Chapter 27 Calytrix
TWENTY-SEVEN
CALYTRIX
They came from all sides. Unlike Nova, I’d never been claustrophobic in my life, yet I was suddenly barely able to breathe because they were everywhere. Pushing the oxygen out of every available space.
They were wretched, grotesque things that had the look and smell of death and yet the will to keep going to what end I didn’t want to imagine.
How did we not see them?
Feel them even?
Could they cloak themselves so that they were invisible until that moment? Or had they appeared from another place in the same kind of way my power worked?
My mind slowed as the things reached for me.
I was expecting them to tear into me mercilessly.
After what we heard of the attack on our palace, I was sure my end had arrived.
However, their grabbing and clawing hands did not rip into me.
They corralled me and kept me contained within the cluster of their vile, writhing bodies.
Among the chaos, my focus sharpened, and calm came over me somehow.
I reached for my knife from the sheath on my back, brandishing it at them.
I spun in a slow circle, jabbing the blade at any that came too close, looking for a way out, but there were too many of them.
I couldn’t expend my magic without making sure I had Nova with me.
While I might be able to take some down, for every one I cut down, five more would replace it.
As far as my eye could see, they were there, hissing and groaning.
“Nova!” I reached for my sister, but the undead had already pushed us apart.
“I’m here. Caly, please help,” she screamed as they engulfed her.
Gods, I had to get to her. She was unarmed and needed protection.
“I’m coming.” I closed my eyes and pulled into myself, sucking in until it felt like my lungs would reverse. Blackness closed around me, and fear licked up my throat. This was always the worst part of the magic in my veins.
I pulled myself through the eye of a needle and into a space that made me question my own existence. It made me question if I’d ever be able to get back. Time didn’t matter here. Nothing mattered. It was both awe-inspiring and awful, and it seemed to stretch on forever.
And then I exhaled myself back through the darkness in a rush, reversing through the eye, forcing my way into a corporal form to be spat out beside my sister.
Only Nova wasn’t there anymore. The undead had enveloped her and carried her towards the trees. I couldn’t push through them to get to her. Not without them taking me, too. I had to try and overshoot them carrying her.
A dragon roared somewhere above me, shaking the ground, but I didn’t take my eyes off the huddle that contained Nova.
The undead screamed toward the sky.
I took the chance while they were distracted to try to get to Nova again. I only had a limited number of portals in me before my magic would be spent. I had to make this count.
I pulled in again, but just as I was about to thread myself through the needle, something slammed into me, knocking the wind out of my lungs and throwing me back into a physical form.
I coughed, stumbling, black threatening around my vision.
Icy fingers closed around my wrist, and I fought, slashing my knife at the unseen foe.
It found purchase over and over, biting into their hard flesh like hitting a tree—or worse.
Arms closed around me from behind and dragged me backward. I screamed, trying to turn or reach behind me with my blade. Anything to get free and get to Nova.
“Will you stop fighting? You’re going to take off a damn wing.” Faolan hissed, dragging me backward.
I froze, allowing him to drag me.
“Fuck, get that knife out in front of you. They are coming at us again.”
My vision cleared some, and I got a leg up just in time to kick an undead in the chest. I brandished my knife again and cut into a few of them.
“Where is Nova?” I asked when I found my voice.
“Nyx grabbed her.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, holding back any emotion. It wasn’t the time to break.
“I’m going to take off and follow them, don’t struggle, I’ve got you.” He tightened his grip on me and kicked off the ground, beating his powerful wings. They stretched out, shading the surrounding grass. Each beat took us higher.
I scanned the sky for Nyx, and finding him out ahead of us in his dragon form, Zaria riding and Nova holding on behind her, I breathed a little easier. Behind him, Kol’s dragon soared with Alaric on his back. We were all safe.
“Are you okay?” Faolan asked.
“What the—Did you just speak in my head?” I gasped, realizing that without thought or effort on my part, I’d replied to him in the same way. Gods, that was weird.
“I am. It’s a thing we can do because you’re my ryder. It’s all part of the bond.”
“You’re accepting the bond now?”
“I did what I had to do, now here we are.”
“Wait, all this time I could have been in your head?!”
He groaned. “Maybe telling you was a mistake.”
“Why didn’t you shift?”
“I needed to pull you out of there. I wasn’t sure how well that would work with claws, and then carrying you might have been hard.”
“This isn’t?” I tried to glance at him over my shoulder. Still in fae form but with fascinating dark orange wings powering us through the sky.
“You’re pretty tiny.”
“But how long can you fly like this with me in your arms?”
“Long enough to get us somewhere safe so that I can land and shift properly.”
He banked to the right, getting away from the swarm of undead, turning back towards the Light Kingdom and the mountain range that separated the two kingdoms, but as the foothills came into view, I saw something that made me gasp.
“Sun God, no.”
“What?” He must have heard the panic in my voice.
“They have—” I didn’t know what to call it. “It’s like a crossbow, but bigger than I’ve ever seen before. It’s the size of a cannon.”
“What?! Where?” He tilted, changing the angle of our bodies, searching.
I pointed. “It’s there.”
“Fuck, we have to get higher. If I’d shifted it probably couldn’t pierce my scales, but this I don’t want to play around with.” He beat his wings faster.
“They’re taking aim,” I warned in alarm, both inside and outside my head.
“Ball yourself up. Make yourself less of a target.”
We both pulled in, and he curled around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.
But I kept my eyes open and watched them fire.
The bolt flew out, too fast to follow with the naked eye. I prayed to the Sun God to keep him safe.
The seconds took hours. It must have gone by him. They were reloading.
He jolted to the side, spinning and crying out.
“Are you okay?”
“It went through my wing, I think. But I’m okay.” He still flapped his wings, so he must be.
“They’re reloading. We need to get out of here.”
A second crack split the air, and Faolan cried out in pain. Then a rope snapped, and the sound will be with me for the rest of my life.
The bolt anchored into his wing, and it was attached to a line that now pulled tight.
They were reeling us in like a fish.
Faolan fought hard and held me tight, but it was no use.