There is no goddess more wrathful than Dunne. Entering Her temple will slice the soul from any attendant who has shunned Her grace.
—Major Rorilee’s Guide to Appeasing the Gods, Second Edition
VIOLET
Rain splatters against my forehead as Theophanie’s dagger scrapes the skin of my throat, but I hold fast and keep my eyes on her. My mind flips through every possible way to get out of this hold alive, and I settle on the simplest, but it’s a risk. “My friends will continue to fight long after I meet Malek, and I’ll meet him with my soul intact. Do your worst.”
The red in her eyes pulses as surprise ripples across her face, and she lifts the blade just enough to give me the inches I need.
This is going to hurt.
I slam my forehead straight into her nose. Bone crunches as her head snaps back, her body rolling with it. The second her weight shifts, I yank my right knee to my chest and kick up as hard as I possibly can, catching her in the pit of her arm and breaking her grip on my wrists.
“Shit!” she shrieks, then uses her speed to appear twenty-five feet to my left, clutching her nose. “That’s never going to straighten out!”
I rock to my feet.
“You think I won’t do it—take your life.” She studies me with a malice she’d previously lacked and draws a green-tipped dagger from her belt.
My stomach turns. Being inflicted with that particular poison once in my life was quite enough. “I think you exposed your desperation with your once-a-century comment.” I keep my eyes on her as I grab my runed dagger from the rain-slick grass. “You need me.”
“Another will come along,” she warns. “You are not special.”
“But I’m the only lightning wielder you have to prove yourself now.” Pretty sure I’ve pressed her to the limits of her patience and shit is about to get real. Gripping the conduit out of habit, I reach for Tairn. The growing drip of power and parchment-thin bond tell me he’s getting closer but still out of range.
“Which meant a lot more when you had your irid.” She crouches and runs her hand over the meadow grass. A single tap of her finger turns the spot gray.
Oh, shit. If I overplayed my hand, all she has to do is lower hers, and I’m dust. Panic winds its way around my heart and digs her nails in, but I shove the insidious bitch straight out before she can get a good grip.
“Violence?” Xaden asks. Exhaustion and urgency mixed with a little pain slide down the bond. He’s in combat.
“I’m all right. Focus on you.” I chance taking my eyes off Theophanie for a heartbeat and glance toward what I can see of the city through the thickening storm. Dragons, wyvern, and gryphons fill the sky above the spiral tower, but I don’t let my gaze linger long enough to search for blue in that sea of chaos.
Xaden is the strongest of them. He’ll be all right. I have to keep my focus—and Theophanie—here to give them a shot at saving Draithus. They just need time. I turn my back on the city and face Theophanie as rain begins to fall in earnest, pelting the ground with heavy drops.
“Ah, you worry for the shadow wielder,” Theophanie says with a cruel smile and continues to skim her hand across the tips of the grass. “Do you not want to have forever with him?”
“I already do.” I scan our surroundings for any advantage and find none.
“Not in the way you want.” She tilts her head. “We’re excellent actors, but our kind doesn’t feel what you call love.”
That gets all my attention.
“You’re lying.” I would know.
“Ah, there it is.” A cruel smile tilts her mouth. “Battles are lost by our weakest warriors, and that’s what he makes you—weak. Now that I know where you’re vulnerable, we can begin.”
“Fuck you.” I’ve proved to Dunne’s favored isle that I’m anything but the weakest, while she no longer carries Dunne’s favor.
“Lesson one. To survive in our world, you must protect the magic that sustains you. Do you know how to keep from being drained by this method?” She splays her palm on the ground, and the earth slowly desiccates. Grass turns gray and crumbles. Ground shrivels and cracks, swallowing the rain. The infection oozes outward from her hand, slowly devouring inches, then feet.
I retreat a single step, then realize how wrong that instinct is. She can turn up the speed at any second. She’s just playing with me.
“It’s simple, actually. Occupying ground that has already had its magic repurposed creates a barrier.” She lifts her silver brows. “The easiest solution is to drain it yourself. If you do so before I get there, you’ll live. You’ll keep your love—at least what it masquerades as—and your power, and even your dragon if you wish.”
“And if I don’t?” The desiccation spreads and wingbeats fill the air, but Tairn’s still out of reach, so I’m guessing I’m about to meet more of her wyvern.
“You die.” She leans onto her hand, and the ground withers at four times the speed, the magic draining in a circle of gray that approaches like a tidal wave. “I can wait for another lightning wielder, but you’re too dangerous to be left alive, so choose quickly.”
Fuck. I have seconds—
Already had its magic repurposed. I need a barrier.
I break right, then sprint like hell, dropping the conduit. It smacks my forearm with every stride as I unsheathe another dagger from my thigh, and my foot slips on the rain-slick grass, just enough to throw off my pace. My left knee screams, and I block out the pain, keeping one eye on the spreading circle of death that races toward my feet and the other on the nearest wyvern carcass. Ten more feet. I can make it. I have to make it.
I’m not dying on this field.
