My stomach trembled, foreboding spreading like stain on my senses.Yes.
Then you should know two things. The first is that the camp is in the Ustara Mountains, and the second, that the stone-faced warriors and the Danava princess are below us.
I couldn’t see beneath us to check, but I believed him. My heart lifted.They can help us.
They can. They are in position to catch you.
Wait, what? Catch me?
The air around us thinned, and it was suddenly harder to breathe.
Do not fear. There is water below should they miss. You are stronger than you know, child. Remember that.
Pakshiraj, what?—
Let go!He spun midair, sudden and unexpected.Now!
The command in his tone reverberated through me, and my body reacted on instinct, grip slackening, thighs relaxing.
I fell in what felt like slow motion, the world going quiet even as the rush of wind beat against my ears. My fingers brushed the tip of his wing as he finished his aerial turn and leveled out above me.
A sharp crack cut the air. Blue light blinded me for a beat before gravity wrapped a fist around me and pulled.
I dropped sharply, needles of ice raking at my skin and tearing tears from my eyes, a scream vibrating in my throat, torn between slamming back into my lungs or rending the air.
A hand latched on to my wrist, halting my death fall.
I gulped, looking up into Kalani’s stunned face through a sheen of crystalizing tears, my body bumping against her chayasavar’s inky flank.
“I have you, Leela.” She gritted her teeth and hauled me up as if I weighed nothing. I forced my limbs to work, scrambling into the spot behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist.
Only then did I look back for Pakshiraj, a chilly tingle spreading across my chest as I readied myself to face the truth of what he’d done to save me.
He was far behind now, trapped in a sheen of blue. The Grasp. Now that they had him, they were no longer in pursuit. In fact, they were retreating fast toward Aakash Sansaar.
Pakshiraj had known this would happen, that the thunderbirds wouldn’t be able to come after me once they’d activated the Grasp.
He’d allowed himself to be captured so that I could be free.
I turned away, choking on a swell of emotion that had no name.
The world was quieter now, just the gentle beat of wings: Yudh on his moona to the left of us and Dhoona to the right.
I didn’t know how they’d escaped the royal domain or how they’d found me, but I was grateful for their presence. Words and explanations would have to wait.
Whoosh.
The night sky lit up crimson for a beat, and I looked back once more to see the Aakash Sansaar wreathed in a shimmering sheen of scarlet hues.
“What’s happening?” I squeezed Kalani’s waist. “There’s a red hue around the sky world.”
“It’s a lock,” she said. “No one in and no one out.”
The primordial evil had done this. Sealed off the sky world. But why? What was he planning? And how the fuck would I get my friends back now?
Pakshiraj’s last words filled my mind.
You are stronger than you know, child. Remember that.
