Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
ARA
I observe my flight path through the maze by following their gifts, then I turn to Solaris.
We are both standing on a surprisingly solid cloud that stopped our fall.
It’s in the center of an open space, the wall of clouds around us, riddled by countless openings leading back into the labyrinth of corridors.
The atmosphere is bleak, like on those rainy days that make you question whether the sun even exists.
The sickening crunch at our landing alerted me that something wasn’t right, and I’m still trying to adapt to the sight in front of me.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know I’m not pretty right now, but it takes time, okay?”
“You look terrifying, but you’re still beautiful to me,” I tell him.
And I mean it. Had he been anything but a Phoenix, had he not shielded me with his body, we would not be standing here.
My right arm, the one I braced myself with, hangs uselessly at my side, my ribs sting with every breath, and my entire body whimpers while I shuffle over to him.
But we’re alive.
Even though Solaris doesn’t look like it at the moment. He is mainly blackened bones. A few sparks run along them now and then, and some of the bones glow like he is still smoldering. He had gone up in flames shortly after our crash and came out like this.
Seriously, he looks like something that belongs in the realm of death, rather than the living.
“You’re staring again.”
“Just admiring your resilience,” I tell him, and he makes a sound close to a snort.
There is almost no tissue on him yet, and only clumps of black feathers remain.
“Are you sure you can fly yet?” I ask and pull myself onto his back, wincing when my bad arm gets jostled in the process. “Can I help in any way?”
“Just a bit more. I’m concentrating on restoring my wings first. Give me half an hour and we’ll be fine.”
Maybe this is the moment to tell him about the signatures coming in our direction—ten of them.
“Umm, how about five minutes?” I ask and show him what I mean. Solaris curses.
“Then I do need your help. I don’t have enough magic for that kind of healing in such a short time.”
“Tell me what to do.” Solaris describes how to transfer magic to him without harming either of us, while I keep an eye on the contestants coming closer and closer.
The first attempt makes me hiss in pain when I try to channel too much of my gift at once. It feels like my nerve endings got fried.
I try again, but I’m getting anxious about the incoming group, causing my gift to become erratic and unstable.
“Steady. You need to hold it steady,” Solaris groans. This time, it sounds like he’s in pain.
“Shit. Sorry.” I break it off and take a few deep breaths, but calming down when you know you only have minutes to get this right is easier said than done.
“Breathe. Relax. You can do this.” I motivate myself, trying to envision Tate’s calming presence next to me. And thank whoever-the-fuck-listens, it works.
My gift settles, and I let it seep into my bird in a soft, slow trickle. After a moment, the feathers on his wings lengthen, thicken, and start to cover more of them. But not nearly enough to support us.
I don’t have to look up to know when our competitors come into view. The shouts and cheering when they see us are obvious enough.
I don’t acknowledge them, just increase the flow from me to Solaris, concentrating on holding it steady. Dizziness accompanies the dwindling gift, but I ignore it. If we don’t get airborne soon, I’m not sure we ever will again, or at least not me.
Only when there is movement in my periphery do I look up, and my breath stalls.
One of the lindwyrms snakes its way over to us.
A broad, cruel smile mars its rider’s face.
I push even more of my gift to Solaris, my vision blackening at the edges, but I’m strapped in …
mostly. I couldn’t do it on the side with my injured arm, but one secured leg and one good arm should keep me up here.
“Okay, we are at the next branch off,” Tate’s voice announces, and I give him directions, struggling to keep my gift flowing and my voice uneventful.
“Nearly there,” Solaris promises. He shuffles to the opposite edge of the cloud we sit on, keeping an eye on the wyrm, who starts to pick up speed, his wriggling motions getting more streamlined and quicker.
I push all I have left of my fire gift at Solaris, my world going dark for a blink or two, and then there is a giant jolt.
For a second, I think we’re too late, that the beast rammed us. But it’s Solaris launching himself off the edge with everything he’s got. His wings flare wide, and my stomach somersaults when we drop more than I’m used to. Then his wings come down, and we gain height, slower than usual, but steady.
