griffin egg that I picked up. I was being ridiculous. It wasn’t as if I apologized to the eggs I ate for breakfast.
But something about this enormous egg, so big that I could barely hold it in one arm, felt different.
I made my way back at a half run. Fieran had said that the monsters sometimes went unnoticed, using our side of the rip for nothing but hiding. So the griffin might not have attacked us if it weren’t for the nest.
Hopefully those protective maternal instincts would play out to our advantage.
The thought flashed through my mind that the griffin might be a better mother than my own. That was uncharitable. I decided not to think such thoughts when I was doing something stupid that might kill me.
But the thought of leaving Fieran alone in a desperate fight was too terrifying.
His friends must have heard the chaos and would come back to help him. Would they get to us in time?
I looked up at him, so huge, dwarfing me. Could he understand what I called to him when he was in his dragon form?
“I’m going to draw the griffin into the trap!” I shouted at him. “Be ready to help me get back out and then spring the trap.”
Fieran bit savagely into the griffin and then whipped his head around, bringing pieces of griffin splattering along with him. His enormous eyes met mine, and he let out a roar of distinct displeasure. I was pretty sure that was dragon for “no.”
So he could understand me. That was the important thing.
“Too late!” I hefted the egg. “I’ve already got this! What else am I going to do with it? A lifetime supply of omelets?”
The griffin took advantage of Fieran’s moment of distraction and slammed into him. Their wings beat frantically, and it managed to get on top of Fieran, driving him down to the ground. The earth shook beneath my feet. Fieran strained up, his snapping jaws seeking purchase.
I had to get the griffin’s attention. I stooped and picked up a rock, threw it at them.
It hit Fieran. One of his eyes swiveled to look at me in a distinctly judgmental fashion.
“Fieran, get ready!” I shouted.
The Dragon’s roar this time sounded distinctly like the words “go away.”
I picked up another rock, and this one hit the griffin just as it was rearing back to strike. Its head swiveled toward me, and fear jolted through me as its eyes locked on mine.
I hefted the egg. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to this, would you?”
The griffin let out a blood-curdling shriek and tried to throw itself away from Fieran. But Fieran jumped on top of it, bearing it down to the ground. Now the two of them were fighting, the griffin trying to move toward me, Fieran trying to hold it back.
All in all, the two of them were rolling back and forth, flattening trees, causing destruction, all of it headed slowly toward me.
I took off running desperately toward the nest.
The egg was hot and cracking in my hands. It took me a second to realize what was happening, until I felt a sharp beak against my palm, breaking through the egg shell.
“Sorry,” I told the egg, just as part of it cracked open, and a pair of eyes met mine.
But I was almost by the nest. I heaved the egg, throwing it into the nest as gently as possible. I could feel the griffin right at my back. Hopefully, with the egg back in the nest, it would stop chasing me and stay in the nest.
I ran desperately. I just had to get to the other side of the stones so Fieran could activate the trap. Then I could throw myself down, covered by the cloak, and disappear.
Behind me was the wild beating of wings and another quieter gliding sound—Fieran in pursuit.
The wardstones glowed just ahead.
Claws raked through the fabric of my cloak and straight into my shoulder. Pain flared white-hot—sharp and electric—tearing a cry from my throat. I stumbled forward, vision blurring, the world dissolving into flashes of moonlight and shadow.
The griffin screamed, and I looked back over my shoulder. Fieran had caught it by the throat, but he didn’t waste time—he flung the griffin back, buying us both time.
I leapt forward, passing the wardstones.
Only to realize that ahead of me, beyond the wardstones, was only darkness. I was already falling, trying to grab a handful of earth to stop myself as my feet slid away beyond me, sliding toward the cliff.
I screamed for Fieran.
Behind me, I heard the griffin scream as the wards activated. Golden light shimmered between all the stones, creating a wall.
But I had too much momentum. I couldn’t stop myself from sliding, careening toward the edge.
Then my fingertips found a spot on the ground and held. My arms jerked painfully. My lower body kicked out over a vast expanse, my stomach bottoming out as I realized how close I was to tumbling to my death.
Then the vine I’d grabbed gave way, and I was falling.