Slamming my sword and dagger back into their scabbards, I tug at the buckles and get Tyde off the saddle. He nearly tumbles down as soon as I release him, but I shove my shoulder under his good arm to prop him up. Then I notice the bloody wound at his side.
Fuck.
I whirl us around, realizing that just like Finley and Maston, I’m surrounded by gaps too wide to jump across with Tyde. Dread drenches my guts. The cracks on all sides of us are widening, the ground groaning and shaking, and my poor timberwing lies in a dead, broken heap while snow dumps down.
We’re trapped.
“Leave. Me,” Tyde coughs out, his body barely able to stay upright even with me propping him up.
“Fourth soldiers don’t abandon each other,” I snarl out, hating myself for not being able to get to Maston and Finley in time.
I lost them. I’m not going to lose Tyde too.
The ground trembles beneath me, nearly sending me crashing into Kitt. I look down in alarm, my hands shaking.
This piece of land could give way any second.
I underestimated how much rot would spread and break, and I never accounted for any of us being on the ground, because I knew that was a guaranteed way to fucking die.
A chunk of ground just ten feet away from us falls away, and panic freezes my limbs.
We’re fucking stuck. I can’t get Tyde across these gaps, and every time I turn around in another direction, the crevices widen, threatening to drop away completely.
Cold sweat breaks over my skin, my ribs freezing in place.
Suddenly, I hear a voice shout down. “Hey, fucker, you miss me?”
I’m stunned for a second, and then my head snaps up. I blink up in shock, brain trying to catch up to the fact that somehow, fuckingJuddis on the back of his timberwing and grinning down at me.
His beast lands in front of us, and I waste no time rushing forward, dragging Tyde with me. I shove him onto the timberwing’s back, my muscles straining with his weight. He’s unconscious now, slumped over and bleeding way too fucking much.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask as I start fumbling with the straps, trying to get Tyde buckled in as fast as I can.
Judd tsks. “What, you thought you could just go and have a battle without me?” he replies with a scoff. “Fucking rude. You know how much I like battles. They’re my favorite hobby, Commander.”
Shaking my head in a daze of relief, I secure Tyde before I leap up, keeping my back to Judd so I can make sure Tyde doesn’t slip out of the straps.
When I’m on, Judd takes us into the air, and then I see them. Dozens of timberwings.
“What…”
In the distance, on the other side of the rift where the rest of the fae army was feeding in from Fifth Kingdom, I can now see white ships gliding over the snow.
Red Raid ships.
“What the hell are the snow pirates doing here?”
“Oh that? Called in a favor,” Judd shouts back at me with a grin in his voice. “Thought we could use the help.”
“And the timberwings? Are those King Thold and his Elites?”
The beasts are everywhere, attacking the fae in fatal swoops and roaring mouths.
“Nope,” Judd calls.
The answer comes in a thousand screams that suddenly rip through the air. The noise pierces my eardrums, making the fae below either stop to slam their hands over their ears or run in terror.
Then I see her on her timbering, flanked by her guards. Her black hair is littered with snow, and her body is clad in silver armor.
