The heat wassearing. Luckily the other Elthika dove, swirling in the air, escaping the fire.Myzalla, I saw, recognizing herElthika and her dark figure on its back. But she had it under control, and I heard the impact her Elthika made as it careened into what I could only assume was a Redback.
Where is Alaryk?I thought, looking for the merest glimpse of Samryn in the sky, my head swinging. As I neared the landing field, more Karag were milling around, the sound louder as they rushed buckets of water forward, trying to put out the floating embers from the farmlands.
I saw a familiar figure.
“Brune,” I gasped out, racing toward him.
His face was smeared in ash, but there was determination lined in his expression as he passed a bucket to the next person, more Karag villagers making a line that funneled its way down toward the croplands.
“Trying to save the grain field and livestock pasture,” he gasped out, hacking up a cough through the smoke. “There’s a chance. The Elthika, Amaia.” He jerked his chin toward the landing field. “They’re hurt.Go.”
I sprinted away, nearly running into a familiar Karag, who took the bucket from Brune. The male who’d spat at my feet today.
The landing field was close, and by the time I reached it, I was panting hard. Even more chaos exploded here. Elthika were battling above us. I could hear the snapping jaws, the terrible sound of scales meeting scales, the scratch of talons, and the screams of fire. The Grymian healer—Raran—was kneeling over a prone rider, wrapping his arm in a bandage to stop the bleeding from a large gash.
When Raran saw me, she pointed to a large Elthika on the far end of the field. “The bleeding won’t stop. Can you help him?”
I nodded, racing to him, drawing my magic up. It was fed by my sheer determination, my need to help these creatures.
Villagers were surrounding him, climbing up to keep cloths—anything, really—pressed to a deep gash along his side, to keephim from bleeding out onto the earth. But they all backed away when the glow of my eyes illuminated them all.
They gave me space, and when my magic spread over the panting Elthika the healer had directed me to—one with black scales tipped in silver, a Rythback—I felt itflood. It poured out from me, as if before I’d only controlled a mere trickle and now it was a rushing river.
As I did with Samryn, I looked for a way inside, my magic crawling up the rivulets in his scales, little rivers and pathways, all following the blood that was dripping.
When I dove into the wound, the ache and weakness hit me like a wall…and yet it was nothing compared to Samryn’s curse.
I can do this,I thought, determined. Even without Alaryk’s aid.
I didn’t know how long I worked on the Elthika, envisioning a weave of thread, looping my magic back and forth to close it, just as my mother would do as a seamstress. I did this though, all around me, I felt the heat of a Redback’s fire, narrowly missing another Elthika’s body in the sky, knowing that at any moment, it could aim its weapon at us on the ground instead, incinerating us where we stood. While I heard the terrible screeches and animalistic groans as the Elthika of Grymia defended themselves against the wild packs.
And then, there in the sky, I saw the familiar red of Samryn’s scales, flashing in the fire’s light. He appeared to glow, like a beacon in the night. And Alaryk was on his back, a dark shadow, locked into a riding position as Samryn swooped and veered, hunting down a large wild Elthika whose scales shimmered blue.
My magic slipped as worry rammed into my chest, but I shook myself, focusing back on the Elthika before me, whose wound had finally stopped bleeding. The flesh beneath the scales—which had been ripped away—closed like a scar.
I blew out a breath when it was finished, stumbling back when my vision swayed. A Karag male caught me, holding tightonto my arms as I blinked away the ache, though it lodged itself deep into my insides.
“You all right?” the male asked, his voice hushed and hurried, his red eyes bright in the night, like Samryn’s.
“Fine.”
“Amaia,” called a familiar voice. Tarkosh. She was huddled over another female rider, who’d been dragged in from the outer fields.
Though my legs were still wobbly, I raced over, skidding to the ground, my magic already rising, a warm ball that I spun outward when I saw shredded flesh on the rider’s leg, white bone peeking from the wound. Nausea rose. I’d never seen anything so terrible, but I swallowed down the flood of saliva, closing my eyes, Tarkosh’s presence beside me as she comforted the moaning rider helping to center me.
I heard the gasps from a few other huddled Karag. Time had stretched and slowed in my mind, but I knew what I would find when I opened my eyes. I was weaker than before, a sharp sting throbbing down my own leg, mirroring the rider’s injury.
Smooth skin greeted me, the rider’s gaze one of disbelief. Her eyes flashed up to mine.
“Th-Thank you.”
I’d only healed two…and already my stamina was waning. These were deep wounds, though, and one had been Elthikan.
And I was still needed. I would use my heartstone magic until I collapsed.
Alaryk could help take away the rising pain, I knew, but he needed to defend his people, his outpost. And when I saw another Elthika—and its rider—fall to the earth halfway between the cropland and the landing field, I knew Ihadto push through.
There was no choice.
