Page 20 of Suncatcher

Driz had caught her. And it knocked some sense into her.

Pearl needed to not fall to her death. Then she could figure out everything else.

Struggling to breathe, she reached up, clambering and latching onto Driz’s front, locking her arms around her neck and knees around her waist.

Pearl stared up at the night sky as the flap of massive wings brushed her elbows.

She was flying. She hated it.

She closed her eyes, which was a mistake because she wasn’t expecting it when they hit the ground. Driz’s body jerked and Pearl almost screamed again, but Driz just gently lowered Pearl to her back on a patch of scrubby grass, the moonlight catching on curling horns amongst tangled hair.

Panting, Pearl stared up at the goyle looming over her.

Pearl rolled as the bile rushed up her throat. She convulsed, the blight and the turbulent flight overwhelming her stomach. She gagged and heaved into the grass, sweat collecting on her temples as she choked, struggling to breathe while her body did its best to expel her insides. Her arms shook supporting her own weight, the sensation of an intense fever flushing through her body, though it was no natural sickness. The earth heated and the grass flickered and bent, distorting.

Someone rubbed a light, soothing path down her back. Pearl frowned in confusion. Glancing over her shoulder, she was met with a leering face in the darkness, growing and stretching to encompass the sky.

Pearl flailed away, knocking the hand off with a gasp.

Driz retreated. Pearl blinked, the horrifying face flickering and resolving back into the one she had met before. Her frantic heartbeat steadied as she scrabbled for control over the chaotic sparks of blight messing with all her senses. She focused on gathering them up and closed her eyes. Only trace amounts remained, and she channeled it all back down into her aching stomach. Calming it.

Her breath rushed between her lips as the world steadied. When she dared open her eyes, the grass remained dormant.

She looked back at Driz, who crouched an arm’s length away, with Pearl’s knife jutting from her shoulder. Almost none of the blade was visible, the new fabric surrounding it shiny and dark.

“Shit,” Pearl muttered, reaching up but Driz reared back before she could touch.

Driz yanked the short blade from her body and tossed it. Pearl flinched as it landed in the grass a safe distance away. She scrambled forward, slipping it, still-bloody, back into its sheath on her thigh as she stood on unsteady legs.

They were on a strange hilltop, but two valleys over, faint light glowed.

“I’d ask why the fuck you did that, but you never answer that question,” Pearl bit. A piece of her mind knew she should be apologizing to Driz. Instead, Pearl was angry. More than angry. Mostly at herself for losing control of the blight.

“You were in danger,” Driz rumbled.

“I’m always in danger. And why d’you even care?” Pearl started to run, back toward the valley. “Why’re you even here?”

“I came to warn you. It was a trap.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.”

Pearl knew she was being an ass. But adrenaline surged through her as she pushed herself to run harder. She wouldn’t wear more blood of her people on her hands.

“Why are you going back?” Driz asked as she kept pace easily.

“Because my men are there. I’ve gotta help them.”

“I can take you.”

Pearl paused while clambering over a large rock to glare back at Driz. “Don’t you ever pick me up again.”

Driz recoiled, her body folding in on itself as Pearl spat the words at her.

Pearl didn’t have time for guilt. She ran on.

Driz followed Pearl back toward the danger. Perhaps she had been wrong. She’d thought she was helping, but maybe she hadn’t.

Her shoulder hurt, but she would be fine tomorrow. She’d been so shocked by the pain and suddenness of it that she’d momentarily dropped Pearl. That had been a terrible feeling, watching her fall beneath her.