Kick their asses until I get there, but when I arrive, those fuckers are mine.
At this distance as we race over the dunes, my power writhes and builds, the roots snapping at my skin, ready to sink into this arid land and rot it through. When we pass a smaller city just off the coast, I know we’re getting closer, and it buoys my enthusiasm even more.
That’s when it happens.
Just on the outskirts, when Argo dips below the clouds. If he weren’t so overtaxed, if I’d been more focused, maybe we could’ve dodged it.
But the bolt came from nowhere, just a whistle I hear a split second before it pierces through his wing.
He lets out the most ear-piercing screech I’ve ever heard. His blood blows out in the wind, splattering me with blots of red. Argo pitches sideways, still shrieking, still trying to flap, to fly, but his stubbornness and skill is no match for the iron bolt stuck through the muscles and bones of his wing.
We fall.
I hold onto the straps of the saddle, leaning forward, draping myself over him and giving him all motion to move the way he needs to. There’s no steering his direction, no trying to urge him on. All I can do is brace myself against his back as he plummets. Even through his pain and our violent descent, he still tries to slow our fall, still tries to search out the best possible place to crash-land.
I can say with absolute certainty that the sand dunes look far softer than they really are.
Argo takes the brunt of the fall, tucking in his legs and his one good wing at the last moment, and lurches to the side just as we hit.
Powdery sand explodes around us, and Argo lets out another shrill cry that rolls in my skull, clashing into me just as much as the impact.
I unbuckle myself as fast as I can and slide off his good side, boots sinking into the sand as I hurry around him to get to his injured wing. The bolt is big and heavy—probably set off as soon as we were spotted crossing outside of the city. We’ve fallen far enough away that there’s probably a good mile between us and the city wall, but that’s worse, because all I want to do right now is rot the fucker who did this.
I take in the damage to Argo’s wing, grim realization settling over me as I take it in from all angles without touching. The iron arrow is stuck in the center of his right wing, matting his brindled feathers with blood. The end is far too thick for me to pull out without causing more damage and pain.
The one silver lining is that metal corrodes.
Argo cries, this time a noise more like a whimper, and it fucking guts me to hear him sound like that. The beast is one resilient and tough creature, and to see him broken down into this...
“I got you,” I murmur to him, and his huge brown eye pins to me, as if there’s a blink of understanding at what I’m about to do.
Touching it with as little contact as I can, I slowly spread rot down the metal. It looks like the iron does nothing at first, but then, it slowly begins to weaken. The color turns grimy with rust, pitting appearing along its length. When it begins to flake off in corroded strips and the metal appears ancient, I reach up and snap off the end.
Argo jerks, biting his teeth at me, but I move quickly and yank the rod out, tossing it behind me. He instantly curls his wing toward him and starts licking at the blood, which I take as a good sign that he can move it at all.
He’s panting hard, froth gathered at his maw, and when I move around him to check his legs, he gives me a warning snap again.
“Easy, beast,” I say, though if I’d just been shot with a bolt and took the brunt of a violent crash to the ground, I’d be lashing out at everyone too.
When I press up on his chest and lean down to check the condition of his legs, my stomach drops. His left one is held at an odd angle where it’s tucked beneath his tilted form, and I can tell without even touching it that it’s broken.
“Shit.”
Broken leg and a wounded wing that I don’t know the full extent of. He’s completely debilitated; there’s no possible way that he can move, let alone fly.
I get back to my feet, looking around the barren land, but there’s no shelter from the sun, nowhere for me to keep him hidden or protect him from the elements.
We’re both sitting ducks in a boiling pond.
When Argo lays his puffing face down against the scorching ground, sand blows from around his nostrils and blooms in front of his mouth. He makes a dejected, beaten noise again, and it twists the blade of guilt lodged in my throat.
I tear off the waterskin hanging from my waist and start to drip the liquid against his maw. He instantly opens his mouth, and I pour water in until it’s nearly empty. He licks his lips, looking at me with a steady blink before he slops his abrasive tongue against my hand as if in thanks and then closes his eyes.
Sucking down the last of the water, I sit against Argo’s good side, knees up, eyes pointing toward the direction of Wallmont.
The miles that still stretch between us from here to the capital seemed small just minutes ago. Now, they seem insurmountable.
So close.
Too far.
Argo can’t fly. Can’t walk. He’s going to die out here because of me. I’ll have to walk to the city that shot him down and steal a horse and race across the desert to get to Auren, and it’s going to be too late. I’ve taken too long, and now, without being able to fly...
The moment I leave to head for the city behind me, I’m giving Argo a death sentence. My teeth clench together, my fists too. The choice I have before me is to either leave him here alone to slowly succumb to his injuries and the elements or to rot him where he lies, by the very touch he’s learned to trust. A touch that, right now, lashes with incensed lines that have traveled down the lengths of my hands with volatile twists as it lengthens past my knuckles. The rotting depths of my anger seep into the ground and spread like ferreting veins that stretch out in a hunt to scour the land in punishment before I pull it back.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the reach of my fury crossed all the way to Wallmont. I’m tempted to let it try. Let it swallow the city behind us too, cause every last person to spoil and molder.
Argo’s been my faithful beast for years, and this is the thanks I give him. A desert grave where he’s hurt and hot and vulnerable. My hand comes up to stroke the soft feathers of his neck, and when he lets out a near-silent purr, emotion thickens in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
To him. To her.
So fucking sorry.
CHAPTER 63
AUREN
Instead of applause at the king’s announcement, the square grows quiet and anticipatory. As if everyone’s waiting to hear what’s going to be said next. Just in front of the stage, sitting on a slightly raised platform, sits a few dozen people. They’re all dressed finely, clothing of nobles, but my eyes immediately find one face in particular in the crowd, sitting with his husband.
Manu.
He gives me the quickest glance before he looks away, and maybe I’m wrong, but I swear, I see the slimmest slice of guilt flash over his expression. He tried to tell me that the Conflux was going to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but this certainly doesn’t feel like a slap on the damn wrist.
It’s nothing personal, Doll.
Except, it was.
It is.
I start to turn away, but my attention then snags onto a young boy sitting just in front of me. He’s wearing nearly the same white robe that Isolte wears, except his head is bare, showing off dark blond hair. He’s young, maybe around ten years old, and based on the guards standing at his back, my guess is he’s Second Kingdom’s heir.
I wonder how many Confluxes he’s witnessed.
“Let us state the claims against the accused.”
My eyes snap to King Merewen.
Standing in front of his chair, he looks around the gathered crowd. The hairs in his long gray mustache curl slightly, the ends looking like they’ve been dipped in egg yolk, yellowed with age.