Horror shot through me. The air here was too still, too dense, humming with wrongness. It smelled of iron and ozone, the tang of magic stretched too thin. My chest tightened as the realization sank in. I was inside the trap—theirtrap.
If Fieran triggered it now, he would send the griffin straight to the cages at the Trials. That would be a smart tactical decision.
But it would take me with it.
Claustrophobia clamped down on me. I ran for the other side of the rip, and I was moving before a desperate hope rose for me.Please be going in the right direction.
I was confused from spinning around, beating out the flames. What if I rushed the wrong way?
A scream overheard brought me to a stop. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear anything else.
The griffin and dragon were locked together. Fieran breathed out another blast of fire, and I threw my arm up instinctively to shade myself. I missed the next beat of action, but when I heard the dragon’s roar of rage and pain, I looked again.
Fieran was bleeding, and the griffin was gulping down chunks of his flesh.
Dragon shifters, like the Fae, were technically almost immortal. But very few of them lived to old age even by mortal standards. Panic rushed through me, but this time, it wasn’t panic forme. I couldn’t help him. All I could do was wait and watch and hope he survived another fight.
Fieran reared back, then lunged forward, releasing another blast of flame.
This time, I ran.
Then I almost tripped over something at knee height. I barely caught myself. A stack of wood limbs, like we built outside the cottage to feed the fire. Except it shouldn’t be here.
Because it was something else.
It was round. A ground nest.
And inside, glimmering under the moonlight, were two round, pale shapes.
I’d never seen griffin eggs, but I would bet that that was what these were.
That was why the griffin had attacked. Because this was a safe place for it to set up its nest, and we were trapping it on our side of the rip.
Not far beyond the nest, I could see the faint glow of the ward stones that marked the boundary. We weren’t that far. Gods, I’d really gotten turned around.
I looked back to where the battle raged. The griffin hadn’t entered the trap. But if I could get the griffin to follow me, to draw it in here, then I could escape out the other side…
Fieran roared again now in pain, a sound that froze the marrow in my bones. My pulse jumped. My decision was made.
“Sorry,” I apologized to the griffin egg that I picked up. I was being ridiculous. It wasn’t as if I apologized to the eggs I ate for breakfast.
But something about this enormous egg, so big that I could barely hold it in one arm, felt different.
I made my way back at a half run. Fieran had said that the monsters sometimes went unnoticed, using our side of the rip for nothing but hiding. So the griffin might not have attacked us if it weren’t for the nest.
Hopefully those protective maternal instincts would play out to our advantage.
The thought flashed through my mind that the griffin might be a better mother than my own. That was uncharitable. I decided not to think such thoughts when I was doing something stupid that might kill me.
But the thought of leaving Fieran alone in a desperate fight was too terrifying.
His friends must have heard the chaos and would come back to help him. Would they get to us in time?
I looked up at him, so huge, dwarfing me. Could he understand what I called to him when he was in his dragon form?
“I’m going to draw the griffin into the trap!” I shouted at him. “Be ready to help me get back out and then spring the trap.”
Fieran bit savagely into the griffin and then whipped his head around, bringing pieces of griffin splattering along with him. His enormous eyes met mine, and he let out a roar of distinct displeasure. I was pretty sure that was dragon for “no.”
