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)
Outside, the sky darkens further. Sorrengail better take their leader all the way the fuck out, or this will all have been for nothing.
A gift from one servant of Dunne to another. I must warn you—only those touched by the gods should wield their wrath. I will pray to Her that she need not use it to avoid reacquainting herself with the other who curries her favor. Her path is still not set.
—Recovered Correspondence of High Priestess Deservee to His Royal Highness, Cadet Aaric Graycastle, Prince Camlaen of Navarre
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
VIOLET
Iswear the tornado slows as Tairn battles the wind at the eastern edge of the field, flying for the mountainside ahead of us.
“It is slowing,” Tairn agrees.
“She used it to get us here.” Theophanie’s holding it like a nocked arrow, waiting for our arrival.
Trees are uprooted a mile to the left, turning into low-flying projectiles that hurl across the field like cross-bolts. The tornado may have slowed its progress, but it’s doing far more damage along the way.
The wyvern launches ahead of us, moving our way, and for a split second, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve just invited Malek to our doorstep.
She’s a Maven, and I’m a cadet.
She wields storms with expert precision, and I need a conduit for my lightning.
She’s already felled Tairn once before.
The smartest thing I could do is fly for the wards and save us both—all four of us, considering Xaden and Sgaeyl—but I can’t leave those people to die, even if it means we’re desiccated alongside them.
Riders don’t run. We fight.
“Now, preferably,” Tairn remarks. “If you’re done accepting our deaths.”
“Not accepting, just calculating.” I draw power through my charred veins as the distance between us grows smaller and smaller, gripping the conduit in my left hand and raising my right.
Energy rips through me as I release it, dragging the bolt downward and letting go before it can blister my fingers. Lightning strikes as Theophanie’s wyvern rolls to the right.
I missed. My stomach clenches.
“Again!” Tairn demands, banking right to follow her down as rain turns to ice.
Hail hits in stones the size of peas, then cherries, hitting me with the force of a thousand blunt arrows as wind tears at my face, but I lift my hand—
The conduit shatters.
Glass slices into my palm, and I gasp in pain as blood wells.
No, no, no! I can’t aim without it.
“You have to!” Tairn orders as we spiral downward.
Right. Dying up here isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain, and I’m not about to let her kill my friends—or Xaden, either. I quickly undo the strap holding the jagged remnants to my wrist and let what’s left of the orb, and the fist-size chunk of ice that destroyed it, fall away. My hope plummets with it.
I’ll have to kill her just like I did those wyvern—with volume. I unsheathe my last alloy-hilted dagger and grasp it with my bleeding hand so I’m ready for anything, lift my right hand, and wield again.
I miss as she rolls in the opposite direction and begins to climb. We follow, and I draw power again and again, but it becomes harder with every strike. She avoids every single one as we fly along the mountain, hugging the terrain. Tairn surges with sweeping beats of his wings, gaining on her.
Heat singes my lungs, then burns, then fries, until I feel nothing but fire and rage.
Rock flies as I hit the ridgeline to the right, missing her by ten feet as we fly into the sun.
The sun.
I jerk my head left. The tornado has stalled midway toward the city, and the sky above us is clear all the way to the east.
“She’s killing the storm to make it harder for me to wield!” That explains why I’m burning hotter than before. I jerk my focus back to our prey before it can wander toward the city I’m desperately fighting to save.
“Do not take more than you can channel,” Tairn warns as he lunges forward. His teeth snap closed a few feet behind the wyvern’s tail.
They’re too fucking fast.
The wyvern dives, curving along the ridgeline to the right, and Tairn follows.
A roar of unfettered agony fills my head, so loud it vibrates my bones and shrill enough to pop my ears.
“Sgaeyl!” Tairn bellows, his wings losing their rhythm, and my heart skips a series of beats.
Oh Malek, no.
I hurl myself at the bond, but the wall of ice doesn’t just stand firm; it repels me with brute force. Dread nails my stomach to the floor as we lose speed—
I hear the snap a second before the shadow falls over us. No, not a shadow. A massive net with weights the size of desks attached along the edges.
Tairn roars and banks left, but it’s no use.
“Tairn!” I scream as the net hits, smashing my torso downward onto the pommels and covering every scale I can see. He’d be able to bear the weight of it easily on his torso, but it smothers his wings, and the weights… Oh gods. “Tuck your wings or they’ll break!”