The second we come out of the roll, I shoot a firebolt from my palm, a ball of flame large and fiery enough to take down an eagle twice the size of Cassia’s.
It’s a perfect shot.
Across the distance, Cassia’s face pales before fire consumes my view of her.
But—damn! Her eagle’s evasive response is quick. Like my serpent, it must be seasoned in battle, and, judging by how in-sync Cassia’s movements are with her bird’s, they’re highly attuned to each other.
The bird plummets, tipping to its right as it dives, leaving the firebolt I shot at it to soar wide of Cassia’s body.
It looks like I missed both her and the bird entirely.
Until the tip of its left wing begins to smolder.
My firemust have caught the edge of its feathers when the bird tipped to the right.
The eagle saved Cassia from the worst of the killing blow but sacrificed its wing in the process.
I know what will happen next.
My fire loves air.
The faster the bird flies, the faster it tries to get Cassia away from me, the quicker the fire will catch.
Cassia’s desperate cry reaches me across the distance. She’s already snapped her bow and arrows onto the harness at her back, and now she thumps her bird’s neck. “Down, Fortuna! Down!”
The fact that she’s named her eagle tells me she’s emotionally attached to it. She won’t sacrifice it, not even to save herself.
Below us, the terrain is rocky, the remains of a riverbed filled with sand and grit.
I let her dive toward it, her bird in a near-fall directly ahead of me.
I could kill Cassia right now, but I won’t strike her in the back. That’s a fucking coward’s move.
I always face my enemies when I kill them.
Her bird hits the ground, and she jumps off its back in the same moment, her desperate jump taking her right past its smoldering wing, which she grabs, yanking it toward the ground.
I can’t help but admire her determination when she grabs up handfuls of sand and throws them onto the eagle’s feathers.
She’s screaming, but her words are unintelligible until the last. “Oh, please… Please don’t burn…”
I land quietly, waiting for thewhoomph, the sound of igniting flames, that will tell me Cassia’s efforts were in vain.
She’s risking herlife standing so close to her bird.
A tense minute later, I’m met with her quiet sobs. Relieved sobs as a final, thin tendril of smoke rises at the eagle’s side, and it seems, by some miracle, she has saved her bird.
She hasn’t saved herself.
I’m fully aware of what my father did to her family, sending an Ember Fae to burn her brother, a misidentification that turned the mission into a complete failure and left me with a vengeful enemy.
Any dreams I had of building peace with the Iron Kingdom were destroyed that day.
Well, I didn’t startthisfight.
Cassia did.
But, by fuck, I’ll end it.
