“Haven’t decided yet.”
His mouth quirked. “Fair enough.”
Around us, the sounds of combat were dying down. I caught glimpses of Lincatheron finishing off the last soldier, Fenric’s obsidian spikes retracting back into the stone, Cindrissianmaterializing from shadow with blood painting his elegant features.
“How many more?” Lincatheron was already moving, already planning.
Varyth’s expression was grim. “Enough that we don’t want to be here when they arrive.”
“Then let’s go,” I said, sliding one of Varyth’s arms over my shoulders despite his weak protest. “Before I have to rescue you twice in one day.”
His laugh was rough, pained, but real. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We made it two steps before movement caught my eye.
A soldier, one I’d thought was dead, lying in a pool of blood near the cavern wall, lurched upright with the desperate strength of someone who knew they were already dying. His hand was already moving, already throwing something into the air before I could shout a warning.
The object glowed orange and purple, pulsing with a sickly light that screamedwrongto every instinct I possessed.
“Down!” Lincatheron’s roar echoed through the cavern as he threw himself over Fenric, dark wings snapping wide to cover them both.
I barely had time to process the motion, barely had time to register Cindrissian vanishing into shadow, before Varyth was on top of me.
His weight drove us both to the ground, my back hitting stone hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. His wings snapped out, wrapping around us like a shield made of golden feathers and absolute conviction.
The blast tore through the cavern with enough force to make the mountain itself scream, and I felt rather than heard the moment the ceiling began to collapse.
Stone rained down in chunks large enough to crush bones. Debris pelted against Varyth’s wings with impacts that made him grunt with pain, his body curled over mine in a way that left no part of me exposed to the devastation.
The air filled with dust so thick I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel the solid weight of Varyth above me and the way his wings absorbed blow after blow that should have killed us both.
His face was inches from mine, blood trickled from his temple where something had caught him despite the wings, but he didn’t move, didn’t even flinch as another chunk of ceiling crashed against his back.
“Stay down,” he gritted out. “Don’t move.”
A piece of the ceiling the size of a cart crashed down directly above us. His wings buckled under the impact, trembling with the effort of holding, and a sound of pain escaped him that made something in my chest crack open.
“Varyth—”
“I said don’t move.” His arms tightened around me, pulling me closer against his chest as more debris hammered down. “Just—let me?—”
The collapse seemed to last forever and no time at all. Minutes compressed into seconds, seconds stretched into eternity. All I could do was hold onto Varyth while he held onto me, his wings taking punishment that should have shattered bone, his body absorbing impacts that should have killed him.
Finally—finally—the world stopped ending.
Silence rushed in to fill the space where chaos had been, broken only by the sound of settling rubble and laboured breathing.
“Isara.” Varyth’s voice was rough, strained. “Are you hurt?”
“Am I hurt?” The words came out strangled, fury overriding the shock of nearly being buried alive. “You turn yourself into a meat shield and askam I hurt?”
I shoved at his chest, not hard enough to actually move him, but enough to make my point. “Get off me. Get the fuck off me right now.”
Varyth pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, confusion flickering across his bloodied features. “What?”
“You just got tortured for two days.” My voice was rising, control slipping like water through fingers. “You were chained to a wall. And you threw yourself on top of me like some kind of?—”
“Meat shield?” he supplied, having the absolute audacity to sound dry about it.
