I knew she meantthink of the threat Ameirah made that she’d kill me if anything happened to you,but thinking of my wife grounded me. I wished she were here at my side, even if I would have been terrified for her to ride into danger. And itwasdanger, no matter how pastoral and quiet the scene laid in front of us. We’d taken turns watching the sacred city in the week since the attack on Red Manniston, along with the small home guard in Daurith, but all we’d seen were glimpses of shadows that might be nothing at all—until this morning, when Nabil and the Daurith watchman spotted a dark-winged wyvern flying above the clouds.
“Tight formation, Mak,” I shouted over the wind, and he relayed the order to the mounts of my legion, everyone falling into place, forming an arrowhead we’d used to break apart Kaldic threats for years. It was still surreal, unnatural, that our enemies were wyverns. What the hell happened, for our own creatures to turn against us? Kalder could still be behind this. They might have stolen and trained the wyvern, found a fae who could wield control like I could. But deep in my gut, it didn’t feel true. It felt bigger.
“What the fuck is that?” Nabil yelled, Buchra echoing him with a low rumble where his green wyvern flew at the tail of our formation.
It took me a moment to find what had caught his attention and then my stomach sank. I’d never once seen one in person, but it was familiar enough from the textbooks I studied in the academy. Far, far bigger than I’d expected, its wooden arm as tall as the hill it had sheltered behind.
“A trebuchet,” Zaarib yelled from my right, his panic making my own heart kick up even as the lightning soul warned me to stay calm. “Anyone remember how to take one of these down?”
“Burn the shit out of it?” Shula suggested, her and Saif wearing matching brutal expressions.
“Take out the arm,” I agreed. “Shula, Nabil, warn the house guard. Get Chakir Kissami on the guard tower now.”
They peeled off immediately to follow the order, rousing Zaarib’s uncle and his battle-hardened wyvern to block the main road into Daurith.
“Tight arrow formation,” I yelled as the wind picked up, responding to my emotions. Aliah and Zaarib pulled close; I angled my chin towards that mighty wooden trebuchet with the power to destroy the entire city of Daurith. We’d planned for wyverns, for soldiers, but not this. “Wyvern, call your fire.”
Mak responded with an eager rumble, his ivory wings beating the air as the air heated around us, the scent of hot iron and bubbling blood surrounding us. Fire hot enough to burn bone.
We flew as fast as lightning over the hatching grounds, the turmeric towers, the streets paved in yellow stone, the city square where bonding ceremonies were held three times a year. Where a single glance down showed fae younglings walking with their parents, older siblings, and trainers, trailed by wyvernlings no bigger than horses.
“Faster!” Zaarib shouted as he spotted them too, the wind stealing the power from his words until I barely heard them. When he dropped low over Dahab, I followed suit with Aliah.
You’re not flying fast enough,the lightning soul said in her crisp, ageless voice.Look. Look at the sling; it already moves. It already carries fire.
I sucked in a sharp breath, tasting the electric charge of lightning in the air as I saw she was right. A dark, crimson glow already gathered at the base of the trebuchet’s arm.
“It’s moving!” Aliah cried. “Can we cut it off before it fires?”
Not at this speed.
A weight pressed on my shoulders as I realised what she meant. We couldn’t do it together, but I could. With her magic, with the strength it suffused my veins with, I could do it.
Overhead, clouds churned, blocking out the sun, and I glanced at them once before I made my decision.
“Faster, Mak,” I urged, my heart clattering against my ribs as the electric, ozone scent grew, the air crackling against my leathers and his scales. He didn’t flinch, but I sensed his worry. One misstep and everyone would know who lived within me. One misstep and I’d be hunted, executed.
Don’t fight the pain,the lightning soul advised.Let it flow through you even as it hurts as all great power hurts. Will you pay the price?
Would I allow her mark on my body to grow? To save the wyverns and younglings of Daurith? I might be damning myself, but I would. Children were sacred, innocent. I’d seen enough innocents killed that the thought of them suffering while I could help was unbearable. I wouldn’t have Ameirah be ashamed of me. I would make her proud, always. Even if she was furious that I sent her away.
It started in my fingertips, then my palms. Crackling, intense power that was so cold it burned, or so hot it froze my skin, my muscles, my bones within them. I hissed through my teeth at the foretold pain, but I curled my hands into fists, using my thighs to keep my seat on Mak, and endured the bite of the power as it flowed up my arms and into my chest, carving its silver patterns into my skin. The sky turned as dark as ink over us, flickers of lightning now visible within the clouds.
“A storm!” Aliah warned. “Will it put out the fire?”
“Wishful thinking,” Zaarib yelled back, his chest flat to Dahab’s golden scales, his eyes fixed on the trebuchet as the arm pulled back, the sling sailing through the air, fire poised to hit the sacred city.
A bolt of lightning drove from a dark cloud and speared the wood. It blackened, charring in an instant, and relief spiked my chest when the arm crumbled from the trebuchet.
Too late,the lightning soul said with a heavy weight in her voice.
What? No. I hit the trebuchet, Istoppedit.
“The north tower!” Aliah yelled, breaking out of formation and shooting towards the city, Habiba a burgundy streak in the rain. I should have reprimanded her for it, but when I saw why she’d acted, I exchanged a swift glance with Zaarib, and we followed.
I’d burned the trebuchet, but the arm had already done its job, and deep crimson fire rained down on the sacred city. The north tower’s crenelated rooftop had crumbled, turned to ash and rubble in an instant. My gut cramped at the sight, at the tower’s innards exposed. People fled down rubble-strewn staircases, screams of alarm and panic replacing the city sounds of mere minutes ago.
Dahab swung his head around, silver gleaming on his gilded scales from the lightning as he communicated something with urgency to Mak.
