“Not if you keep insulting me,” I hissed in his ear. “I just saved your wretched skin, Daniel Sheridan. The least you could do is thank me.”
“I’ll only thank you if we get to the ground alive.” There was a new note of terror in his voice, and I realized by the quickening whistle of wind in my ears, by the growing funnel of air in the parachute, that gravity had taken its hold once more. I looked out over the land—yellow rock, jagged hills in the distance, and far to the east, the muddy Nile. I had no idea where we were now or how we would find the others, but I’d be damned if I’d let my heroic jump go to waste.
Screwing my eyes shut, I focused on my spiritual energy. If I could strengthen myself, why not the parachute? Necromancers transferred spells to inanimate objects—that was the purpose of an amulet—so surely I could find some way to make this work. . . .
My arm muscles scorched with strain. My fingers were weakening. I made myself inhale deeply—stretch my lungs to the limit—and draw in a full breath. My power spiraled up from the tips of my body.
And from something warm that pulsed in my pocket. The ivory fist. It was feeding me magic. But I did not have time to dwell on this. I simply gathered and grabbed at all the power I could.
A trickle of blue warmth turned to a rush and then to a torrent. I gathered it in my chest, letting it whorl around my heart as I called up more . . . until my well of power was pressing against my lungs, pushing out my oxygen. Until soon enough I would have nothing left to breathe.
“Daniel,” I said, surprised by how calm and smooth my voice was—not that it much mattered. We had picked up substantial speed now, and the air cut into my face and eyes. “Daniel, I need you to hold on as tight as you can. I’m releasing one hand.”
He nodded, and I quickly checked that my left arm wouldn’t give out—but it was fine. I felt shockingly strong. My legs too—they squeezed his waist with unrelenting power. The magic had not only refreshed my strength but increased it.
I released my right hand, instantly grabbing hold of a parachute line. Then I willed every ounce of power I had into it. Stronger, stronger, stronger. Hold us a little longer until we reach the ground.
Instantly, the magic responded. It slipped from my fingers, and though I didn’t look up to watch, blue flared in the top of my vision.
“What did you just do?” Daniel demanded—though he had the good sense not to squirm. “Why . . . why are we fallin’ slower?”
For two heartbeats I remained silent. I waited for the rest of my magic to twine itself around the parachute, to hold the cloth open and keep the strings from snapping. The ground below—leafy farms and distant desert—was still so far away.
At last I yanked my arm down and clutched Daniel’s chest once more, and the heady perfection of the spell bubbled over me as it always did.
“Empress?”
Daniel’s voice pierced my happy warmth. “Hmmm?”
“What did you just do?”
“Magic. To keep the parachute intact.”
He didn’t answer, but I felt the muscles in his back tighten. Yet if he was worried about the necromancy, I didn’t care. I had saved his life—what did it matter how?
In the back of my mind, though, something nagged—something bleak that wanted my attention, but I gave it none.
Because, for heaven’s sake, we were flying! The slightest wind gusted over us, and hawks glided at eye level. My heart swelled with joy, and I couldn’t keep from grinning. I was flying! And I had saved Daniel’s life, and he had saved the airship.
It didn’t take long before the ground stopped looking like indistinguishable plants, and the sugarcane leaves and patches of scrubby forest came into focus. Even a clay farmhouse in the distance. Then, faster and faster, the ground approached—and I realized that despite my stroke of genius that would get us to the ground, we weren’t going to arrive softly.
Daniel seemed to have the same thought, for he suddenly started shouting, “Steer left—left, Empress!”
“How?” A wicked-looking sycamore was directly beneath us, and the clicks of insects were doubling in volume each second.
“Left, left! You need to pull—” His words broke off as the leaves raced toward us . . . and then we were on them. I had no choice: I dropped Daniel into the sycamore, and he immediately grabbed a branch. But without his weight, my speed decreased and spiraled even more sharply right.
Then I plummeted between two acacia trees. The thorns sliced into my skin, but I barely noticed—I was too busy trying to grab hold of a branch to stop my fall.
Then my parachute strings snagged, and with a final, gut-wrenching jerk, I stopped moving altogether.
The ground was a solid ten feet beneath me.