A hissing snarl causes Solaris to throw himself to the side, and I nearly lose my seat. I grasp for something, anything to hold on to, while the wyrm misses us, but barely.
Solaris rights himself, and I find my hand closed around one of his ribs.
“Quite handy that you have handholds now,” I tease.
“Sure, make fun of me while I’m flying for our lives,” he grumbles.
“Don’t be so prickly. I meant what I said. You are still beautiful to me.”
The wyrm strikes for us again, and his companions circle, trying to cut us off. Solaris spirals to evade him, and that is the moment Tate needs directions again.
I concentrate on the dots of my friends twirling around in my mind in relation to my position.
“Left, no wait … right. Yes, it’s right,” I tell him, gritting my teeth when my hand starts to slip from the smooth bone.
“What is going on?” The concern in his voice is audible.
“Into the maze,” I tell Solaris, but he is already diving for it.
“Ara.” My name is a warning growl that on any other occasion would spark heat.
“Um, nothing,” I tell him because what use is there in worrying him when he can’t do anything to help?
Solaris gives everything he has, but since he is not yet back to his full self, the wyrm slowly gains ground, every strike at us coming too close.
“Spit it out, Ara,” Tate commands.
“I might be occupied with escaping a wyrm.” Or ten , I add in my mind, but it seems I did not separate that properly.
“Get out of there now,” Tate bellows. There is terror in his voice now.
“Kind of working on that,” I reply dryly. “Dive into the clouds,” I instruct Solaris as I throw my magic gift around both of us, hoping we’ll be able to pass through.
My gift is the fallback in case we encounter lightning or whatever caused Mariel’s pain.
We head for the cloud, and I squeeze my eyes shut, holding on as tight as I can, in case we bounce off. But nothing comes.
“Ara?” It’s a plea.
I open my eyes tentatively, and white surrounds us once more.
“Still here to annoy you some more.” I laugh, then release a deep breath. “Damn, that was scary,” I admit.
“Yes, it was,” Tate answers with a sigh. “Please come back to me, Ara.”
I promise to do my best and continue guiding my flight while Solaris and I use the cover and shortcut of the clouds to get back to them.
TATE
I stare at a field of lightning bolts barring the way in front of us. They seem to come from everywhere, crossing the corridor like a giant spiderweb, flashing in and out too fast to pass them.
Jared’s and my gaze collide. Well, shit. It’s written all over his face, making words unnecessary, not that everyone isn’t thinking the same.
There is a crackling hiss with every violet strike, but no thunder, giving the image an eerie quality.
I motion everyone closer. At least there is no wind, making circling easier.
“Any ideas?” I shout so everyone can hear me.
Mariel raises her hand, and I stir closer.
“It’s a pattern.” She gestures back to the sizzling light. “They always strike exactly the same location.” I look again, and she’s right. “So if we weave through them, we should be able to get to the other side,” she continues.
“I gladly let you try first,” Boko comments, drawing glares from Cassius and Ilario.
“By replicating the pattern, we can try without harm,” Jared offers and points in the other direction, letting a mirror image of the lightning appear.
“I’ll go first,” Zaza offers. “Rukhs have the advantage here.”
And that’s what we do.
After Zaza scouts out a way, we repeat it three times each to memorize it, but our time is slowly running out. The darkening of the clouds around us and the slow shrinking of the maze are clear indicators of that.
“I’ll go first,” Zaza repeats her earlier offer while we circle in front of the original challenge.
“No, I’ll go,” Jared jumps in, but Zaza waves him off. “That would be incredibly stupid. Zephyr takes up much more room.”
“Sunshine, where are you?” I ask, and I’m relieved when she answers immediately.
“I’m close. I should be there soon.”
“Zaza, you’ll go first,” I order, ignoring my best friend’s death glare. “Cassius and Tethys follow, after that the Strixes and Daeva, and I will be last.”
“I hate you right now,” Jared grumbles, and I totally understand, but I’m hoping for Ara to get here. She could shield the bigger birds from the lightning. So I just ignore him and watch Zaza with bated breath, maneuvering her way through the rays.
