There’s nothing I can do but secure Liam.
Grabbing the lap belt I never use, I wind it around Liam’s torso and buckle it. “That should hold you until we can get you back to Deigh, but I can’t wield without hitting him!” I yell as wind whips around us.
The agony in his eyes steals my breath.
“Why did you do that?” I cry, my fingers searching for purchase on his leathers to pull him closer. I settle for the back of his collar and yank. “Why would you risk it?” Gods, if anything happens to them…
His gaze collides with mine. “That thing was going to take a chunk out of Tairn. You’ve saved my life and now it’s my turn. No matter what you think of me for keeping secrets, we’re friends, Violet.”
Response is impossible as Tairn rolls again, lifting Liam’s entire body, and the leather belt slips to just under his arms. I fist my hands in the back of his flight leathers, but there’s not much to grab on to. Heartbeats pass and I can’t breathe, can’t think past the desperation to keep Liam safe, until Tairn levels out again, trying to stay as close as he can to Deigh without risking any of us in the process.
But then Deigh’s scream slices me to the bone as the two lock into a dive.
“Can’t you do something?” I beg Tairn.
“Working on it!” He pitches right and plummets, positioning himself around the downward-spiraling duel to strike. It should be us fighting for our lives, not Liam and Deigh.
And gods, Deigh is losing, which means Liam—
My throat constricts. No. Not going to happen.
“Get over here!” I shout at Xaden. Energy crackles through my hands, but there’s no clear target. They’re moving too fast.
“I’m hunting the venin at the walls!” he answers.
“Deigh is fighting for his life!”
The heartbeat of terror squeezing my chest like a vise isn’t mine. It’s Xaden’s. “If I leave, these civilians are all dead!”
We’re on our own. A quick glance at the field tells me every other dragon is locked in its own battle.
Tairn’s tail swings out, slamming into the wyvern’s hindquarters, and comes away bloody, but the fucking thing doesn’t release Deigh. Its claws flex, burrowing deeper beneath the red’s scales.
“Deigh!” Liam’s scream is raw, his voice breaking at the end.
Tairn lunges, snapping at the wyvern’s shoulder and drawing blood, but it’s not enough. He swings around to get a better angle on the wyvern, and the force nearly costs Liam his grip, but the buckle holds.
Another riderless wyvern flies at us from the right. “On the right!”
Tairn whips his body faster than I’ve ever felt and rips out the throat of the new threat, shaking the wyvern like a doll, then releases his jaws and lets the thing fall hundreds of feet to the mountainside below.
Then Tairn dives to catch up with Deigh and the wyvern as they race toward the ground.
Dread settles in my chest, ominous and heavy.
“We’re on our way!” Xaden says.
But he’ll be too late.
“Violet!” Liam shouts over the wind, and I rip my attention from the gruesome battle alongside us as we spiral downward. “We have to take out the riders.”
“I know!” I reply. “We will!” He just needs to hang on. They both do.
“No, I mean that’s the—”
Tairn lunges again, and we’re thrown sideways as he rips another hole in the wyvern’s wings with his teeth, raking down its tail with his talons, but the creature has Deigh in a death lock. Its wings are shredded now, but it doesn’t seem to care as its claws dig into Deigh’s underbelly, like it’s willing to mindlessly die to make the kill.
“It’s going to be all right,” I promise Liam, wind stinging my cheeks. It has to be all right; even though the ground rushes at us, closer and closer each second, it just…has to be.
Deigh screams again, the sound weaker and higher-pitched than the last. It’s a cry.
“We have to pull up!” Tairn warns.
“He’s dying!” Liam lunges across Tairn’s back, reaching for his dragon as if so he can touch the Red Daggertail one last time.
“Just hold—” I start, but Deigh’s shriek of pain closes my throat, strangling the words. He’s being eviscerated, and there’s nothing we can do.
The wyvern roars in victory a heartbeat before they crash into the hillside with a sickening thud. The wyvern limps away on its hind legs and the talons that tip its wings.
Deigh doesn’t move.
Liam’s raw scream shatters my heart, and Tairn flares his wings, banking hard to keep us from the same gruesome fate.
“DEIGH.” Tairn’s grief blasts through my body as he streams fire at the wyvern’s retreating back, and Andarna’s cry fills my head.
No. If Deigh…
“Is he—” I can’t bring myself to finish.
