Total pages in book: 295
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 282090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1410(@200wpm)___ 1128(@250wpm)___ 940(@300wpm)
I hold him to it when we’re given our assignment—Cat’s drift.
Three hours later, my calves are screaming from the constant climb, and the silence in our small, forced group has grown from uncomfortable to painfully awkward. Removing my right hand from the sheer rock wall, I adjust the weight of my pack on my shoulders to ease the growing protest in my spine and check on Sloane. She’s climbing steadily a few feet in front of me, giving the gryphon ahead of her plenty of room to flick its lionlike tail.
We’re climbing single file, with Fourth Wing leading the way. Only Claw Section is above us.
The trail itself is challenging although not unpassable, and while up to six feet wide at parts, it narrows to a quarter of that in places where the path has disintegrated, leaving gaping holes that have the humans hugging the cliff wall to get by. Every time we reach one, the gryphons stretch their grappling talons across while balancing on clawed back paws, and I find myself holding my breath that they make it. Considering the ones we’re walking with are easily a couple of feet wider than the path, I’m surprised only two have fallen that I know of. They’re able to catch themselves for now, but at higher altitudes? It could get ugly.
I look back at Maren, the flier I’ve been paired with until evening, and her gryphon as we approach an already triggered trap, the battering-ram-size log now lying harmlessly along the cliff wall where the path narrows. “Be careful here.”
“Right at chest height. Nice.” She offers me a pressed-lipped smile. She’s petite for a flier, though still taller than me, with a heart-shaped face under dark hair woven into a long single braid that falls along the bronzed ochre skin of her neck. Her dark, hooded eyes meet mine without hesitance every time I look back to make sure she’s still following, which earns my respect, but she’s also Cat’s best friend, which has me watching my back in more ways than one.
I look back again to make sure they pass safely.
“I’m not going to fall off the cliff,” she promises as we make the sharp turn of the fourth switchback. Or maybe it’s the fifth. The curves are the only places on the trail wide enough to walk in pairs. “Neither is Dajalair.”
The brown-and-white gryphon’s front left claw slips off the trail, and her talon screeches against rock with the most godsawful sound I’ve ever heard as she regains her balance.
Sloane and I trade a look that’s surprisingly empty of hostility.
“Are you certain about that?” I ask Maren as all three of us pause, watching to see if any stones break off the rocky terrain. Anything that falls can be deadly to those climbing below us.
The gryphon arches over Maren and snaps its beak in my direction.
Yeah, that thing could definitely crush my head.
“Got it, you’re certain,” I say, putting up my hands and praying to Dunne that gryphons don’t punish humans for speaking to them like dragons do.
Maren nods and scratches the feathered chest of the gryphon. “She’s surefooted and a little temperamental.”
The gryphon makes a chortling sound, and we begin walking again.
The narrow ledge is exactly why they aren’t allowed to fly any portion of the cliff. There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to stick a landing without causing a rockslide and killing everyone beneath them.
“Even if she fell from this height, we’d just have to fly down and start again,” Maren says like a peace offering. “It’s the upper portion of the trail that worries me. Another five thousand feet, and she’ll struggle to beat her wings. She’s not meant for the summitwing drifts.”
“Summitwing drifts?” I can’t help but ask.
“Those best suited for altitude, for flying the summits of the Esben range,”
she explains. “Daja might not want to admit it, but she’s a lowland girl.” Her smile brightens even as the gryphon snaps her beak rapidly a foot away from Maren’s ear. “Like you wouldn’t rather be stationed with the seawing drifts after graduation?” She laughs softly, no doubt at something the gryphon said. “That’s what I thought. Trust me, we don’t want to be headed into Tyrrendor any more than you want us to be there.”
“So why come?” Sloane asks, walking too close to the next gryphon and getting flicked in the face by its tail.
“Like Syrena said, it’s our best chance of survival—not just for us but for our people, too.”
After another few minutes of tense silence, I ask, “So where are you from?”
“Draithus,” Maren answers. “I’d ask about you, but everyone knows you grew up moving outpost to outpost until your mother was assigned to Basgiath.”
My footsteps almost falter.
Sloane glances back at me with raised eyebrows.
“You’ve been a hell of a ransom target,” Maren explains as we come to a series of carved steps meant to deter wagons. “Honestly, most of us figured Riorson would nab you after harvest his first year and gift you to us.”