“That’s Gallium.”
“I see him,” Erik says. “Gliss and Elowynn are with him. But they’re surrounded.”
I close my eyes for a moment, breathing out my pain.
Then I raise my voice to Concord again. “Concord! Swoop toward that tree.”
Erik glances back at me. “Asha?”
“You’ll see.”
Concord dips toward the nearest tree, which is still at least two hundred paces from Gallium’s position.
I reach out, stretching as far as I can, plucking a single leaf from its branches before she lifts higher again.
I close my fist around the leaf and send a quick command to it.
A bow and quiver of arrows form in my hand, and I nearly lose hold of them before Erik twists to grab them.
“You won’t run out of arrows,” I say. “The quiver will refill itself.”
“I won’t shoot to kill,” he says. “They’re fighting for their families. They don’t deserve death for that.”
I press my lips to his cheek, inhaling his scent, needing time that we don’t have.
“Go, Erik. Fight this war. And all the wars that come after it. I will be with you. Always.”
He turns to press a kiss to my lips.
It’s angry and hurt and full of love.
Then he throws himself off Concord’s back and into the air, landing safely on the ground before he breaks into a sprint, racing toward my brother.
I try to keep them both in my sights, desperate to know that they’ll be okay.
But then Concord shrieks.
My focus snaps forward just as fire explodes around us.
Chapter 48
Concord ducks and weaves, narrowly avoiding the flames.
I can’t tell where they came from—the ground or the sky—or even if we were the intended target, but in the next moment, we’re surrounded by chaos.
Flames shoot across the air in front of us, followed by a barrage of icy air that’s sharp enough to strip the skin off my face. To avoid the ice and fire, Concord has dipped closer to the ground, from which vines whip upward, wrapping around my left leg.
I transform my medallion in an instant, the long blade slicing through the vine and freeing me before the rope can tug me down.
Concord shrieks, her cry full of fear. She will have been trained to fight against dragons, not other thunderbirds.
The internal conflict she must be feeling right now, seeing the thunderbirds fighting each other, must be immense.
I lean low over her neck. “Focus on staying alive. Get us through this so you can return to Elowynn and help her.”
She dips again, veers to the left, evades another shot of fire, and then a series of daggers made from ice before we shoot through the chaos and into the clear air beyond.
Concord doesn’t pause, beating her wings and picking up speed, racing away through the air as fast as she can.
