Argo is the fastest timberwing in Fourth Kingdom. Probably the fastest beast of his kind, and his stamina and skill alone give us a fighting chance. I demand every burst of speed he can give me, drive him harder than I ever have before, and he allows me my demands.
We race the tempest who’s clotting the clouds as she wails and beats at our backs, throwing a fit to catch up to us. But Argo isn’t going to let the bitch win, and neither will I. I won’t allow another storm to touch Auren. She has been flooded and wrung out, left to take the barrage without shelter. But so long as I’m here, I will be her shelter.
We fly, like lightning shot across the skies, arcing over the ground.
Against my chest, buried beneath two cloaks, Auren breathes. Breathes, but doesn’t wake, doesn’t stir.
Wretched hours pass as we fly. Every single second of them, the cold batters us, the very air sodden with overflowing dampness gathered from the pursuing storm. My face has long since gone numb, my ass soaked through on the saddle, my fingers unable to feel the clutch of the leather reins. If my eyes could still water, each drop would be nothing but frost against my skin.
Miserable cold and suffocating dark is all I know, but I trust Argo to guide us where we need to go. I keep Auren so far buried beneath layers that I can’t see a single inch of her, but I feel the hot press of her breaths against my neck, and that is all that keeps my protective fae nature in check. Keeps me from rotting the clouds and raining down the poison from my rage. I count her breaths like my own heartbeat, using it as the tempo to quell my seething power.
Time and distance drag on.
Then, out of nowhere, a sudden gust of wind knocks into us from the left, and Argo balks out a furious cry as his entire body is slammed from the force. The slippery saddle shifts from the jarring movement, sending both me and Auren tipping.
I lurch forward, hands scrabbling to tighten my grip on the reins, but my numb hands miss the grip. My heart leaps into my throat as we go sliding over.
Digging in my knees, I throw my weight to the side at the same time that Argo banks, shoving out his full wingspan to catch my knee. He straightens us with furious attention, another roar of indignation crawling up his throat as I slump over the saddle, breath heaving from the close call.
All that holds us to this saddle is a single leather strap buckled around us both. If Argo hadn’t caught himself...
As if the shoving wind was a personal affront to him, Argo turns feral.
He continues to roar at the sky with a renewed vigor to his flight, like it’s now his personal mission to battle the wind, refusing his own tiredness and beating it back with sheer fury.
It takes an hour for my hands to stop shaking, for my heartbeat to go back to normal, to not hold the reins to the point of pain. The crash of adrenaline seeps out of me like blood from a wound.
I need to get Auren somewhere safe, somewhere warm, and Deadwell is the closest option I have. Yet the dark landscape mocks me, like instead of moving mile after mile, the snowy world of Fifth beneath us isn’t passing by at all. Instead, we’re glued to its ether, the shadows mocking us as endless distance stretches, threatening to never give way.
But Argo’s sheer will and pissed off determination is unmatched.
Our race brings us closer to the dawning morning, though I thought it would never come. It brings the hint of an angry, curdled sky. I blink against the brightening horizon, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or filled with dread at the coming of the sun.
Yet even when the first spikes of daylight cast through the corrugated clouds, Auren doesn’t stir. I make sure the cloaks are still wrapped around her, every inch of skin covered. I don’t know if she even could produce gold right now in her current state if something were to touch her bare skin, but it worries me. She can’t afford to use any magic, and if it starts spilling from her uncontrollably, even Argo won’t be able to keep flying.
Beneath my thighs, Argo’s chest heaves. His breath is ragged, muscles shaking from the strain. In the gray light, I can see patches of feathers have been ripped out of his tree-bark wings from the violent gusts that have assaulted him. Stalactites of frost hang from his foamy muzzle like extra fangs, but he doesn’t stop roaring, doesn’t stop racing.
“Keep going,” I urge him, though whether my voice reaches him over the wind, I don’t know.
Guilt churns in me as he dives for another pocket of air to help carry him. Even with the burst of furor, he’s tiring. I’m pushing him too hard, too fast, too long, but there’s no other alternative.
Dawn finally wins over the last of the night. It shines like a beacon, lighting the way for the storm raging. I look behind us, eyeing the clouds that seem to be galloping forward, ready to crush us beneath frozen hooves.
In my arms, Auren shivers, making me grit my frozen teeth and gnash the ice caught between. Thunder rumbles with a grunting nicker and threatening huff, yet Argo rages back at it in a guttural roar that’s hoarse with fatigue.
A thousand scenarios play in my head. That we aren’t going to make it. That Argo will have to land. That Auren will be even more exposed. That the storm will overcome us.
But somehow, the familiar silhouette of cracked mountains comes into view.
Deadwell.
We made it.
Hope leaps in my chest at the sight of it.
From the ground, all you see is rotted snow and cracked peaks. From the air, all you see is a shadowed, frozen valley caught between the mountains like a row of crooked teeth. It’s inhospitable. Ugly. Empty.
But that’s only if you don’t know where to look.
Out of habit, I cut a whistle through my teeth to signal Argo, though the beast doesn’t need the heads-up even if he can hear me. His eyes are sharp, his sense of direction far better than mine. After all, he’s been flying me here for years. He could probably make the trip with his eyes closed.
My chest expands as we get closer, and I cup Auren’s cloaked head against my chest. “Almost there. We’re almost there,” I murmur.
Leaning into Argo’s turn, I keep Auren and myself braced as he swoops down toward the craggy tops of the mountains. The tips are shaped like a serrated knife, with cracked crevices that make a jagged sightline and dangerous rockfall. The largest mountain in the middle tilts slightly, like the wind has shoved at it so much for so long that it’s finally beginning to bend to its will.
Mountains should know better than to bow to the wind.
But the ridge isn’t the only eyesore here. It’s the stretch of my magic that truly taints the land.
What once was an empty and bleak breadth on the border of Fifth, is now a crisscross of rot-infected ground. Fetid roots reach all the way from Fourth’s border, delving through the snow to curl around the base of the mountains here like insipid crawling vines.
My magic responds to the massive amounts of power that I’ve already leached into this land, my skin snapping with its presence like it’s welcoming me. I can feel it soaked into the snow-packed soil, can feel the call of it thrumming like bloodlust in my veins. But my power has to wait.
Although the mountains below are cracked and crooked, and though the massive roots of rot have made this land ugly and spoiled, it’s still the best damn sight to see. I brace myself as we drop down below the clouds at a breakneck speed, my stomach nearly coming up my damn throat as Argo dives.
For years, this small strip of land has eluded my control. But now, I finally lay claim to it. With the deal I made with Midas, we are officially out of Fifth Kingdom and in my own territory.
Argo swings wide, heading directly for the tallest mountain, right where the rotted lines of rubbled rocks make up the base.