Energy sizzles around us and it’s like touching lightning. My heart jumps and misses a beat. I want to run my fingers through the light storm suddenly building around us, but I can’t take my hands off the Vandawolf.
Actually, if I weren’t so desperate to get the Vandawolf to my sister, I’d be fucking terrified right now.
The energy surrounding the bird creates a visual disturbance that stops me from seeing the retreating ground, but once we’re in the air, the light around the thunderbird’s body dims significantly until it’s a barely perceptible black shadow beneath me.
That’s when I can clearly see the mountains, which now sit far below us.
It’s dizzying, and I quickly shift my focus to the bird’s neck.
Don’t look down.
I fight to hold on to the contents of my stomach and pray only to stay on the bird as it soars through the darkness.
I’m vaguely aware of multiple other sparks of light from within the mountain pass I’ve left behind, tiny pinpricks of bursting energy before they quickly fade and a group of dark shadows rises up into the air behind us.
One of them must be carrying Elowynn and Gallium, but I can’t tell which and I can’t twist to peer more closely at them.
The space below me is an ongoing blur and I know I’m missing most of it. The mountain range is vast, merging into barren ground and finally giving way to gatherings of shapes that could be a village dotted with sparse trees.
Then there’s a forest, and another plain, and far ahead, more mountains, except that those don’t appear to be as vast or high as the mountain range we just left behind.
My focus is finally drawn downward as we soar a little lower, across a wide field that rests at the base of the upcoming mountains. It’s dotted with triangular shapes that could be tents, but I can’t study them for long enough to be sure.
Up ahead, the outline of a castle comes into view.
It appears to have been hewn into the side of the mountain and stretches both upward and sideways.
Light flashes brightly on my far left, and my attention is drawn to the sky at the edge of the field.
Thunder rumbles across the distance and lightning flickers, even though the sky is clear and there’s no storm in sight.
Many flying creatures in the shape of thunderbirds seem to be forming a line in the sky there, and unlike the bird I’m riding on, they aren’t concealing their presence.
Concord is flying so fast that the stone castle rushes toward us, and before I know it, she’s touching down onto a platform.
Firebrands burn at the sides of an arched opening leading into the castle on my left.
My arms and legs are trembling with the effort to support the Vandawolf. At least, I hope that’s why they’re trembling, and not because I’m going into shock.
Several thunderbirds land around me, at which point a group of armor-clad women rush from the opening on my left. They surge toward Concord, as well as toward the other birds, but pull up sharply when they see me and the Vandawolf.
Luckily, Elowynn has landed right behind us. She slides down her bird’s wing, landing lightly on the platform and hurrying toward the new group of women.
“We have Asha Silverspun!” she shouts. “Four of you, take care of the birds. The rest of you, form an escort to the Queen.”
The women ahead immediately form two lines leading to the entrance.
Concord has extended her wing.
I force my fingers to work and unclip the waist strap around both the Vandawolf’s body as well as my own. My arms and legs seem to have gone numb, and as soon as the straps are open, I slip to the left, desperately trying to hold on to the Vandawolf at the same time I angle myself along the bird’s wing bone.
I only half-manage it. We slip down the top of the wing bone and then off it, tumbling the remaining distance through the bird’s feathers to the hard, stone platform below.
“Asha!” Gallium’s cry reaches me moments before he appears beside me.
I hold up my hand to ward him off. “I’m okay.”
I’m not. But the medallion’s influence makes it far easier to lie.
