Lazza’s affinity for air does its best to crush Pigeon and me. Pressure pushes against us from every angle, and it feels like we’re stuck in an invisible trash compactor. I try to shove magic into every inch of our gryphon form to combat it, but I’m discovering that I can activate my runes on behalf of Pigeon and protect her with them, but I can’t shove magic out of her body like I can mine.
“Shift, Pidge!”I encourage again now that there isn’t an attacking horde right on top of us—or at least not a visible one—and thankfully she finally agrees. But before she can fully relinquish our body back to me, Lazza’s unrelenting air pressure takes its toll.
Agony splinters through me and Pigeon as multiple parts of her body break under the weight of the air that’s being used against us. I feel our other wing fracture in several places, as well as our arms and legs. Pigeon’s body lights up with white hot pain, and then instantaneously it shuts off as she crumples into unconsciousness inside of me.
One second I’m a bystander to Pigeon’s gryphon, and in the next, she’s gone. Panic ripples through me, and I release the tsunami of violet magic that’s been gathering inside of me. The pressure around me cuts off, and I scream for Pigeon, terrified that I can barely feel her inside of me.
I can tell she’s hurt badly, and I’m reminded of Treno’s panic in Kestrel City when he found out I couldn’t shift and told me that it’s possible to hurt your gryphon so badly that they can’t come back from it.
I wrap what I feel left of Pigeon inside of me in soft warm layers.“Pidge, I’ll be right back. Don’t you fucking go anywhere, you hear me!”I demand as I clear my cheeks of tears and swallow back the sobs that are trying to climb out of my throat.“I love you, you rotisserie chicken, so you just stay right here. I’m going to get you some help!”
I drop steel bars of protection around her and focus on what I need to do.
It’s time to end shit once and for all.
I push to my feet and clothe myself in magic. My runes and weapons are ready to go, and I may still go down, but I know I’ll be taking that power-hungry asshole with me.
“Lazza, you limp dick motherfucker, where are you?” I scream, my rage pouring out of me and coating me in a protective layer of hate and rancor.
I look through the gryphons trying to create a wall between me and where I suspect he is. “You weak ass piece of shit! Stop hiding, Syta, and face me!” I challenge, utterly pissed off, terrified, and ready to face whatever may come.
A presence closes around my throat, trying to choke me out of nowhere, but I force my purple Bond magic to climb up my throat, and the sensation immediately disappears.
Two gryphons off to my side move, and between them I spot the leader of the Avowed. His hand is buried in the hair of Saner, the green-eyed female lie detector, who Ryn had mark me with my dead Vow rune.
Well, I guess that answers how I got here. It seems that rune wasn’t as dead as we thought.
Saner has very clearly been tortured. She’s barely conscious and more black, purple, and bloody than her previous peachy complexion. Her green eyes look hollow, like she’s no longer in possession of her body, and I can only wonder how far she had to recede inside of herself to withstand what’s been done to her.
“This is your final warning, Vow traitor,” Lazza snarls at her, jerking her around by her hair. Saner doesn’t respond at all. “Give me control over that rune, or…” Lazza trails off, and another set of unshifted gryphons carry a male out into the middle of the field.
I’m shocked when the male is brought into Saner’s lifeless line of sight and she wakes up and starts to struggle immediately. The male has been battered too, but he also seems to register that Saner is there, and he weakly battles to go to her.
I’m not sure exactly what Lazza wants from her, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with my rune, which means whatever it is, is going to be a hard pass from me.
It’s clear from a mile away what’s going to happen. Lazza is going to kill Saner’s mate if she doesn’t do what he wants, and if she does, he’s probably going to kill them anyway. I don’t even think about what I’m doing. As easy as breathing, I call on my runes and slip from where I’m standing in the middle of a bloody clearing and step back into existence right behind Lazza.
My heart hammers in my chest as I reach out and grab the back of his neck, everything in and around me slows, and purple magic crackles angrily across my arm as I squeeze his nape. Lazza freezes, and I can feel a wave of shock and confusion pulse out of his now tense muscles.
I call up the memory of my father coaxing me to do exactly what I’m about to, the words suddenly dancing in my head like some karaoke video with a bouncing ball over the right word of the song so you know exactly what you’re supposed to sing.
“Nusht fialow odreece tamod kle,” I snarl, enunciating each word of the language my father taught me, more than willing and ready to strip Lazza of the stolen power of my bloodline that he’s wielded unworthily.
I can’t wait to look him in the eyes as I strip everything he’s ever wanted right out of his maniacal hands. Lazza screams and tries to rip out of my hold. Power builds in my chest, and I wait for the rune to crumble under my touch and end this war once and for all.
Only it doesn’t.
Lazza spins and slashes out at me.
Confusion fills my head like noisy static as I watch the long dagger in Lazza’s hand move closer to me millisecond by millisecond.
Chaos erupts as I try to untangle what went wrong with the sudden dread pooling inside of me. I’ve missed something. I thought I said the words perfectly, but maybe I fucked it up in some way. Was there more to that memory? The blade that’s going to pierce my stomach at any moment doesn’t give me enough time to work it all out.
I call on my runes for my swoosh blades and manage to get one between Lazza’s blade and my body. I can’t stop his momentum all together, and the dagger still cuts into my side. I keep it from hitting anything vital, but it hurts like a son of a bitch. I lift my other blade, ready to take my own swipe at him, but a fist connects with the side of my head, knocking me sideways, and I’m forced out of striking distance from the Syta of the Avowed.
I stumble and struggle to keep my feet beneath me, as the hit I just took properly rings my fucking bell. Unshifted gryphons move to surround Lazza, making it impossible for me to shift close to him and try again. My thoughts are muddled with pain, but I go over the words again and again, trying to see what I did wrong.
I shake my head to clear it, but I don’t see what I missed. I touched the magic, said the words that destroyed the power in the rune. It should have worked.
