The Winged Game

Prologue Kion

Prologue

Kion

Pinion-upon-Keat, Victory Field

Two Years Earlier

Kion Locke hated a lot of people. An extraordinary amount of people. A jaw-droppingly, shockingly large number of people.

He hated people who had sex while wearing socks.

He hated children who smeared their sticky fingers all over upholstered furniture.

He hated dogwalkers who strutted around with more than two dogs at once, he hated the giggling pixies who seemed to have a penchant for tugging at his ears in a desperate ploy for attention, he hated the irritatingly friendly hobs who snuck into his room to clean, and he especially hated the crowds of glossy-haired women who threw themselves at him simply for his prowess in the NCL.

Which would be flattering, save for the time that one literally burned his summer house down when things went sour.

And yet, somehow, there was nobody he hated more than Taissa Cho. Especially during games.

Especially now.

Kion leaned forward on the giant back of his stymphalian bird, his muscular thighs straining as he veered the enormous creature left, hurtling along the edge of the arena to the raucous cheers of onlookers.

He shot past two of his teammates, his eyes on the looming wooden siege tower in the middle of the Wyverns’ side of the field.

There was a sharp ticking in his mind that reminded him of a bomb’s countdown.

In a way, it was.

Because if he lost this game, he would be bloody furious.

And, like a bomb, Kion Locke tended to explode. Violently. With casualties.

He was on the brink of it now. This game was going like absolute shit. The Knockers, their defense, were off their rhythm, allowing the Banallan Wyverns’ offense to slip through the cracks toward their siege tower.

Plus, it didn’t help that in the fifteen minutes they’d been playing, fucking Taissa Cho had already stolen two sparkling draconian jewels from its highest tier.

She’d also snatched hearty handfuls of weapons from the bottom levels, which the Wyverns’ three Knockers now wielded as Kion swooped closer.

A shining axe. A golden sword with a gem-encrusted hilt.

A…slingshot?

Please. Kion smirked. That pathetic thing must be from the bottom level of the siege tower, where the most useless armory was stashed.

The player wielding it half-heartedly shot a stone at the white-haired óríon as he overtook Kion and dozed aside the boomerang-wielding lad.

óríon’s stymph shot bronze beak–first into the soft underbelly of the wyvern’s dark, scaled body.

The wyvern shrieked, veering away. As it sought shelter from the stymph’s attack, the two other Knockers dropped back apprehensively, leaving an open path toward their tower.

“Go!” roared óríon, lifting one hand from his saddle to urge Kion forward.

It was only thanks to the simple Communication glyph inked on Kion’s left forearm that he could hear his teammate so clearly over the din of the game and the cheers of the Monday night crowd below.

As Kion nodded sharply, óríon angled into a nosedive, set on pursuing the retreating Wyvern Knockers for as long as possible—anything to make the opening last.

“Let’s go,” he urged Cato, and his stymph cawed—a hoarse, rasping sound—in answer.

It was only thanks to his Balance glyph that Kion didn’t tumble from his saddle as they hurtled forward, so fast that the circular walls of the arena, laden with glossy advertisements for this and that, became a muzzy blur.

The looming wooden siege tower with its five levels approached so quickly that Kion had to fight hard against vertigo, instead leaning forward in his leather saddle, intent on those three draconian jewels glittering at the top.

A rainbow aura sparkled around their smooth edges as they reflected rare bursts of sunlight through the heavy clouds of the Pinion-upon-Keat afternoon.

Kion narrowed his eyes, his fingers itching underneath his riding gloves.

According to the rules, he could only take one jewel at a time, but nothing could stop him from snatching a few of the weapons stored in the lower tiers of the tower.

That was the Robbers’ job, after all. They were the only two players on the team who could reap the benefits of the tower without being handed a purple card.

“Swords, Cato,” he urged through the Bonding glyph connecting him and his steed. “We need swords.”

“No shit,” his stymph snapped crabbily back. His voice, scratchy and deep, resounded in Kion’s own skull.

His stymph knew the routine well. Cato shot through the third highest level of the tower, just below the holding tier. Kion leaned over so that he could grab one sharply honed sword and one small dagger from the pile.

Reaching over his shoulder as they exited the level, Kion secured both weapons in the holster on his back, making a mental note to arm his flanking Knockers.

Although all riders were banned from harming the Wingeds, slicing and dicing the players was fair game.

The Wingeds would take care of the Wingeds—as seen with óríon’s stymph’s attack on the wyvern.