My heart pounds and my lungs burn as I leap those last three feet, soaring toward a wall of gray. I slam into the fleshy area between the wyvern’s talons and stab my right dagger deep, then immediately pull up and thrust the left as high as I can. My feet kick for purchase on its slick, leathery skin, but I manage to get a foothold and use the daggers to climb.
I scramble to the top of its claw, then race up its scaly leg, over its ankle, and find the shredded meat of its thigh.
The wave of desiccation ripples underneath me, then passes right by on the other side of the wyvern’s carcass, and I lift my hands to my chest to feel the drum of my heartbeat. If I was dead, I’d know it, right? I definitely wouldn’t still hear wingbeats.
“My, aren’t you clever.” Theophanie focuses on something behind me. “No!”
The curve of talons appears in the corner of my eye, and I throw out my arms. A claw closes around me, then jerks my body into the sky. “Tairn.”
“Not quite.”
Rain bombards navy-blue scales. “Sgaeyl?”
“You are an inconvenience for which there is no adequate measurement,” she snarls, flying west as the clouds churn above us, darkening with an abysmal quickness. “But you have done an excellent job keeping the Maven occupied.”
West is the wrong direction when Xaden is south.
“You can’t leave him!” I shout.
“Which is why I’m leaving you.” She swings her foreleg forward, then releases her grip. “She’s all yours.”
I careen into the storm with as much grace as a flailing drunkard held hostage by physics, and I lock my jaw, swallowing the scream that rises in my throat. Fear grips my lungs, and power rushes through my veins in response, coursing with a hundred times the force of adrenaline.
That’s Tairn.
The fear that summoned my power evaporates into the storm, and I throw my arms outward. A gargantuan void of black cuts through the rain ahead of me as my trajectory shifts and gravity takes hold, pulling me back to the ground.
“A little help here?” I begin to fall faster than the rain around me.
“I told you to stay on the field.” Two talons hook over my shoulders, and every bone in my body grates on the others as I’m jerked upward. “But in this case, I’m relieved you did not listen.”
“Sgaeyl made that choice, but me, too.” I’d be dead if she hadn’t. “Teine?”
“Quickly recovering under Brennan’s care at the top of the pass.” Tairn swings me up toward his snout, then tosses me onto his back.
I land at the base of his neck and skid. My left knee buckles, but I hold my arms out for balance and rapidly navigate the spikes of his back against the will of the wind and rain. “Mira?” I settle into the saddle and breathe a little easier once I’m buckled in and my goggles are in place.
This is how we’re meant to face combat. Together.
“She lives,” he replies as we descend. “We’re approaching the field.”
The clouds above us start to rotate counterclockwise.
Fantastic.
“Watch the weather. Theophanie’s a storm wielder. She’ll try to force you out of the sky.” I grasp the conduit in my left hand and throw open my Archives door, changing the stream of power to a deluge as the field comes into view.
“She may try,” he growls.
The field bears the circle where she drained the magic from the earth, but she’s nowhere in sight. “She’s gone.”
“She recognized her loss of advantage. Look south,” Tairn announces, and my head swivels.
“I can’t see that—” My vision shifts just like it did after Threshing, and the battlefield comes into startling clarity. But it’s not Andarna’s eyes I’m looking through; it’s Tairn’s. “Far.”
Whatever hordes had waited to launch have taken to the sky a mile from the city gates, leaving behind a line of a dozen—no, eleven—venin-carrying wyvern on the ground behind them. I can’t make out the dark wielders’ features, but it isn’t hard to spot Theophanie’s silver hair or the enormous wyvern she rides.
My heart lurches. The one in the center looks bigger than Codagh.
“Because it is,” Tairn relishes. “It would be my finest kill to date.”
I blink, and my vision returns to my own. The last thing I want is to put Tairn anywhere near that enormous wyvern, but there’s no way the city can withstand the coming assault. If Kaori and the others fail their orders, none of us will survive without falling back and abandoning the civilians.
“Our orders are to occupy or kill Theophanie.” I draw and hold more power, heating my skin to a noticeable burn. “The fact that there are more than a hundred wyvern between us and her that also happen to threaten the city—”
“Agreed,” Tairn interrupts and banks right, soaring toward Draithus.
“Why would riders develop farsight if you can see that clearly, anyway?” I ask.
“The privilege of our sight is afforded to few,” he comments.
Go figure.
Rain sizzles as it hits my face, and I spot Glane and Cath high above a line of gryphons on the northern wall while Cuir flies lower in formation, all picking off wyvern trying to dart by the city on their way to the valley beyond. Rhi and the rest of the squad will stop them before they get to the pass. Wait…Cuir? “Isn’t Bodhi supposed to be—”
“We all make our own decisions.”
Xaden’s going to be pissed.
I scan the horizon for him. The officers have a dozen dragons in the sky, but there’s only one blue above the southern end of the city, and it’s not Sgaeyl. “Where are they?”
“She has withdrawn from me,” he admits with a mental growl.
A string of curse words flows through my head as we approach the city, and I gather more power, letting it scald and smolder deep within me. “Probably doesn’t want you worried.”
“Which has the opposite effect,” he retorts as the horde passes a line of stacked wyvern carcasses to the east. They’ll be at the gates in less than a minute, and there are too many to target.
At least I don’t have to aim.
