“Only two that Aotrom can see,” Tairn announces, his wings beating the clouds into little swirl patterns behind us. “The cover has thinned enough to the north to make out their shapes.”
“A patrol?”
“Riderless,” he confirms.
“Thank you, Zihnal.” I lean forward as tears streak from the corners of my eyes. “I know, I know. Dragons pay no heed to our gods.”
Tairn snorts, following a pattern of swirls similar to his own. He’s tracking the wyvern.
“You’re faster than they are, right?” Fear licks down my spine.
“Don’t insult me when we’re headed into battle.”
“Right,” I mutter to myself.
“Feel like using the conduit?” Tairn asks as two tails appear ahead.
“Nope. Aiming is detrimental to the goal.”
“Understood.” His wings beat faster, propelling us to a speed that leaves my stomach behind and narrows my vision as he pulls up above the wyvern to catch their attention.
It works, and my stomach hollows as we switch from the predator to the prey.
“If there were only one, I’d rip his throat out and call it a day.”
“I know.” But there’s no guarantee that there are only two.
“Hold on, Silver One.”
I buckle down, making myself as small as possible and lying across the saddle to minimize air resistance as Tairn moves at a pace I’ve never experienced. It takes all my effort to breathe, to fight the night at the edge of my vision, to just stay conscious as he bolts out of the clouds, then plummets back into the cover a breath later.
“They followed.”
“Great.” My fucking teeth are rattling. “How is that cloud cover? Because I can’t wield if I’m passed out.”
“They are almost clear.”
I grit my teeth and ignore the throbbing ache of my shoulder. The clouds have to clear the path, or there’s every chance I’ll kill Ridoc and Brennan if they’re still on the trail.
“We’re rolling,” he warns me a second before he does so, executing a move that disorients me thoroughly, a move most riders can’t hold their seat for.
My stomach lurches into my lungs as he levels out, flying back the opposite way and dropping us directly under the wyvern. “I know we’re not supposed to question dragons—”
“Then don’t.”
A set of pointed gray claws falls rapidly toward us. “Tairn!”
He banks hard right, then climbs quickly. “The clouds have cleared the trail.”
My heart speeds to a gallop. “Make sure they’re following us.”
“Don’t turn around, or you might actually pass out,” he instructs, flying faster.
I slide my hand out of my jacket with a wince, then gasp with pain as I rotate my palms downward and open myself to Tairn’s power. It flows through me, filling my muscles, my veins, the very marrow of my bones until I am power and power is me. My skin starts to hum, then sizzle.
We break through the clouds, and I throw my arms wide, pushing past the pain and screaming with it all in the same breath, setting the molten energy within me free, and for the first time in my life, I force the power downward.
Energy erupts through me, searing my skin on the way out as lightning strikes within the cloud below us, webbing out like the many branches of an overgrown briar patch, twisting and turning, drawn to the energy harnessed within the wyvern.
Four distinct shapes light up beneath us, two directly under and two closer to the edge of the cliff, flashing brightly with the endless stream of power.
“Break free!” Tairn demands.
I force my palms shut and shove the Archives door in my mind closed, blocking the endless torrent of Tairn’s power before I end up in the same condition I’d been in at Basgiath under Carr and Varrish’s punishment.
The flashing stops.
“Go!” I shout down the bond, clutching my right arm with my left as Tairn banks deeply to the left and dives for the ground.
This time, the wind is a welcome reprieve from the heat of my skin and the burn within my lungs as we pass through the cloud and emerge on the other side.
Four wyvern carcasses litter the ground, one in the middle of the very field we’d stood in this morning. Tairn flies over each just long enough to be sure that they are, in fact, riderless, and we’re joined by four others in the riot on one last sweep of the area.
Then we climb again, soaring through the clouds and coming out at the edge of the cliff, where everyone has gathered. Some gryphons load into heavy wagons with stumbling steps while others appear to have lost consciousness on the ground, but the fliers are all standing, as are the squads of riders.
Tairn quickly locates ours, and riders scurry as he drops to an abrupt landing.
“You could have crushed someone,” I lecture.
