Something nudged me from behind, just enough to make me lose my balance. Shrieking like a bean sidhe on a roller coaster, I fell forward.
For a moment, I couldn’t open my eyes, certain I was going to die. The wind whipped around me, howling in my ears as I seemed to plummet straight to my death. Then the glider curved upward, leveling out as it caught the wind currents. As my heart slowed and my death grip on the glider’s legs eased a bit, I cautiously opened my eyes and looked around.
The land stretched out before me, flat and infinite, fractured with glowing threads of lava vanishing into the horizon. From this height, the Iron Realm didn’t look quite so ominous. The wind shrieked in my ears and whipped at my hair, but I wasn’t afraid. Experimentally, I tugged on the glider’s front leg, and it instantly swerved to the right. I pulled on the other leg and it swooped to the left, sending a thrill coursing through me. I wanted to go faster, higher, to find a flock of…something…and race them into the sun. How had I been afraid of this? This was easy; this was awesome! The glider buzzed in excitement, as if sensing my mood, and I would’ve sent it into a steep dive if a voice hadn’t stopped me.
“Exhilarating, isn’t it, princess?” Glitch had to shout to be heard as his glider swooped down next to mine. The lightning in his hair snapped wildly, trailing threads of energy behind him. “First time on a glider, and you’ll never want to walk again.”
“You couldn’t have let me jump on my own?” I yelled, glaring at him. He laughed.
“I could have. But we would’ve been standing there till the sun came up.” Glitch pulled on his glider’s legs, and the insect swooped skyward, rolled, and came down on my other side. “So, your highness, you seem to be getting the hang of this, no pun intended. Want me to show you what these can really do? That is, if you’re not afraid of a little challenge.”
My adrenaline was pumping, and the thrill of flying made my blood soar. I was annoyed at the Iron faery and up for a challenge, little or not. “You’re on!”
Glitch grinned, and his eyes sparked. “Follow me, then. And try to keep up!”
His insect shot skyward, his whoop ringing out behind him. I yanked my glider’s front legs back, and it followed instantly, shooting up like a bottle rocket. Glitch banked sharply to the right; I pulled the glider’s right leg, and it performed the same maneuver, sweeping around in a lazy arc. We chased Glitch across the open sky, through a series of loops, arcs, curves, and dives, all at top speed. The ground rushed beneath me, the wind howled in my ears, and my blood raced faster than it ever had before. I pushed my glider into a steep, vertical dive, pulling up at the last second. My adrenaline surged, and I whooped with sheer, unrestrained joy.
Finally, we caught up to Glitch again, back to flying in a normal, straight line. He shot me a grudging look as I joined him, still panting from the thrill of stunt gliding an insect. “You’re a natural,” he said, shaking his head. “The gliders don’t perform that well for just anyone. You have to bond for it to really give you its all. Guess you made an impression.”
I was absurdly pleased at the compliment, and had the strange impulse to pat my glider on the head. “How much longer to where we’re going?” I asked, noticing that the huge red moon above us was beginning to set. Glitch sighed, and his playful mood vanished.
“We’re almost there. In fact, you should start to see it…now.”
We soared over a rise, the land dropping away into a shallow basin, and I saw the forces of the false king for the first time.
They covered the ground in a glimmering carpet, a small city’s worth of Iron fey, marching forward in perfectly square sections. The army was massive, easily twice the size of the forces of Summer and Winter. Great iron beetles, like the ones we saw in the earlier attack, lumbered forward like tanks, overshadowing the ranks of smaller fey. I counted at least three dozen of them, and remembered how hard it was to bring down just one of the massive bugs. But that wasn’t the worst of it.