Evander was right. My mother is going to make the perfect mother to our child.
I decide that will be a fine alternative if this doesn’t work out favorably for me. But my baby is still my baby, and to be perfectly honest, I think my mother gets plenty of time with my baby as it is.
It’s with this thought that I sprint across the room, and as the Other attacks, hurtle out the window.
CHAPTER 71
EVANDER
Othian is beautiful from this high up.
At least, I imagine that’s what I’d be thinking if I weren’t currently scrambling atop the back of the wyvern, clinging to its scales for dear life as we surge into the sky.
Condensation has me choking as the wyvern cuts through the clouds, sending a spray of liquid up my nose.
I squeeze my burning eyes shut, then force them open despite the wind lashing against them.
And for a moment, as the wyvern reaches the peak of our ascent and the two of us are weightless, I peer down at the clouds beneath us, their blanket of white shining magnificently in the daylight.
There’s no time to sit in awe, though.
Not when, after a single weightless moment, the wyvern twists.
My world turns upside down as the creature flips onto its back, allowing gravity to take hold and send us plummeting.
Where there was once a row of scales beneath me, there’s now only clouds.
We cut through the mist.
There’s only ground hurtling toward us as the wind presses my torso to the wyvern’s spine.
Panic rises within me.
I really would rather not die splattered on the ground, smashed between the wyvern and a poorly placed turret.
Thankfully, the wyvern doesn’t seem to realize how physics works, and that I haven’t fallen faster than the wyvern itself, like the stupid creature must have hoped.
Which means it has to spin back around sometime.
That’s about the only hope I have as I claw my fingers into the space between its scales and hold tight.
We fall for what feels like eternity, and just when I’m sure I’m about to become a decorative sidewalk mural in the town square, the wyvern pivots, sending me upright, then opens its wings.
We catch wind, the force of it sending us weightless again, floating upward and above the castle.
But not high enough that my vines can’t reach.
I call them from the earth, sending them straight through the leathery portion of the creature’s wings, biting at its membrane until its wings look like sails tattered by a storm.
The wyvern cries out, and we fall.
The crash sends us careening through the roof of the castle.
A harsh impact rattles my bones, shooting me off the back of the wyvern. Rubble beats against my limbs as I roll across the floor, pain exploding through my muscles.
Stars blanket my vision, which doesn’t seem right given it’s midday, but when I go to push myself off the ground, I stumble.
Something scaly wraps itself around my torso and squeezes.
CHAPTER 72
ELLIE
Falling is a rather unpleasant experience.
I’ve fallen before, back at the arena when Evander and I faced our first Trial.
Except that time, Evander was there to catch me.
Well, he’d technically been the one to drop me too, so I suppose I can’t give him too much credit.
That’s what I’m thinking as my body slams into the back of a gargoyle.
Its horns jam into my torso, but thankfully the artist opted for more flattened horns. I decide I’ll have to seek them out in the art district and thank them later.
I’m fairly sure this is what undiluted panic feels like. Or perhaps delirium. Or maybe a combination. I don’t think I’m in the mental state to make medical diagnoses at the moment.
A giggle escapes my lips, I suppose because I’m high from the fall, or maybe it’s because I can still hear Cecilia’s cries in my ears. (Are those real, or just in my imagination, and will the Other hear them too?)