Up, up, and up, toward the mottled gray sky, the hallmark of a typical English day. He was grateful for his Shielding glyph, knowing that without it, the cool air would be tearing at his unprotected eyes. Just a bit farther…

A disgruntled shout from behind him had Kion turning his head and gnashing his teeth in fury as he saw Taissa—always Taissa fucking Cho—triumphantly soaring back from his team’s side and distributing weapons to her teammates, giving Mr. Slingshot a real sword to fight with.

Great. Just great.

Kion cursed Taissa thoroughly, and violently, in his mind. At least she hadn’t managed to get the last jewel.

It was only a matter of time, though. “Fucking fuck,” he muttered, and he swore that—even from across the field—she looked up and winked at him.

Coquettishly.

Kion whipped his head back around as if he’d been burned, breathing heavily as he snatched the draconian jewel and vehemently cursed carriwitchet’s rules.

This game would go much faster if he could grab more than one jewel at a time.

Cato plunged into a fast descent, hurtling down the tower at a breakneck speed just as Taissa turned back on her wyvern, making for the last jewel on his team’s tower.

If she got that, the game would be over.

Disastrously.

Baring his teeth, Kion felt his blood begin to simmer with the thrill of the game. It was like a drug, rushing through him as Cato’s wings flapped against the air, executing a perfect barrel roll to avoid the scrape of talons.

“Go, go, go,” Kion urged through gritted teeth as Cato flew faster, harder, bronze beak gleaming as it aimed toward their side of the pitch like a compass pointing north…

Where Taissa and her small, scaled steed were tearing for his tower in a textbook aileron roll followed by a beautifully steep and sudden turn, the rider and the dark wyvern shooting like a bullet through his Knockers, avoiding their defenses with that brilliant fucking maneuver that made his breath catch a little in his throat.

She was glorious…

She was gloriously horrible.

Ah, fuck.

Her fingers had closed around that last draconian jewel. Kion growled low in his throat.

He would not lose to Taissa again. Not today. Sensing his urgency, Cato crossed the border of the Stymphs’ side of the field just as Taissa began to swoop away from the tower, chased by Kion’s furious Knockers.

As a Robber, Kion might not be able to play flagrant defense without risking a purple card, but he could “accidentally” cut Taissa off just as she approached the border of the two halves of the field.

“Let’s go, Cato,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as Taissa executed a wingover tactic, her eyes blazing as she turned her steed one-eighty degrees, narrowly avoiding two bladed feathers shot toward her head by another stymph.

Kion could practically hear the on-site healers below shifting in anticipation.

Furiously, he cut across the field, anticipating the point of the border Taissa would go for. If he could get there at exactly the right moment—not too fast, not too slow—he could ram into her side.

Afterward, he’d act very apologetic in front of the ref, who was circling the arena on his bloody ridiculous cockatrice.

Here. Now. Taissa was only breaths away. Kion gritted his teeth and prepared for impact.

Moments before the collision, she turned her head, and their eyes met.

Hers were heavily lashed, flecked with gold, slightly angular—like a fox’s, but twice as cunning. They sparkled, as if to say, Hello there.

And then Kion was accidentally ramming straight into her…

Or he should have been. That was what should have happened.

But today was not Kion Locke’s day.

Instead, rider and wyvern separated. Taissa leapt into the air, her long, brown plait whipping as she jumped up while her steed plunged down. Kion was left to tear through the empty space where both had once been, with Taissa high above him.

For a split second, she hung there suspended, and he stared—cold with horror and awe—at her, keenly aware of the audience’s gasping even through his Focus glyph.

It was if the world froze as Kion gaped at her, at the way her arms were held out as if she were about to dive, the draconian jewel glittering in her right hand, and at her bare neck, its delicate slope unhidden by her floating hair…

And the symbol shimmering there.

A small sign resembling a wishbone. Small and dark, inked onto her golden-beige skin by someone’s qyl. He knew that symbol…

Realization staggering him, Kion’s eyes flared wide just as the world restarted, just as gravity finally took back over.

He watched as Taissa dove downward, headfirst, toward her awaiting wyvern in a move that would have been completely implausible…

if not for the illegal Luck glyph etched on the nape of her neck.

As Taissa raised the jewel in victory, swarmed by her teammates on the Wyverns’ side of the field, Kion turned toward the referee, perched upon that horrible cockatrice.

And he smiled.