Another explosion hits, this time taking out a chunk of the post’s high stone walls as Tairn pulls up, narrowly missing a gryphon rider and bringing us level across the post, flying too fast to hear anything more than the screams of townspeople as they run through the streets, fleeing for the exodus at the post gates.

“Where did the wyvern go?” I ask Tairn.

“Retreated into the valley. Don’t worry—it will come back.”

Oh. Joy.

My gaze sweeps the rooftops of the little post until I see it—him—whatever. There’s a figure standing at the top of a wooden clock tower, wearing purple floor-length robes that billow in the wind while he hurls blue flames like daggers at the civilians below.

He’s more terrifying than any illustrator could have depicted, rivers of red veins fanning in every direction around soulless eyes consumed by magic. His face is gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and thin lips, a gnarled hand gripping a long red cane made of some misshapen wood.

“Tairn!”

“Yes, let’s.” Tairn banks away from Sgaeyl, pulling us in a hard turn and taking us into the village. A few beats of his wings later, fire streams from his mouth, and he incinerates the clock tower on a flyby.

“Got him!” I turn in the saddle, watching as the wooden structure collapses in the blast. It’s only a matter of seconds before the venin walks out of the flames, though, and there isn’t a scratch on him. “Oh, fuck. He’s still there,” I call out as we cut back across the post to get to our assigned area, mentally kicking myself for thinking it could have been that simple. There’s a reason these creatures are what make up most Navarrians’ nightmare stories—and it isn’t because they’re easy to kill. We have to get close enough to get a dagger in him.

I turn forward just in time to see a giant mass of wings and teeth cut across our path with an earsplitting screech, and Tairn’s tail smashes into the stone walls behind me, knocking the masonry loose as he dodges the wyvern. We just barely evade the hissing curl of blue fire that streams from its mouth, catching a nearby tree on fire.

“The wyvern is back!”

“That’s a different one,” Tairn barks. “I’m relaying orders to the others.”

Of course he is. Xaden might command the riders on this field, but Tairn is clearly leading the dragons.

The wyvern swings around and heads toward the town’s center, tucking up two legs and beating spiderwebbed wings. It bears a female rider in maroon flight gear that resembles our own, and her eyes are the same eerie red color as the venin on the clock tower.

“Xaden, there’s more than one wyvern.”

There’s a moment of silence, but I can feel Xaden’s palpable shock, then rage. “If you get separated from Tairn, call out, then fight until I get there.”

“No chance of that happening. I’m not letting her off my back, wingleader,” Tairn growls as I get my first good look at the airspace above the city, flooded with dragons, gryphons, and wyvern, just like in the creation fable.

“Soleil found a sealed entrance to what looks to be a mine,” Xaden says. “I need—”

Tairn turns abruptly, veering toward the mountains.

“—you to see if you can put down some cover so Garrick and Bodhi can get the townspeople evacuated,” he finishes. “Liam is on his way.”

“On it.” My pulse leaps. “Tairn, I can’t aim.”

“You will,” he says like it’s a foregone conclusion. “Orders are being dispersed amid the gryphons.”

“Dragons can speak to gryphons?” My eyebrows shoot up.

“Naturally. How do you think we communicated before humans got involved?”

I hunker down across his neck as we dart above the city, passing over a clinic, what looks to be a school, and rows and rows of an open-air market that’s currently on fire. There’s no sign of the purple-robed venin we first saw as we sail over the shriveled body of a gryphon and its rider near the center of town. My stomach turns, especially when I see a wyvern circling back toward them—and Sgaeyl is on an intercept course.

“She can hold her own,” Tairn reminds me. “And so can he. We have orders. Focus.”

Focus. Right.

We pass families scurrying from their ruined homes, then over the city walls, heading toward the opening in the side of the mountain where Soleil’s Brown Clubtail swings its tail into the wood planks covering the abandoned tunnel. There are a few outbuildings lining the road but not much else.

Tairn pulls hard to the left as we approach, the strap digging into my legs as my weight shifts in the saddle with the abrupt motion. Then he flares his wings to hover in front of Soleil, facing Resson and the screaming crowd that runs the hundred yards between the city walls and us, led by a pair of gryphons and their fliers who continuously look behind them, scanning the skies.

But what they don’t see is the venin striding our way from north of the gate, watching the crowd’s movement with a narrowed red gaze. The veins on both sides of her eyes are more pronounced than the earlier rider’s, and her long blue robe reminds me of the staff bearer who survived the clock-tower blast.

“I’ve already told Fuil. She’ll protect Soleil,” Tairn says, angling toward the threat.

“Get us away from the crowd.” Power already sizzles beneath my skin.

A child stumbles on the dirt road, and my heart lurches as her father scoops her into his arms and continues to sprint.

Deigh passes, and I see him land out of the corner of my eye as I lift my arms and let my power rip free, focusing on the venin.

Lightning cracks. A section of the city wall crumbles.

Fuck.

“Keep going. Deigh says they need more time!” Tairn urges.

I make the mistake of turning in the saddle, noting that both Liam and Soleil are unseated, ushering the townspeople into the mine, while Deigh and Fuil guard separate sides of the evacuation path. If anything happens—if one of those wyvern circling the town decides to take notice—they’re vulnerable. But so are the people they’re protecting.

A trio of gryphons flies in, all three dangling townspeople from their talons, dropping them off at the entrance to the mine and looping back for another run.

Energy rips through me as I aim a bolt for the venin, this one shattering an outbuilding along the hillside to our right. Boards split and wood flies as it collapses.

The venin’s attention whips upward, and my stomach twists when she spots me. There’s pure malice in her red eyes as she reaches forward with her left hand, then flips it, fisting air.

Rocks tumble down the mountainside.

Soleil throws up her hands, stopping the slide before it can crush the people running into the mine below. Her arms shake, but the boulders fall on either side of the evacuation path, leaving the escape clear.

I whip back toward the venin and gasp.

Raw power is palpable in the air, lifting the hairs on my arms as the venin stands with her palms lowered to the ground. The grass around her turns brown, then the flowers of the wild clover bushes wilt and the leaves curl, losing all their color.

“Tairn, is she…”

“Channeling,” he growls.

I fling another flare of energy as the blight spreads outward from the venin, as though she’s draining the very essence of the land, but it hits too close to the road, and the straggler racing toward safety, for my comfort.

“Watch out. Deigh says that building on the other side of the road has a crate of something marked with Liam’s family crest,” Tairn tells me as I fire off another blast that lands nowhere near the venin. “He says it’s highly…unstable,” he finishes, pausing as he relays the information.

“Not worried about the building,” I reply as the circle of death expands under Tairn’s beating wings, and I draw more power from Tairn, poising to strike again.