“I can’t. It’s all blurry. Trees. Mountains. I don’t know. I don’t even know which way we’re flying. Everything looks the same.”
“You didn’t go far from the cave. Do you see a flat mountaintop? Look for a peak shaped like a blunt triangle. You shouldn’t be far from it.”
“Rhyan, I can’t see anything,” I gritted. “We’re moving too fast. It’s too dark.” My cloak was beginning to strangle me as it flapped, the cloth twisting around me in the wind.
“Tell the gryphon ‘sandar.’”
Slow.I looked back at the nahashim. It was going to catch us if we slowed down. But I didn’t know what else to do.
“Sandar,” I yelled. “Sandar.”
“Did he slow?”
“NO!”
“Try again. Rub the back of his head!” Rhyan urged.
Breathing through my mouth, my chest heaving, I did. “Sandar!”At first, nothing happened. But then the gryphon’s wings swept down the length of his body, like sails on either side of me, and they stilled. The gryphon squawked and we angled upward. “Shit!” We were going higher, further from the trees, up to where the air was so much colder. But he was flying slower.
Slow enough for the nahashim to reach us. Something the gryphon seemed aware of as it suddenly panicked and flapped its wings. He angled down again, picking up speed. My heart dropped and I yelled.
“Lyr, breathe. Breathe. I need you to look. I need you to find the mountaintop. Flat. Triangular. It’s huge. You’ll see it, I promise, even in the dark.”
I took a shaky breath and searched the grounds. But I saw nothing.
“Lyr, do you see it?” Rhyan asked.
“Not yet.” I scanned over the blur of trees, forcing myself to focus, to make sense of the shadowy images rushing beneath it.
“Fuck. Lyr, do you see anything? Any identifiers? Come on. I need you to tell me something—anything you see so I can come to you.”
I looked, desperately, on the verge of tears. And then in the distance, moving closer, I spotted a flatland above the pine, a mountain fitting Rhyan’s description.
“I see the triangle!” I yelled.
“Good! Hold the stone to the gryphon’s head, and hang on. Okay? I’m coming to get you.”
I didn’t question his orders. I held the stone up, faintly hearing Rhyan’s voice shouting commands in High Lumerian.
The gryphon turned, and I patted its head again, watching as the nahashim picked up speed, hissing in the wind just behind us.
The mountaintop seemed to grow larger as we approached, and the gryphon’s body angled, soaring higher, its body slowing. I peered down, and could just make out the shadowy figure of a soturion in a green cloak.
Rhyan. He was on top of the mountain.
More shouts came from the stone, and we dropped suddenly. I screamed, my heart in my throat. We were falling. But it was just the way gryphons descended.
Way too fucking fast.
I leaned forward, holding on as the peak came closer and closer. My breath came short as I tried to convince myself that we weren’t going to crash. That we were going to be okay. Wehadto be okay.
But when I looked down again, Rhyan was gone.
Before I could scream, something slammed against my back. A warm hand gripped my waist, locking me against an armored chest, and the scent of pine and musk filled my senses.
Rhyan had jumped onto the gryphon.
“I’m here, Lyr. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” he said urgently, pulling me even tighter against him. “You did good.” He sounded out of breath, his chest heaving against my back. “You did real good! Fucking proud of you, partner. Now hang on.”
