When my gaze focused again, he was there, over me, his talons coming down for a deadly, life-ending tear. I wrenched away just in time, evading the brutal swipe and delivering a hard kick to his stomach.
He bowed over from the impact, and then his head snapped up with a snarl, baring his fangs. He charged and I lifted up, evading him, my beating wings carrying me out of the way, my clawed feet skimming the ground as I whirled around, circling him.
Still, he came, caught me in no time, dragging me down.
“Fell,” I panted, pleading, yanking my head to the side and dodging the snap of his teeth. “Fell, please!”
We were killing each other.
Only one of us would come out of this alive.
Exhausted, hurting, I rolled, pushing myself up, talons buried deep in a mix of snow and dirt. My wings hung limply around me, shielding me but offering no real protection.
It all felt pointless. Kerstin had been right, and I was a fool. He would kill me.
Panting, he hauled his massive body toward me, clawing the earth in slow, ominous pulls to get to me, to end me. He wouldn’t stop. Not ever.
28
FELL
IDID NOT KNOW THIS CREATURE.
I tried to end it, but it was not an easy thing to kill.
The fog told me to do it—the mist that had been there in the darkness, holding me when there had been nothing else. Nothing and no one. Just that encircling fog, that coiling and constant champion, my only companion in the void. A friend in the darkness. The voice in my ear.
I had talked to it, clung to it, and it had talked back. I had listened as it whispered of revenge and punishment. Justice for my wrongs. A balm for my eternal wounds.
Now this creature had followed me. Hunted me … brought me to ground, attacked me with fire in its eyes.
I had to destroy it before it destroyed me. I knew that.
I lifted my talons toward it, over it, preparing to slice down.
Its mouth—hermouth—moved, lips forming sounds, words … and something gave, crumbled loose inside me like scree on a mountainside. I twisted my head and looked up at those looming and watchful Crags on either side of us.
Not anit.
Aher.
Herbeautiful mouth.
I shook my head hard, pushing back against this niggle of awareness, resisting a thread of tenderness and a burgeoning sense that something about this was wrong …
I lowered my claw, gazing down at the broken form on the ground—ather.
Eyes like fire looked up at me. The same fire that had burned me. Melted the skin right off my bones.
I saw it then—heard it—the echo of a memory, the sound of dirt hitting the top of a box. My coffin.
I narrowed my gaze on her, pushing past that memory, assigning that old terror to her. Assigning all my pain to her. I flung it at her feet.
The dark mist whispered, winding around me.Hurt her or she hurts you.
I was free now, but not free as long as those who imprisoned me still lived. Silver eyes burst across my mind. Familiar and treacherous. Betrayal sat on my tongue, sour and rotten.
Her lips moved again. Her words took shape and sounded on the air.
