Saif barked a reproachful noise when her wing glanced his; her low reply could be simply translated to,oh, shut up.
“We don’t have time for arguing,” I shouted.
There’s always time for arguments,she argued, beating her wings frantically to catch air. The deep thump in the air grew as the wyrm swam closer to the surface.
“Strike the legion,” I yelled at Varidian as the first raindrops fell. “Make sure they’re following.”
“Oh, they’re following,” Shula shouted, her body flat to Saif’s bulky frame as her wyvern hauled wing and muscle towards the mountains.
We weren’t going to make it.
Lightning crackled, and I knew Varidian hadn’t even questioned why I wanted the enemy wyverns worked to a frenzy. He simply trusted me. My chest swelled, ached.
My chest flush with Raheema’s neck, I threw a hasty glance behind us and my mouth went dry at the huge shadow spreading over the surface of the lake. So much larger than I’d imagined, and now carving through the water with dark shapes that were irrefutably wings. Smaller than they ought to be, thinner, frilly on the edges almost like fins.
A water wyvern? I’d never heard of anything like it. Had neverfeltanything like the pressure and power thumping through the air. Like the Zalaam queen’s magic but without the oily weight, without the pure evil that made my nose and ears bleed. As if this wyrm had magic at its most basic, crude form—raw and unrestrained.
How long had it been here? Howoldwas this creature?
Old enough to eat us if you don’t focus,Raheema huffed.
Heat began to shiver through the air, and terror made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Another lightning bolt cracked through the sky and into the wyvern horde, but it wasn’t lightning that made the air tremor, that made heat kiss my skin even through the leathers.
We were going to be incinerated. The mountains were close, their peaks rising over us, but unless we gotbehindthem, we’dbe blasted from the sky. Turned to ash the way my magic had turned so many of our enemies to ash. Maybe this was karma at work, or maybe god had an ironic sense of humour.
My breath caught when Amr lifted his hands and a spear of ice formed. He heaved it towards the lake, and it sank mere inches from the wyrm, pushing it back only a few feet. I couldn’t unleash deathfyre on the creature; we needed it alive. But Varidian caught on to Amr’s plan and sent another bolt of crackling light into the water, buying us precious seconds. Kamaal followed, and silver-bright magic flashed across the lake’s surface, buying us more time.
But the heat grew stifling, that magic shivering over my skin. I jumped when a pocket of air slammed into Raheema’s back, pushing her forward. I whipped around to see where the attack had come from as she snarled.
“Stop fighting it,” Nabil barked at Dahab as the golden wyvern’s head began to snake. “It’s me, you fucking idiot.”
Another burst of warm air hit, and this time Raheema was ready for it; she filled her wings and allowed it to quicken her speed towards the mountains. I pressed my face to her warm scales, tears flying from my eyes as she soared through the air like a mighty catapult had flung her.
Light flashed behind us, but I didn’t lift my head to see if it was my husband or his brother, or maybe the wyvern horde had finally summoned their own fire. The idea of them breathing that dark-hearted flame that killed Buchra made me urge Raheema faster, my plea utterly useless. She flew with everything she had, her wings working like the bellows of a great forge, her lungs straining, body pushed to its limit. Around us, the others flew with the same desperation.
My idea—to come here, to set this trap. It was my idea, and if we all perished here, their blood would be on my hands. Two legions of wyverns and riders killed. Some of the finest warriorsIthanys had seen in a generation, wiped out when they were most needed.
Someone yelled from the panicked cluster of Kamaal’s legion, but I couldn’t make out the words as aboomwent through the air. The ensuing splash made me acutely aware of my mortality, and how quickly I would be snuffed out.
Warm air hammered Raheema’s back, her tail, propelling her across the lake. And finally, we flew into the cluster of mountains. I didn’t breathe as she angled her wings and sailed through the valley between peaks. Any minute now, the wyrm would unleash that incinerating fire. Flame, it was said, that had razed an entire swath of land near the wall to no more than a blackened scorch mark on stone.
Heat spiked until it abraded my skin and made loose strands of my hair dance in the sudden wind. The wyrm gathered its fire. I didn’t look back to confirm it; I didn’t need to.
“Fly!”Kamaal bellowed, his voice cast across the mountains we all but slammed into in our attempt to flee the wyrm. Thewyvern.Why had none of the stories mentioned the wings, or the scales that no doubt covered the creature? Did it have talons, to gut its prey if they miraculously survived the fire?
“Faster,” Shula yelled behind us.
I lost sight of who flew on either side of us. I kept myself flat against Raheema’s back as she soared over the valley, wings knocking into wings as she swooped over the rocky ground, aiming for the shelter behind the biggest mountain.
There was no guarantee it would save us; stories said the River Eater’s magic had melted stone and turned beaches to glass. But relief hit me like a strike to the chest when Raheema veered into the shadow behind the mountain, flapping in place, sheltered from the lake.
I lifted my head only long enough to see Mak tear across the sky and into the space behind the mountain, Dahab and Habiba joining him as they shot towards us.
“Thank fuck,” Shula said loudly enough that I heard her even over the hiss that built in the air. Like hot steam formed when fire met cold air. Hot enough to melt stone?
We’d made it behind the mountains, but would it be enough to spare us from that incinerating fire?
“Ameirah,” Varidian said as Mak pressed as close as he could without knocking Raheema’s wings. I didn’t miss the look he raked along her scaled body, searching for injuries the way Varidian searched me.
