Suddenly Myles is there, his mouth opening wide. His face looking ecstatic.
In one swoosh, he steps into the black cyclone and inhales. I can hear his breath, hear his hunger. Suddenly the mass diminishes in a spiral until it’s disappeared down Myles’s throat. And he has absorbed the dark power.
Draewulf’s roar shakes the rocks and stone towers around us. He lashes out at Myles, but the force of energy from the dark entity has already tossed Myles back across the ship’s deck and against the door, knocking him unconscious.
Draewulf stalks toward him, but my blade takes him in the thigh.
He turns and pounces for me and grabs my arm. I send a shock of ice toward his face, making him release me and jump back. But not before I catch his look of rage contort into surprise.
He stalls and, slowly, looks from me to Myles, then to Rasha who’s getting up from where she had fallen. She blinks at us. At the Tullan-king-who-is-Draewulf. And picks up her sword.
I raise my fist. “Let’s end this now.”
There’s a writhing beneath the surface of his skin that ripples into place and takes over his face. He winces and hunches for the slightest second as if in pain.
Then he raises a brow as his shoulders begin shaking. His breath comes out in an agonized huff. “Another time perhaps, pet.”
What? I stalk toward him. The fact that he doesn’t move makes me hesitate. What is he waiting for? Why is he doing this?
I let it loose just as his shaking becomes violent and knocks him out of the way so my explosion only hits his side. The body of the Tullan king he’s wearing crackles with a brittle sound. Then the body’s ripping apart, tearing open just like Breck’s did so many weeks ago. It dissolves into wisps, melting into the atmosphere except for a small bit of clothing and skin and blood. The blood of a king.
The blood Draewulf absorbed all too quickly.
The wolfish beast stands in front of me and stretches his shoulders and neck before centering his gaze on mine.
He smirks as if I’m a foolish girl but it doesn’t hide the weakness he’s experiencing. He steps backward and grabs Rasha, feebly knocking her sword aside. She punches him in the jaw just as he leaps with her over the railing. They land on another airship that has appeared out of nowhere to bank beside ours. I rush forward with knives of ice pulled from the sky and land two in Draewulf’s chest at the same moment he glances up at my ship’s balloon and mutters a foreign curse at it. The words fly up and puncture a hole in it before he sags and stumbles.
And before the next feeble ice blade I’ve hurled has landed, the airship he’s on pulls away. I bring down three more blades anyway but they fly with little force and clatter harmlessly against the ship’s hull.
The moment slows.
My heart pulses as the cavernous sensation in my chest steadies and my head clears enough to hear the last of the fighting around me. But all I can see is what’s left of the Tullan king’s skin and blood and clothing fragments lying four paces in front of me. Already invaded, absorbed, and discarded in one bout of violence.
I bend my fingers into a fist and shove them toward the sky. But the blood in me is suddenly failing. Too feeble. As if the power spent on nearly destroying this place is almost emptied out and in need of refueling.
I glance up and find Rasha’s face. Her gaze is on mine.
She is on the swiftly departing airship with Draewulf.
CHAPTER 41
A HORN BLASTS AND, AS IF ON CUE, THE AIRSHIP I’m standing on pulls back from the Castle and cliffs and the host of other ships. It soars up into the sky even as air’s flapping out the balloon’s small gaping hole, taking Myles and me and Eogan’s body and the Bron soldiers with it.
Within seconds, four other airships follow suit—while the rest have either crashed or appear to be overrun with wraiths. Like the one Draewulf’s skimming away on.
“Go back! He has Rasha!” I try to summon a storm to stop his ship, but my winds are too weak to retrieve it.
“Take us higher,” the large Bron guard yells.
I flip around to face him. Who does he think he is? “Your king is dead and the Cashlin princess is about to get slaughtered. And that horde of wraiths down there will destroy what’s left of those people,” I snarl. “Take us back so we can finish it.”
“I’m sorry, miss, but there’s not enough of us. We need to regroup and make contact with the captains who are left.”
I can sense the wildness invade my gaze. I stride toward him, ready to throw myself and my blade at his face. “If you don’t want to go, fine. But you take me back.”
His expression turns doubtful as he drops his gaze to my chest.
I snort and look down to see what he’s staring at.