But Blackbird manages a far more powerful jump than I was expecting, quickly gaining height.
Thank you, wolf legs.
He extends his wings a moment later, and for a second, it feels as if we’ll shoot right up into clear air without problems.
My hope is quickly stripped away.
The snow is like glass, icy particles ripping at my face before I bury my head against Blackbird’s neck, circling my face with my arms, praying that the fur coat I’m wearing will resist the cutting icicles.
It’s nearly impossible to breathe in the force of the wind.
But Blackbird… Oh, he’s still fighting to rise up through the storm.
I can’t see the tips of his wings, but his lightning surges and thunder rumbles with every beat he makes. He moves with the wind, slipping from stream to stream as if he’s reading the air.
If he really was somehow born from the bones of the Fae Queen’s thunderbird, then that thunderbird was a powerful creature indeed.
A terrifying second later, we burst up into quieter air.
It isn’tclearair. Far from it. We’re surrounded by churning clouds that flicker with blood-red energy. But we’ve risen out of the worst of the snowstorm, and it’s peaceful by comparison.
As Blackbird finally levels out, both Erik and I no longer need to lean so low.
We adjust our position, neither of us speaking as we drag air into our chests.
Erik’s left arm slides around my waist, and he brushes a kiss to the side of my neck. He’s still pressed up against the hammer at my back, which must be horribly uncomfortable, and the bulk of the satchel has slipped to my side beneath my right armpit, but he doesn’t seem deterred from hugging me.
I close my eyes and hold on to this moment. His touch. His warmth. His scent. And the weightlessness of being airborne, even though there’s a terrible storm around us.
Erik is alive.
I will fight any battle to keep him that way.
When another streak of lightning cuts across the clouds directly ahead of us, Blackbird swoops low to avoid it.
I grip with my legs, my stomach muscles straining, as he descends even farther.
Then, just like that, we drop beneath the cloud cover.
The air is tinged with crimson, an awful hue that fills the space in every direction, but we’ve left the mountain peak behind, and the clouds overhead have yet to open up and release the blood-rain they clearly hold.
The air is heavy with energy, but it’s eerily quiet.
The Cursed City comes into view on the plain up ahead.
The city is surrounded by a ring of mountains that closes it off from the rest of the world. It lies closest to the edge of the western mountains, which makes the journey from this direction shorter than it would have been if we’d been approaching from the north.
The city itself is circled by a high stone wall, atop of which have battlements. The wall has only four gates leading to the outside—one each in the north, east, west, and south.
On the northern side of the city is the vast wasteland, which stretches all the way to the northern mountains and is covered in white ash and dotted with skeletal trees.
To the city’s east is the Sunken Bog, a writhing swamp in which lies the Toxic Thirst—a poisoned lake—and which I can just make out as a small, silver, oval shape from this distance.
On the southern side is the farming land. The crops and livestock have further defenses in the form of a myriad of high stone walls that cordon off multiple areas.
We’re approaching it from the western side, so our view encompasses both the northern and southern sides of the city.
While red clouds boil above us, the bells located on top of the city’s wall continue to ring out.
