As they bent over, I shone my Light inside the cair, clearing the petals that were floating within before I settled a sheet of Light over each window. With the back cleared, I moved to the front. Another petal had landed on Tiernan. Muscles twitching, he met my gaze.
“I've got you, babe.” I destroyed the petal and then sealed off his window.
The windshield was next. My window, I left alone. Instead of sealing it, I rolled it down with one hand while I held the other up, sending Light forth to clear the way before anything got in. Petals puffed into smoke, and I moved up and out, leaning out of the window. Once outside, I swept Light across the windshield. But Tiernan still couldn't see. I had to remove the Light shield that protected the windshield, and then his view cleared. He nodded crisply—there was a meadow several yards ahead.
Tiernan hit a button on the dash. “Land! Everyone make for that meadow!”
“Wait, T!” I shouted. “They can't see it.”
I sent Light back, alongside our cair and to the convoy, clearing swaths in the storm of petals as my body glowed with magic, keeping me free of the blight. Improving with every blast, I focused the Light on the black petals, feeling my way to the darkness to target it alone. Still, with us flying in the storm, my blasts landed short a few times. Seeing that, Sir Frehar and Sir Galleth—the knights in our backseat—rolled down their windows. With barely a thought, I vanished the Light that sealed their windows. With the way opened, they sent their air beags out to help direct the petals away from the cairs. In seconds, their magical wind cleared an area around the cairs, allowing me to focus on the blight coating the windshields.
The faces behind the cleared glass were horrified and spotted black. Lost to dark memories, the soldiers hadn't heard Tiernan's order to land. Even if they had, they weren't capable of it.
“Gods damn it!” I screamed.
You use Light for everything, Raza's voice shivered through me.
“I'm more than the Light Bringer,” I murmured. Then I shouted, “I'm a fucking fairy!”
With my shout, I summoned the Firethorns. Magical vines, covered in deadly thorns, manifested around the cair just behind ours. Normally, I would summon fire to them and use them as a weapon. This time, however, I called a vine back to me and wrapped it around the rear of our cair.
“What are you doing?” Tiernan shouted as our cair lurched.
“I'm tying them to us. Keep it as steady as you can. I'll tell you when to descend.”
Concentrating on my mór, I sent it shooting back from the cair behind us. Vines lassoed out and latched onto the cair in third position, and then the next, and the next until I made a chain of cairs tied together with sharp Fey magic.
“Now, babe! Land!” I stayed leaning out the window, keeping the fireless Firethorns strong while the knights cleared the air around us.
The vines went taut. Wind lashed my braid into my face. I held out a hand, pouring more strength into the Firethorns. A snapping sound made me wince, and the cairs buckled, but we were descending. It was working, the cairs followed like tethered horses. Inside them, soldiers screamed and wept, hands over their faces.
“Seren! Get inside now!” Tiernan shouted.
I pulled back in through the window and braced myself. Luckily, the meadow was large enough for all of us to land in a line. Still, the landing was rough. We touched ground smoothly, but the cairs behind us weren't stopping, their Air magic still activated. The ground had to stop their momentum.
One after the other, the cairs hit the ground. I yanked on the vines like a cowgirl with her lasso, pulling their noses down. Clods of earth exploded into the air as the cairs dug trenches, burying themselves. With a jerk, I removed the vines attaching them to us, so Tiernan could glide our cair out of the way. Then I jumped out.
“Turn off the cairs!” I shouted at Tiernan, Sir Frehar, and Sir Galleth.
As they ran for the groaning vehicles, shuddering in the trenches like scared colts, I set my sights on the blight above us. Without the knights blowing it back, it came swirling down toward us. Lifting my hands, I blasted the whole of it, the delicate petals igniting to fill the sky with sparks before they vanished.
Tiernan and our two knights got the cairs stopped, and that terrible whirring of Air magic fighting the earth died. With the convoy down, we went to the soldiers and got them out of the cairs. They were covered in petals, but it was becoming second nature to me now—blasting Light at the blight. I cleared them in groups.
Soldier after soldier gasped and sighed as I burned away the black petals. It wasn't like rescuing the Anthousai or even the Licho. No one stared blankly or smiled. Once freed, they were shaky but fine. It had been an attack, not a pruning. The King of the Garden of Doom had sent those petals to drive us mad with our pain instead of taking it. Was it his way of telling me I'd chosen poorly? Perhaps. How typical. He was behaving like a jilted lover, showing me what I could have had. Next, he'd be trying to make me jealous.
Thoughts spinning into absurdity, I rallied and refocused. The soldiers needed me. I could hear Tiernan coming in my wake, checking on the men and women I freed. But I had to keep going, burning petals with Light until the last soldier lay gasping in the grass.
I fell onto my ass beside the man, sitting sprawled to stare at the blackened cairs. I had to free them next, but I wasexhausted. Focusing the Light, as opposed to giving it free rein to burn as it wished, was taxing. I panted as I watched black blight ooze down the side of the closest cair. It wasn't going to give me time to catch my breath.
Stumbling a little, I got to my feet and went to the cair. Light came to my palms, and I sent it out over the glossy black coating. Each cair took more energy from me, but I made it through them all. Hands shaking, I banished the last of the blight from the final cair, and instantly fell to my knees.
“Seren!” Tiernan rushed over to kneel beside me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, babe. Just drained. You?”
“I'm fine.” The skin around his eyes twitched.
“It showed you your father?”