“Pull the riot back to the airspace above the city.” I drop the conduit, letting it fall against my forearm, and lift both hands to the rain as energy sears my lungs, building to a burn I can’t contain for much longer.
“Done.” He banks slightly left so our course is set for the horde and not the city, and the multitude of color in the sky shifts, concentrating above Draithus.
I’d bet my life that not a single dragon in the sky questioned Tairn’s immediate authority over the airspace.
“Carr’s teachings might actually come in handy.” I focus on the horde, then splay my hands wide and release the built-up energy. Power erupts with a white-hot snap, jolting my spine as I drag my hands downward, and I let go as lightning cleaves the sky in too many columns to count.
“Ten bolts,” Tairn announces with a swell of pride as thunder reverberates through my body and wyvern fall. “Seven struck.”
Determination expands my chest. Yeah, I can do this. I lift both hands, draw power voraciously, then wield again just like before. Columns of lightning crash, though not as powerful as the first strike, and I take out five wyvern, according to Tairn.
“Four,” he announces after the next strike.
Again and again, I draw energy recklessly, counting on volume, not accuracy. Everything in my body burns like I’ve been tied to a pyre, but I push onward.
“Six. Three. Eight!” Tairn keeps count with each wield.
We have time for one more as we near the northeast edge of the walls, and I draw in Tairn’s scorching power like breath, then wield.
“Six!” he announces, and I fall forward, my head swimming as the ones I didn’t kill fly at us in a swarm and breach the city airspace. “Hold tight!”
“We can’t—” I grasp the pommels, and Tairn pulls into a climb so steep the edges of my vision blur. The wind feels so fucking good against my face, but it doesn’t touch the fire in my lungs. I fight for breath against the force crushing my chest and only manage once Tairn clears the cloud of wyvern and levels out for a precious second.
“You cannot fight if you burn out. Water!” Tairn orders, and I rip the waterskin from its strap behind the saddle, pull the cork, and chug. It hits like butter on a frying pan, and my stomach instantly rebels. “Keep it down.”
As if it’s that easy.
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, quelling the urge to vomit, then shove the waterskin back into position as my body absorbs the offering. Heat burns behind my eyes, which means my temperature is still elevated, but the searing pain is gone. I’m getting better at this. “Let’s kill their makers.”
“Let’s,” Tairn agrees, and we dive toward the line of venin sitting atop their wyvern.
Wind roars in my ears, and they launch at the sight of us. Six surge for the city, two fly our way, and three retreat into the mountains—including Theophanie and her monstrosity.
Fuck.
“We kill those in our way and then pursue their storm wielder,” Tairn decrees.
“I only have one alloy dagger left.” I grasp the conduit in my hand as we race toward the dark wielders. Instead of gathering more, I draw on the power already thrumming through my veins with care, excising only what I need with precision.
“Then I suggest you not throw it.”
The venin on the left flicks his wrist, and a spear of ice hurtles our way. Tairn rolls right, and the projectile flies within feet of his wing, too close for comfort. That one needs to die first.
Power snaps through me and I draw it downward with the tip of my finger, searing my skin as I aim. It strikes the venin right through the fluttering hood of his purple robes, and he and his wyvern fall from the sky, instantly dead.
I shift focus to the other dark wielder, only to hear Tairn’s teeth snap in that direction as the pair flee in retreat.
The roaring wind crescendos like a river that’s burst its dam, and a gust catches Tairn’s wing, propelling us sideways for a startling heartbeat before he levels us out and turns into the wind.
Oh, fuck.
A tornado spouts at the northern edge of the field where I’d faced Theophanie, dropping from the clouds in a narrow cone. Earth churns as it spins slowly toward Draithus, its path too precise to be natural. It will rip the city apart.
“Ground the riot!” Tairn shouts so loudly my vision shakes, and I get the feeling the message didn’t go just down our pathway, but every pathway.
Theophanie.
“Our prey waits on the mountain beyond the field,” Tairn says as we cut a route toward the northeast corner of the city.
Wingbeats sound behind us, and I pivot in the saddle. Hope surges at the sight of blue wings— “What the hell is he doing?”
My brows rise as Molvic emerges from one of the southern valleys.
“The Spare brings the advance party from Zehyllna.” Tairn’s head swivels as he relays the information. “A thousand soldiers and their horses. They landed at the port of Soudra by accident instead of Cordyn and will be here in less than half an hour.”
The city has reinforcements if it can last that long, but wyvern outnumber riders and fliers fleeing for cover. Our forces will have to drive the wyvern to the ground for the infantry to kill in order to make a difference. My stomach pitches. Where are Xaden and Sgaeyl?
I reach through the bond, only to be met with a wall of black ice.
Cuir disappears into the fray above the city, and my breath stutters.
“We have to—” I start.
“One objective,” Tairn growls as we near the battle. “Decide our fate.”
Glane launches toward Cuir despite the order to shelter.
I nod to myself, then rip my gaze away, focusing northward on the tornado and its creator.
Time to do what Imogen suggested months ago and delegate. She’ll rip the very sky apart before she and Glane accept defeat.
One objective. “Fly for Theophanie.”