Mariel is next, and she starts strong, but then slows down.
“She’ll hate me for this,” Ilario says and fixes his gaze on her. Mariel immediately picks up speed again. “She was drifting into fear,” he explains, and with fear comes doubt. I nod my agreement.
“Okay, do the same for everyone else,” I instruct. “And you can blame it on me if it helps,” I add as an afterthought, making him grin.
I monitor the corridor we came from, but Ara is still not in sight when it’s Daeva’s and my turn.
I refrain from contacting her, since I can’t be distracted, or I’ll risk burning Daeva and me to a crisp. The walls have closed in considerably by now, and I question the wisdom of my earlier decision to let the smaller birds go first. It will be a tight fit.
“I’ve got this,” Daeva promises, and I have to trust her in this since there won’t be a way back once we start.
“Then let’s go, beautiful. I’ll let you take the lead here.”
“You should do that far more often,” she comments and shoots off into the flickering obstacle course of light.
The space seems to shrink with every passing moment, and I crouch low over Daeva’s neck, making myself as small as possible, keeping my weight centered so I don’t risk throwing her off balance.
I hold my breath more than once while she maneuvers her big body through spaces that should have been impossible to fit through. Despite that, the closer we get to the end, the closer the strikes come.
My hair stands on end from the surrounding static, rising as if it has a life of its own. We will not make it.
“I’ve got you.” Ara’s soothing voice calms me, and I relay it to Daeva.
“Go!” I yell while I put our lives into the hands of the woman I love, trusting her to keep us safe.
Lightning sizzles around us, cascading over our bodies, the violet sparks on Daeva’s black feathers like a thunderstorm in a night sky. And then we rip free, finding eight horrified gazes on us. We circle around, my eyes already searching the space we just left.
And there she is, like the goddess of death coming to claim the souls of the slain. She sits upright and proud, not cowering from the sizzling light around her. Solaris is the embodiment of a man’s nightmare beneath her, Ara’s hair flowing around her like she is under water.
They don’t even bother to evade any of the strikes. The sparks dance over her skin and the bare bones of Solaris’s body like tiny fireflies paying homage to the queen of another world and her loyal mount.
“Now that is a dramatic comeback,” Jared comments, breaking the hushed silence, but I can’t take my eyes off her.
“Good to have you back,” I tell her.
“I could say the same thing,” she replies. Now that she is closer, I see the strain on her face, her motionless arm, and the blood and bruises.
“What happened?”
“We crashed.” That is her simple answer. “But we survived.” She is free of the strikes now and joins us. “Let’s get to that center so we can go back.”
The maze is nearly pitch black by the time we reach the epicenter. Daeva and I take the lead, Ara right behind us, and the others follow, while we speed through a passage barely wide enough to accommodate a single bird.
The moment we reach the middle, we are back over Avina, the ominous cloud black and threatening above us. We land in formation, audible gasps rippling around us when they catch sight of Solaris.
I’m by their side before Ara can slide down on her own. I hold on a bit longer, a bit tighter than I need to when I set her back on the ground. At the same time, my healing magic seeps into her, repairing the worst of the damage. And she leans into me with a sigh before straightening again.
“Okay?” I ask before letting go.
“Much better.” She smiles at me. “Thank you.”
Only seconds later, there is a thunderclap above us, and when our eyes come back down from the cloud, they land on a pile of bodies in the center of the arena.
Arms, legs, claws, wings, and hair. Beasts and humans tangled together, motionless, lifeless. The first fly lands on an unseeing, unblinking eye.
Twelve flights, that’s how many made it. The rest … didn’t survive.
Gasps break the horrified silence. Ara sidles up to me, squeezing my hand. This could have been us. We arrived not long ago, and the maze was already dark.
I swallow.
“How could she … why did she do this?” Ara whispers, and maybe the goddess hears her. There is a flash of light, and a booming voice answers.
“The loser of a hunt always ends up dead. Remember that.” There is another boom, and the bodies vanish.
Ara looks sick.
“What is it?”
“She said these are her trophies now.”