The sky hurled wave after wave of havoc across the Maw. Ice sheared around the rangers as their dracovae wove frantic paths above the scattered fleet.
Another javelin of ice skewered a druid mid-flight. No cry followed as the limp shape was flung like refuse, trailing a dark smear across the sky.
Lykor moved before thought could rise. He yanked on the flood behind his ribs, ripping every trace of moisture from the air. The lacerating rain stilled as he claimed the storm. Ice shards collided, splintered, and fused, each one spinning into orbit around him. Frost became a living bulwark, moving with Trella as she banked and dove.
Then the lightning found them.
Viper-fast, a bolt streaked past Zaeryn’s flames and clipped the edge of Lykor’s shield. Ice shattered in a deafening crack, flinging shards like an explosion of knives. Trella’s wings thrashed, the saddle lurching beneath him with a brutal jolt.
For a heartbeat, they dropped.
Sky spiraled. His stomach hollowed.
Screeching through the chaos, Trella battled the fall—wings bucking, claws gouging air as she forced them level.
Movement whipped in from the side.
A razorwing arrowed from the storm, wings vibrating in a glassy blur. The beast’s compound eyes flashed as its needle-like limbs darted toward Trella. A rider lay flat along its segmented spine, lacquered armor catching the lightning as they lined up the kill.
Lykor punched a fist forward, water hardening over his knuckles in a gauntlet of frost. He twisted his wrist, driving the ice outward. Shards detonated from his hand in a serrated burst.
Zaeryn’s flames hit in the same instant.
The razorwing exploded midair—wings shredding, catching fire, blood misting the wind. The rider fell with it, unseated and burning, flung into the sky with a strangled cry.
As the bodies fell, a shadow the size of a mountainside cleaved through the clouds.
Wreathed in sleet, Rimeclaw dropped from the thunderheads, ice and rain trailing like a shroud. Each wingbeat ruptured the sky, every blast a shockwave of pressure.
The dragon’s roar split the peaks, the force so violent it shattered the mountain’s crowns. Stone avalanched in thunderous cascades as he descended into the Maw.
Aesar tightened their legs, shifting weight through the saddle. Trella banked with them, angling straight toward the leviathan as if she meant to strike him from the sky herself.
Lightning struck again.
The bolt speared through the sky beside Lykor—no time to react. It ripped through the wing of Zaeryn’s dracovae, vaporizing bones and feathers in a burst of searing light.
One moment, the beast flew.
The next, it fell.
Flung from the saddle, Zaeryn went with it, spiraling after her mount as blood streamed in crimson ribbons through the rain. Limbs flailing, wings splaying too late to catch herself, Zaeryn fought the sky—trying to fly, to right herself, to survive.
“It won’t be enough,”Aesar warned.
With a curse, Lykor kicked free of the stirrups, then warped.
Space folded—black, crushing, the roar of wind tearing through him—and he reappeared beneath Zaeryn, breath sawing sharp in his throat. He shifted his wings just before impact, membranes tearing free through his armor.
Zaeryn slammed into his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, Lykor caught her in a collision, locking both arms around her as thestorm screamed past, ice and rain slicing the air into ribbons of white.
They spun—tangled, falling.
Below, her dracovae struck a cliff. Lykor flinched when the beast he couldn’t save shattered against stone. Blood, bone, and feathers exploded across the slopes.
He warped again, the world crushing inward before spitting them out once more into the storm.
They reappeared above the mountains. Lykor’s shoulders strained as he hovered with both their weight. Zaeryn gasped against his chest, wings thrashing in erratic bursts. Still fighting the fall even as he held her aloft.
