She didn’t want to leave me here alone.
I almost begged her to solidify around me and take our pain away.
King Ostern agreed to let me sleep in the hutch with her, so long as its entrance is heavily guarded.
Don’t know why he bothers. We both know I’d never leave this place without Slátra. Since I donned the Aether Stone, I can no longer summon a cloud for long enough to escort her back across the plains. Meaning I’m stuck here in this hot, humid place while my kingdom is run by a vile male I did not choose for myself. A horror that pales in comparison to the pain I feel whenever I look at my beautiful, broken Moonplume …
I’ll never forgive myself for climbing upon her back all those phases ago. For riding her until she listened to me.
Trusted me.
I’ll never forgive myself for taking her from her home. I’d do anything to go back to mine again.
Ifold forward over Raeve’s too-limp body before we plunge, spearing through a clot of cloud. We shred free with a flick of Rygun’s wings, the jungle-encrusted mountains rolling by beneath us much slower than I’d like them to.
“Hast atan, gaft aka.”
Faster, my friend.
Rygun’s raging adrenaline churns in my chest, making me feel like I’m burning from the inside out.
“Hast atan, Rygun!”
He roars—blowing a plume of ruddy flames through a web of low-hanging clouds, dissolving them.
The mountain range comes to a lofty head, and he chases the updraft with a pump of his wings, slingshotting over the rounded peak crowned with the domed lookout housing several Sabersythes and a Moltenmaw. Their riders blow horns in sharp bursts to hail our arrival, and I finally sight the Loff stretched far as my eyes can see.
I consume the vast, unpredictable body of water like the welcomed relief it is, Rygun roaring to the constellation of spiked Sabersythe moons peppered above the glistening turquoise depths. To the Moltenmaw moons, too—though only a few.
Home.
Relief loosens some of the weight stacked inside my chest.
“Almost there,” I murmur close to Raeve’s hooded head as Rygun cuts so close to the lookout I’m certain his tail skims the roof. He tucks his wings and plummets down the cliff’s sheer face toward The Burn’s sheltered capital packed around the sloping shore. Like Bulder took a blade to the bulbous summit and sliced a cove wide enough to cradle the second-largest city in the world.
Sunshine batters the auburn dwellings rounded like the mountains they spawned from, folk yelling from the veined walkways—waving. Younglings jump up and down, arms stretched as they hoot and roar and pretend to soar across the cobblestones.
Rygun aims for the Imperial Stronghold that oversees it all, protruding from the mountain like a growth pocked with stained glass windows and open archways, clothed in vines heavy with the black ukkah blooms Mah loved so much.
Pah used to have them hacked back, but not me. They have my permission to swallow the city.
The entire kingdom.
Rygun lowers us toward a flat landing patch, the balmy air rich with the smell of salt and braised meat. I brace around Raeve as Rygun drops his weight upon the ground, packing so much heft a cleft forms in the stone I’ll have to patch up later.
I throw my leg over the saddle, my heart dropping when I see Veya jog through a domed doorway, her long brown hair tossed about by the wind. She’s garbed in her ever-present riding leathers I suspect she fucking sleeps in, wearing a broad smile that disappears the moment her stare cuts across the blood I’m wearing … the female tucked against my chest …
“Shit,” I murmur, working my way down the ropes.
I love her welcomes. Treasure them. But for the first time in my life, I would’ve happily gone without it just so I can get inside the door without—
“Who’s that?”
My salvation. And the very reason you’re probably going to gut me with your pocket blade before I even make it into the Stronghold.
I leap down the final few rungs and land upon the stone, scouring Rygun’s lathered hide. “Glatheiun de, Rygun. Hakar, glagh, delai.”
Thank you, Rygun. Bathe, replenish, rest.
He releases an ear-splitting screech and bounds into the sky, slamming us with a gust of wind that whips at Raeve’s thick black braid hanging free from the cloak I draped her in to protect her from the sun.
“Kaan, who’s in your Creators-damn arms?”
I turn, storming toward the doorway. “I love you, Veya, but I can’t do this here. I need Agni.”
Now.
I’m almost through when Veya screams at me from behind—her voice so shrill I picture a blade whirring toward me. “Kaan Llúk Vaegor. Tell me who that is, or I will fill your pallet with hurky beetles every slumber for the rest of your long, miserable existence, so fucking help me!”