If he thinks he can rid me of caring for them, of caring for anything, he has never been more wrong.
Because the one thing I will never allow is for me to turn into him. No matter how many times he breaks me, I won’t do it.
Wiping a hand across my eyes, I take a breath. Then I lift a determined hand and drag my touch over the lifeless birds.
And I pull the rot away.
One by one, the hatchlings’ bodies return to normal, as if time turned backward. The rot leaves them, and their little hearts start pounding wildly in their chests, throats opening to utter small cries.
I pick up the mother marewing, ripping off a piece of my sleeve to set and bind her wing before I pull the rot back from her too. Then I gather them all, shaking and terrified, and take them outside into the crisp air to sneak them into the woods.
Because my father’s wrong. I’m not a Cull, and I never want to be.
I’m my mother’s son.
I’m a Ravinger.
CHAPTER 11
SLADE
I surge awake from thebitter cold. It’s a brutal bite of an arctic air, like iced teeth tearing into my skin. It gnaws in, leaving me raw and scraped. I open my eyes, making shards of ice peel away from my lids.
After a few blinks, the world comes into focus, showing me a moonlit night and freezing clumps of clouds.
And…alsoshowing me that I’m hanging stomach-down across Argo’s back. My legs are dangling just in front of his right wing, getting hit with every flap, while my cricked head lolls over his other side, my face smashed into his neck.
I’m one movement away from plummeting into the air.
Fucking hell!
I jolt, arms flailing, hands grappling. My heart slaps up my throat when I nearly make myself fall off, but I grab a fistful of feathers and manage to stay on, nearly stabbing Argo with the spikes on my arm in the process. At my movement, he jerks around to look back and roars at me with alarmed chastisement.
Panting, I haul my leg up and over until I’m straddling him barebacked. His saddle is completely gone, but there’s a single strap still attached around his middle, caught around his hindleg, with my pack hanging off it.
“What thefuck?” I yell at him. “Why were we flying while I wasunconscious?”
He snaps his razor-sharp teeth and then lets out a series of hisses and clicks and squawks that don’t taper off for a good minute. I think he’s tellingmeoff.
“You’remad atme?” I shout incredulously. “You had me flopped on your backunconscious!” I stress again.
I feel the vibration from his disgruntled growl travel up my legs.
“I didn’t pass out on purpose,” I say with a shake of my head, my pulse still racing.
He snaps at me and faces forward again, continuing to soar across the night sky.
This crazy fucking beast.
I’m covered in frost, my stubble stiff with it, and I look around, but everything is dark, and we’re too high up for me to see anything other than clouds. How Argo managed to get me on his back is beyond me.
Panic suddenly hits me, and I quickly shove my hand into my pocket. What if it fell out, what if it—
Relief floods me when my fingers wrap around Auren’s strip of ribbon. I can’t bear to lose it.
After letting out a few more steadying breaths to calm my sprinting heart, I shake my head and straighten up. I pat Argo on the neck, because despite the rude awakening and his squawked rebuke, at least I wasn’t falling to my death.
Now that I’m no longer dangling precariously, I can think more clearly. Yet as I regain my bearings, everything that happened comes rushing back to my mind like a slap to the face.
