I try to scream again, but my voice is only a rasp. The next fireball I lob is barely a sizzling ember. Slowly, I’m sinking down into the chasm.
He’s right, Autumn blood. You failed to protect her. Use me. I’ll keep you safe. Keep them all safe.
I ignore him, throwing my arms down and sending a burst of fire outward to shoot me back into the air.I can kill him myself!
My head echoes with silence. Then there’s a single cold word:Fine.
This time, I scream the words. “I’ll kill him myself!” With the force of the combustion, I rocket toward Perth Quellos. I won’t stop. I don’t care. If I go down, he’s going down with me.
Just as I reach him, Quellos lifts his gauntlet and shoots me straight in the chest. It feels like being hit with a mallet. I’m flung backward, my flames freezing into icy spikes. I smash through therailing of the bridge and skid over the stone, ice shattering below me.
Distantly, I notice my breathing is shallow. Like my mother’s before she died. My whole body is numb, and my mind feels hazy. I try to stand, but I can’t move my legs, my arms. I can barely lift my head at the sound of the propellers.
Quellos hovers his contraption right over me. I see my reflection in the gleam of his goggles. A broken boy. Weak. Pathetic.
Help me, I plead.Green Flame, I need you.
No, the Green Flame responds.See what happens when you think you can do this without me. Pay the price of your insolence.
Quellos lets out a satisfied sigh and raises his gauntlet to my head. “Now, Autumn Prince, I shall strike you down as I struck down your mother.”
38
Keldarion
There are so many hands on me, so many blades biting at thegaps in my armor. I can barely see through the blood streaming down my face.
Where is my uncle?
Where is Rosalina?
The Sword of the Protector flashes. Desperation rages through me, and with each strike, I fell an enemy. But more and more keep coming.
I kick the one nearest me, then run back toward the guard tower. Rosalina falls limp through the air. She smashes hard against the stone and doesn’t get up.
“Rose!”
The underfae are upon her, weapons raised. I scream her name, blindly fighting, kicking, slashing. My Rose!My Rose!
They part in unison, forming a path for a single underfae to come forth. With that same infuriatingly calm demeanor as before, Faustrius walks toward her. He doesn’t even have his blade drawn.
But why should he?
Rosalina has saved what soldiers survived. There’s only us left.
My heart thunders in my chest. I cut my way through the crowd, blowing back as many as I can with powerful gusts of wind. I’m not going to make it to her before Faustrius?—
Help me, I cry out in my mind to the mates of my mate.Help her.
At the same moment, a bellow echoes out from below: “Ready!”
I spare a look down over the side. In one tunnel, the underfae have positioned a huge trebuchet. It springs forward, arcing a massive boulder up out of the chasm, skyward?—
“No!” I scream.
The boulder connects with the sails of the airship. The vessel lurches, tilting at an unnatural angle. Debris spills off the ship, and my throat closes as bodies tumble off too. Flames burst from the engine asFlutterwingveers downward on the east side of Voidseal. The tortured screech of metal and wood fills the air.
A boom shakes the bridge as the ship crashes into the stone, its massive frame skidding on the icy surface. Underfae scatter, but there’s nowhere for them to go. They’re swept up in the wreck. The airship grinds to a halt with a groan, a skeleton of rubble.
