CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
C HAPTER F IFTY- S EVEN
The valley quakes.
It splinters in places, disrupting the ruins of the Fallen Village. But the tremors are nothing compared to the blast.
Dawsyn lets Alvira’s limp body fall to ground as the quaking begins. She steps over her and collects her ax, looking around for Ryon, Tasheem, Rivdan and Ruby, the ground concussing.
But the air suddenly turns scolding and in the next moment a force knocks her from her feet.
She is thrown through the air and as she lands, her head collides with rock. She slumps down the side of a crumbling stone wall, her ax flying from her hand.
Her ears ring. She feels the warm trickle of blood spilling down her neck, slipping over her shoulder. And her vision blurs, turning to distorted shapes she cannot quite discern.
Ryon, she thinks. Where is Ryon?
But it is Rivdan that crawls to her side, shaking the ring of the blast from his own head.
Dawsyn can only think of one thing immense enough, one thing that could shake the earth like that…
Rivdan’s blue eyes widen as his hand goes to the back of Dawsyn’s head and comes away brilliant red. He reaches for her and though she cannot hear him, she sees his mouth moving.
She wants to ask him where the others are, ask him if they are alive. But the dark edges of her mind are collapsing, gently folding inward.
Dawsyn feels him grasping her arms to pull her upright, but she sways and so he doesn’t let go. She feels her legs knocked from beneath her as Rivdan bundles her body to his chest, and she opens her eyes.
All around them, chaos ensues. Bodies rise from the earth and continue the fight. Steel against steel in the dark.
How fitting, Dawsyn thinks, that they should wage this last war in the dark.
Amid the fray, Ryon can be seen, taller than the rest, narrowly missing the descent of a fired arrow. Their eyes meet, and though she cannot understand why, he nods. Shouts something.
Rivdan’s wings unfurl. They stretch over either shoulder, lifting.
Suddenly, Dawsyn’s head clears. She turns to see the determined set of the male’s jaw. She sees his returned nod.
“Put me down,” she says, though she cannot hear her own voice. “PUT ME DOWN!”
But Rivdan is already airborne, already pulling away from the ground with her in his arms. She thinks the words he mouths over and over are Sorry, Prishmyr. I’m sorry.
The ground falls away, the tangles of Glacian and human becoming smaller and smaller. And Dawsyn is too weak to struggle against him, and not stupid enough to try, so she merely shouts and begs him not to take her away. Not without him.
Dawsyn’s shouts do not persist for long, for they are not alone in the sky. Soon, from the darkness comes ghostly shapes of several Glacians, tailing them.
Rivdan dips beneath them, wheels over them in tight circles, and Dawsyn’s stomach twists with every movement. She can barely make sense of the direction in which they fly, but she hears the outraged shriek of a Glacian when Rivdan tears into the membrane of a wing with his talons. She feels the strain of every muscle in his chest as he outflies them, carrying her to safety.
And there is nothing she can do but hold on.
Below, Dawsyn can just make out the winding serpent of the river, glistening in the distance beneath the moonlight and spilling all the way out to sea, and she means to tell Rivdan to follow its path.
Suddenly, the air is filled with a keen whistling. Arrows fly past them, puncturing the wings of nearby Glacians.
At first, Dawsyn does not realise they are falling.
Rivdan’s eyes, so close to hers, go wide. He rolls, his wings sticking to his sides, and she finds herself looking up at the moon, and then further, to the cloud-shrouded mountain top. A shudder ripples through him. She hears a harsh grunt of pain and then nothing more.
The moon falls away, or perhaps Dawsyn and Rivdan do. The wind howling past her gives weight to it. The plummeting sensation in her stomach makes her brace for impact, but Rivdan’s arms remain wrapped tightly around her and she is not afraid.
When they collide with the ground, darkness, familiar and heavy, is there to greet her.