Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Bone snaps as the sky appears again, and Tairn lets go.
The wyvern falls, smashing into the ground a few seconds later.
“We broke its neck,” he announces, flaring his wings to halt our momentum.
My head swims, and my stomach threatens to release its contents. “Let’s never do that again.” I check to make sure Rhi’s all right, and she lifts a hand in acknowledgment.
“It was an effective maneuver,” Tairn argues. “The opposite force twisted the creature’s spine—”
“I get how it worked. Never again.” The moonlight makes it possible to scan the field fully, and my heart drops at the sight of piled wings near the north gate. I can’t differentiate among them in the dark, but I can make out the gaping hole in the top of the wall.
“Your year-mates have brought down two pairs themselves, but the bodies have caused destruction,” Tairn says in explanation. “The wards have not been reached by wyvern. They’ll continue to send waves to test the boundaries.” His head whips back and forth between the horde holding off to the east and those engaged in combat before them.
Xaden. My feelings get the best of me, and I reach down the bond. Instead of warm, shimmering shadow, I’m met with a wall of onyx ice so cold it burns to the touch.
I inhale sharply and throw up a shield. “Is Sgaeyl all—”
“She copes,” Tairn interrupts, his head snapping left. “Look below.”
The muscles along my stomach tense. Four wyvern skim the ground at dizzying speed, keeping low as if trying to get by undetected. I swing my gaze, projecting their flight path, and find Andarna waiting in front of a lone structure in a field beyond the walls, flicking her tail. Terror steals the breath from my lungs.
“Go!”
Tairn tucks his wings, and we dive.
Wind tears at my hair, and I fight gravity to palm the conduit. Then I forget the fall and focus only on the wyvern, power rushing back to my surface. I gather it, condense it, burn with it, then summon more and more until I am light and heat and energy itself.
“Not too much!” Tairn warns as I lift my right hand against the wind.
But how can it be too much when I am the very thing I wield?
I keep my eyes on the wyvern as we approach the inevitable point of intersection and spool power like thread as the ground flies up to meet us. We can stay ahead of them if we get there fast enough.
I just need five seconds. We have fifty feet of altitude on them and the same in distance.
Five. Tairn snaps his wings to slow our fall.
Four. The bones in my spine grind at the abrupt change in momentum, but he’s brought us close enough to see the tips of their clawed wings. And they’re only getting closer.
Three. My body burns as I twist in the saddle and wield, releasing the coil of energy with a flare of my hand in one heartbeat, then dragging it downward with two scalded fingertips in the next.
Two. Tairn beats his wings, lifting us as lightning rends the sky—and maybe time. Everything seems to move slower as I force my fingers apart, splitting the bolt in two. Heat devours my breath and pain becomes my entire existence as I direct the scorching blasts into the wyvern’s flight path.
One. The strike hits the lead pair, and they burst into flames, missing Tairn by a matter of feet as they fall out of formation in streaks of fire, revealing the remaining two.
And one carries a silver-haired rider.
Zero. Thunder shakes the alloy in the conduit, and my hand falls as Tairn drops onto the nearest wyvern.
The creature screeches, and the world spins in a flurry of black and gray wings.
Tairn bellows, and his pain replaces mine.
Dedicating oneself to temple work isn’t just a noble pursuit. Becoming high priest or priestess is the closest most of us will get to touching the power of the gods. The rest are riders.
—Major Rorilee’s Guide to Appeasing the Gods, Second Edition
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“Tairn!” I scream, and my mouth floods with the bitterness of newfound terror.
“No!” Andarna yells.
We skid to a halt in the prairie grass, and I lift my head just in time to see Feirge fly after Theophanie’s wyvern, who’s taken to the sky. Dunne, no. As strong as Rhi is, even the two of us together aren’t a match for a Maven. And we aren’t together.
“Andarna! Tell Feirge not to chase!” Bone crunches beneath Tairn, and I draw a breath of pure fire. “Are you all right?” I ask him, fumbling the buckle at my waist so I can see how badly he’s hurt. Heat sears my lungs, and I reach for power in preparation to fight Theophanie. There’s no way she’s going to leave this field without getting what she came for, which I suspect is me. She’ll be back.