It’s clear to me in that instant that neither he nor Blue will harm the birds if they can avoid it.
Blue is already banking, cutting a sharp right turn, spearing back toward Quintus and the other four men while they hurry to face us again, each of their birds cutting the air in front of us, narrowly missing each other.
Quintus is the first to succeed, his eagle only a hundred feet away and closing in again. If he was unhappy before, it’s clear he’s furious now, his face red and hair out of place.
Antony shifts behind me, and I’m so prepared to move that I rise to my feet with his barest upward tug, trusting him to keep me balanced, his arm around my waist.
“Remember, Thyra,” he says, “jump when I jump.”
It should probably alarm me that he’s reminding me of that right now.
As Blue crashes toward Quintus, his big wings beatingthe air like drums, Antony pulls me into a slight crouch, my legs bunching with his.
His axe is steady, gleaming at the corner of my eye. Quintus is only twenty paces away, also visibly preparing to jump.
At the last possible moment before the two eagles’ wings are about to collide, Blue tips to the right—towardQuintus.
At the same moment, Quintus leaps off his bird, his sword cleaving the air straight at me.
But in that very same heartbeat, Antony leaps from Blue’s back, taking me with him, and then we’re sailing out into thin air.
My heart stops as Quintus’s silver sword cuts toward my throat, his snarling face filling my view.
Before his weapon can reach me, a blur of iron descends in front of me.
Antony’s axe slices clean through Quintus’s sword, and at the same time, Antony turns his shoulder mid-air.
I catch Quintus’s shout of rage as the pieces of his weapon fly out of his hold a second before Antony’s armor-clad body smashes into him.
Through the rushing wind, I hear the awful cracking of Quintus’s bones, probably his ribs, maybe his collarbone, and I catch the sweep of Antony’s axe before Quintus’s scream tells me he was cut. Badly.
A moment later, the golden-haired man spirals away from us, plummeting through the air, one arm clutched to his chest, the other stretching out for his bird, but it’s long past him.
We aren’t in a better position.
I can’t locate Blue. He must be somewhere below us—please be somewhere below us—but I don’t know where.
Antony’s other arm closes around my chest, and he must have deposited his blade back into its scabbard, because he isn’t holding it anymore.
His entire body hunches around me, forcing me to curl up in his arms.
For a hopeful second, I think he’s going to land us on one of the other birds, or that Blue is, indeed, about to catch us, but the wind snatches away my hope.
We’re falling.
Free-falling through a rain of blood and screams.
Chapter Forty
Thyra
Blood splatters my face as we plummet through the air.
Blue appears on our left as we fall past him. A frenzy of talons and feathers, ripping and tearing at the remaining three men, all of them trying but failing to stab him as he attacks, his beak as sharp as his claws.
If I weren’t so terrified about the speed we’re falling, I’d be awed at how viciously Blue fights.
Within seconds, two of the men slump over their birds’ backs. I can’t see their injuries because we’re falling too fast, only that they’re still moving, still alive.
