“Havensfayre. Away from the Shrouds. Anywhere.”
As they fled away, the world grumbled under them. The ground began to buck and quake, spreading outward from that infernal hole. Cracks skittered away from the pit, pouring with smoke.
The sailraft raced across the plaza. Directly behind them, the stern of the Pywll plummeted past, dragging cables and shreds of balloon. Clear of the wreckage, the raft angled upward and into the clouds.
Once it shot back into bright sunshine, Wryth finally exhaled and loosened his white-knuckled grip on the drover’s seat.
Other ships popped through the clouds as more of the legion fled. Then something swept past their portside, heading the other way.
A swyftship with a scraped, raw hull.
It dove into the clouds.
Wryth narrowed his eyes. The drover saw it, too, and glanced back to him. Wryth pointed ahead, to where a heavy pall hung over the mists in the distance.
“Keep going,” he ordered.
If anything survived that devastation, he would find a way to deal with it. Events here had taught him much. He would use that knowledge.
And turn it against them.
61
GRAYLIN HELD HIS breath as the Sparrowhawk plunged through the dark clouds over Dalal??a. He did not know what to expect, or what he’d find. He heard an ominous rumbling coming from below.
After learning that Nyx had climbed up into the Shrouds, Graylin had challenged Darant to prove how swiftly his hawk could fly. While racing toward the cliffs, Graylin had kept his eyes fixed to the tall balloon of the second warship. Then a spear of blinding light had torn through the ship, splitting it down the middle and sending the wreckage plummeting below. Once at the summit, smaller boats had shot into view and sped away. Ignoring them, Darant had fired his ship’s forges and dove into the clouds.
As they descended through that dark pall, Graylin stood to the left of Darant. Kanthe had taken up a post on the pirate’s other side, with Jace at his shoulder. All eyes stared below as the swyftship dropped out of the clouds into a landscape from Hadyss’s worst nightmare.
No wonder everyone fled from here.
A dark expanse of stone spread below. Smoke masked much of it, lit by burning shipwrecks. The two halves of the warship had crashed, forming mountains of fiery ruin.
Graylin saw a large hole directly under them. The ground quaked steadily, breaking into jagged cracks that seemed to spread from that pit. More smoke churned from those fissures.
“Nothing could survive that…” Jace whispered.
“Take us lower,” Darant ordered his daughters.
Graylin placed a palm on the pirate’s shoulder, thanking him, knowing all he was risking.
Darant glanced over. There was none of his flippancy, only fear shining there.
Then Kanthe jerked straighter. He gasped and pointed off the starboard bow. “There! See that torch moving through the smoke and rubble.”
Graylin crossed to the prince’s side to see better. He followed where he pointed and made out what looked to be a suit of molten armor, striding across the landscape.
“Shiya…” Jace said.
Kanthe nodded.
The two had given Graylin a sketchy account of events after Nyx and the others had leaped from the Sparrowhawk. He hadn’t placed much credence on a story of a living statue, but plainly he should have.
“Get lower,” Kanthe pleaded breathlessly. “Follow her.”
Darant nodded and spun his wheel to glide them in that direction, while his daughters deftly dropped the ship.
“Look.” Jace pointed toward the bronze woman. The torch of her body now revealed four figures trailing her fiery path. “That’s Frell and Rhaif. I think two of the Kethra’kai.”
“Nyx?” Graylin asked, trusting their younger, sharper eyes.
Jace turned to him, his expression grim.
No.
Kanthe leaned until his nose was touching a window. “Shiya is taking them somewhere, rather than toward the nearest gate in those walls.”
Graylin clenched a fist, praying and hoping.
* * *
BURIED IN SMOKE and heat, Nyx still knelt on the trembling stone with Aamon’s head resting on her lap. He no longer panted, just breathed hard and heavy. She rubbed the base of his tufted ears.
She saw no reason to move, not after a blast of brilliant light broke the skies. She remembered the gonging bell from Shiya’s chamber. Here was the ruin it foretold. The world was now fire, smoke, and shattering rock. She heard the screams of the dying. The ground continued to quake. But where she had come to rest, the immediate expanse of stone held for now.
So, she stayed.
She would not leave Aamon.
Bashaliia kept vigil with her. He crouched on his haunches, occasionally flapping one wing to clear the worst of the smoke. He settled closer and leaned against her, still surprisingly light for his size. He brushed her with his cheek.
His chest vibrated gently against her. Though he wasn’t keening aloud, she felt the purr inside him. She closed her eyes and listened. I remember this. She had been warm under wings, a belly full of milk, nestled against velvet. He had purred then, too. She fell back to that time, enveloped in love both maternal and brotherly.
She heard the song in that purr and added her own, a hum of contentment and happiness. Golden tendrils, so fragile a gust could break them, flowed between them. But they were not the only ones listening. Aamon whined softly, asking to be drawn in. She stretched her strands to him, brushing against his wildness, his feral heart, but she also found the suckle of a nipple, the sweetness of a mother’s milk, the batter of brothers and sisters, still blind to the world with tiny sealed eyes.
She drew them all together and felt no fear. They sang together, entwined deeper than bone and blood. There was no fire, no breaking stones, no suffocating smoke. Time passed, or didn’t, she couldn’t say.
Finally, Bashaliia stirred, the fragility of their song wisping away. Aamon growled faintly, but he was too weak to raise his head.
She searched for what had alarmed them.
Then to her left, the smoke brightened with approaching fire, heralded by thunder and shattering stone. She tightened, expecting the worst. Only the flame that approached grew golden, shimmering with hues of bronze.
She shifted, keeping a palm on Aamon’s cheek.
Bashaliia sidled to guard her. His wings shouldered higher, spreading outward. She calmed him with a palm, with a whisper from her heart.
“It’s all right,” she said.
From the smoke, Shiya strode forth, blazing like a sculpted sun. She stared down at her, at the others, lingering on Bashaliia. “I heard you,” Shiya simply said, “and came.”
Behind her, Frell and Rhaif stumbled into view, covered in soot, bleeding from multiple cuts. Two Kethra’kai followed, their eyes haunted and lost. They all kept their distance from the dark sentinel shadowing Nyx.
Shiya craned her neck to the dark skies, which were beginning to tatter.
Nyx then heard what had drawn the bronze woman’s attention.
The roar of forges.
She stared up as a ship rounded into view, wafting smoke. She feared it was the last of the legion, drawn here as inevitably as Shiya. Instead, as the ship’s descent billowed away the smoke, she recognized the craft. She struggled for the reason behind this miracle.
The Sparrowhawk lowered to a hover. The stern door was already open. Shadowy figures bailed out and rushed forward. She spotted Kanthe and Jace. Graylin and Darant. Even Pratik and Llyra. A large furry shape bounded out and rounded past Graylin with hackles raised, growling menacingly.