Grasping the dagger in my left hand and the crossbow in my right, I slice through the leather strap of my belt as Tairn dips his right wing, giving me the perfect angle for one. Single. Second. “Forgive me.”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Kill the other one quickly for both our sakes!” I’m already moving, sheathing my dagger and lunging from the saddle, gaining one, two, three running steps before I leap.
Andarna. Xaden. My sister. Brennan. They all flash through my mind as my arms swing through the fall, finding only air, but it’s my mother’s face I see in my mind when I land on Aotrom’s back, the soles of my boots finding purchase at the edge of one of his spine scales.
“Silver One!”
“How’s that for a running landing?” Holy shit, I made it.
Ridoc must think the same, because he stares at me in pure shock for a good second before he yanks his sword free of the wyvern’s nose, then moves to plunge it again as I start running toward him. “I can’t get the fucking thing off him!”
My heart pounds as hard as my feet as Tairn completes the dive to my right, a patch of black filling my peripheral vision. Ignoring the self-preservation instinct that tells me this is a bad idea, I race to Ridoc and shove the crossbow into his hands. “Fire it once I’m on Sliseag and get back in your seat!”
“Once you’re what?”
I don’t pause to answer the question, too busy running onto the nose of the godsdamned wyvern that’s currently having part of its throat ripped out by Sliseag.
I run up the slope between the shrieking wyvern’s eyes as it sinks its teeth deeper into Aotrom, then onto the flat of its head between its horns as Sliseag tears his jaw away.
“I’m going to throttle you myself once”—Tairn growls, and I hear the distinct sound of bone crunching in the distance—“I get you on the ground!”
I nearly roll my ankle on a spike halfway down the wyvern’s gyrating neck and catch myself as Sliseag swings his head back to the wyvern attacking his rider, but Sawyer’s grip along his spine scales is too tenuous for Sliseag to maneuver quickly. The dragon can’t defend his rider without losing him.
He lets loose a skull-shaking roar as the wyvern takes another snap at Sawyer, swinging his tail with no effect.
“Hurry, Vi!” Ridoc yells.
“Sliseag!” I shout, breaking the cardinal rule of all riders. “Let me help him!”
The red swivels its head toward me, pinning me with furious golden eyes, and I nod, praying to Dunne he understands, that he holds still, and then leap from the wyvern’s neck, my feet kicking for distance.
I land just above Sliseag’s eyes and wrap my left arm around one of his horns, using it to both stop my momentum and hold my balance as his head swings toward the wyvern attacking Sawyer, snapping at the wyvern and coming up short.
“Now, Ridoc!” Using Sliseag’s horn for leverage, I hurtle down his neck as an explosion sounds behind me, heat flaring along my back.
Sawyer scoots himself across Sliseag’s spine, and I run faster, passing the seat. If he falls to that side, there’s nothing Tairn can do. We’re too close to the ridgeline below.
“Where are you?” I ask Tairn as Sawyer’s eyes meet mine in a double take.
I ignore the snaps and snarls above me and keep moving.
“Where I’m supposed to be, unlike you!” he bites out just as his gargantuan frame turns in the sky ahead of me, dropping the lifeless body of the fourth wyvern from his jaws.
“Good. Now do me a favor.” I charge past Sliseag’s wings and alongside the enormous, gnashing teeth of the wyvern poised to devour Sawyer.
“Which would be?” Tairn asks, already flying toward us.
“Violet?” Sawyer’s eyes widen with shock as blood pumps out of his leg in sickening rhythmic spurts. He needs a healer now.
I hit my knees, sliding the last few feet and slamming into Sawyer, knocking him farther down Sliseag’s spine toward the dragon’s hindquarters. Wrapping my arms around Sawyer, I clasp my hands behind his back. “Hold on!” I shout as we slide over countless red scales, seconds away from the edge.
Sliseag banks away from the ridgeline, giving us a few hundred much-needed feet of altitude for the inevitable fall, and tips us over.
“Silver One!”
Sawyer’s arms close around me as we tumble off Sliseag’s back and fall into the open air.
“Catch me.” Wind tears at my hair, my face, my leathers, but I hold on to Sawyer as we drop in total free fall. I can save him. He doesn’t have to die today.
He won’t.
One. Two. Three. Four. I count my heartbeats as we clear the ridgeline.
“What are you doing?” Xaden roars, and there’s a faint, familiar brush of velvet at the base of my neck, as if Xaden’s power has been extended to its limits. Our fall slows, but not by much as a dark wing blocks out the sky.
“What the hell does it look like I’m—” The breath is knocked from my lungs as an iron vise closes around us, halting our fall with a whipping change of momentum. Tairn.
“What part of ‘stay in your saddle’ did you not understand?” Tairn bellows, holding us in the precarious grip of his claw and banking left, toward Basgiath.
“You couldn’t be in two places at once,” I argue, fighting to draw breath as Sawyer goes limp above me, his chin falling against my shoulder. “You had to kill the fourth wyvern, and Sliseag wouldn’t defend himself if it meant losing Sawyer, so I took Sawyer.”
“And you just hoped I’d catch you?” He flares his wings, slowing our speed to a glide.
“As if you wouldn’t.” Air flows into my lungs in a trickle, then a stream.
He scoffs. Then changes the subject with, “Your brother has mended the stone into one piece but does not feel…hopeful.”
