Page 1

Part 1

Healing

Chapter

One

Lt. Merrik Loiatir of the Escarlish Flying Corps was about to watch his best friend die.

Fieran’s wounded biplane barely hung in the sky, its propeller gone, the left wings a shredded mess. A doomed warbird on the verge of beginning its death spiral.

Whatever anger Merrik had harbored for Fieran’s reckless flight into the fury of this aerial battle evaporated. It had been foolhardy for the two of them to take on the entire swarm of enemy aeroplanes without so much as a plan.

Yet it had been so like Fieran to charge into the fray without a thought. Thanks to his magic—the incredibly powerful and destructive magic of the ancient elven kings that he’d inherited from his elven father—Fieran rarely faced consequences for his actions.

He was facing them now.

“Fieran, I am going to grab your aeroplane. Now.” Merrik swerved his aeroplane to fly above Fieran’s damaged aeroplane, even as he spoke into the radio wired through speakers in his flight cap.

Calling up his own magic—a much less powerful and perfectly average elven plant growing magic—Merrik pressed a hand to his aeroplane’s fuselage, sensing the wooden frame beneath the layer of lacquered canvas. The delicate frame didn’t give him a lot of wood to work with, but it would have to be enough.

Only a month ago, he’d saved a fellow pilot by tying their aeroplanes together with plant magic. Surely he could do so again with Fieran.

He had to try. He would do whatever it took to save his friend. His brother.

“No! The wings are about to give way.” Fieran’s aeroplane sank lower.

“I am not letting you crash.” Merrik sent magic-laced roots reaching downward, the frame of his aeroplane thinning around him.

“Crashing is rather inevitable at this point.” Fieran’s magic flashed out, slicing through Merrik’s roots with the taste of lightning.

Merrik gritted his teeth, his magical senses stinging. Why wouldn’t Fieran let him try? He couldn’t watch Fieran die. They had been brothers basically from the moment Merrik had been born. Just two half-elves getting into mischief with Fieran’s little sister Adry tagging along.

When Fieran spoke again, his voice held a strange, determined calm even through the static of the radio. “You need to get out of here. I’m about to cause a rather large explosion.”

“Going out in a blaze of magic is not an option!” Merrik yelled between his teeth as he clutched his aeroplane’s control column in a white-knuckled grip. He wouldn’t allow Fieran to pull a stunt like that.

He swerved his aeroplane and tipped it on its side so that he could see Fieran and his aeroplane. In the cockpit, Fieran stared straight ahead. He’d already taken off his flight goggles in preparation for crashing. His aeroplane glowed, wreathed with bolts of his crackling blue magic.

“Physics, Merrik, physics! Equal but opposite reaction!” Fieran shouted right back, that cold calculation still in his tone.

What did he…oh. Fieran intended to slow his fall by blowing himself backward, counteracting the force of gravity with the force of the explosion.

Merrik found himself using a word he wouldn’t normally say. Fieran had pulled off a lot of stunts over the years, especially in the past few months since this war against the Empire of Mongavaria had begun, but this one topped the forest like nothing else. “You will jelly your insides with an explosion like that.”

“Then I’ll have to shield myself.” Fieran shot one glance toward Merrik as his voice lowered. “It’s my one chance. I don’t plan on dying today. But I’d rather not take you with me.”

Merrik opened his mouth to protest. But at that moment, the damaged wings on Fieran’s biplane gave way, tearing away from the fuselage. The aeroplane lurched over into a downward spiral, a twisting, shredding mass.

“Fieran!” Merrik shouted, his heart wrenching. No, not Fieran. Not his brother. He couldn’t die. He simply couldn’t. But there was nothing Merrik could do but watch, his heart thundering in his ears, as what was left of Fieran’s aeroplane plunged toward the unyielding earth below.

A breath from the fatal impact, the aeroplane exploded in a blaze of blue magic. Fieran’s last-ditch attempt at survival.

Merrik sent his aeroplane into a dive, gripping the control stick as the shock wave of the explosion battered his wings and fuselage. He frantically searched the ground amid the scattered debris field.

Surely…surely…

There. Fieran’s bright red hair stood out starkly against the dark, muddy ground. He lay pale and still, and from this height, Merrik couldn’t tell if he was breathing.