Three.
“I’ve got to get you someplace safe,” he said, flying fast with me. The world was a blur, but even if it hadn’t been, I didn’t think I would have seen one safe place.
“We’ve got bigger problems than my safety.”
“I don’t actually,” he disagreed. “I don’t give a damn if the Fae are devoured by the monsters they’ve preserved for entertainment.”
“Did you plot all this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Do you think I’m capable of such a thing?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The wind lashed my face as Fieran carried me higher, wings cutting through the air like blades. Perhaps even he didn’t know what to do this time.
Dragons dove through the clouds of steam rising from the sea, their scales flashing gold and crimson as they clashed with the serpents. The arena was collapsing in on itself, the stands folding up, sending Fae plummeting into the water with the monsters.
And then I heard it.
The griffin screamed again, high and fierce.
“I’m getting you back to the barracks,” Fieran told me.
“There are mortals over there! That’s where we’re going,” I told him fiercely. They were already being abused by the Fae; how could we treat them carelessly, too, abandoning them to their fates?
“You’re going where I carry you, given that I’m the one with the wings.”
“Fear. Please. I will never forgive you. Please.”
His jaw tightened.
“More clever than reckless,” he warned me, and I knew I’d won. I grinned.
He landed me in the wreckage near a group of mortals who were floundering through the water, trying to find a way out. “If something comes for you, I will drop them to get you, and I will not give a fuck what you have to say about it.”
He pulled his sheathed knife off his hip and handed it to me. His sword blazed into existence on his back, but then he grabbed the nearestmortals, a woman with a little boy, and he launched up, carrying them toward safety.
“Come with me,” I told the others, reaching to help them escape the water.
A young girl—barely older than Lidi—limped toward me, trailing blood. There was wreckage floating in the water, and then I saw the glint of the gold clutched in her hand.
They’d come down into the water willingly once they saw the treasure that had washed in with the monsters.
Something sleek and slimy slithered through the water toward her, drawn by the blood.
“Stay still,” I warned her, holding out my hand. “They don’t see well.”
There were tears running down her face as the thing circled her. I moved slowly toward her, and when it suddenly flashed through the water in her direction, I grabbed her hand and yanked her up and out of the way. Then Fieran was there, catching her up.
I lashed out with the knife.
The griffin plummeted down toward us.
I let out a scream—there was no holding that back—as the talons struck the water hard.
Water cascaded over me.
