Waysa came stumbling over to them in human form. As she and Waysa lay down on the ground, Braeden kept shouting at them. “Now spread out your hands and legs. Splay yourself out!”
Serafina had no idea why Braeden wanted her to do these things, but she did as he said. Suddenly, she felt the brush of moving air above her. Many pairs of large, powerful talons gripped her arms and legs, her wrists and her ankles.
“Go!” Braeden shouted to the birds. “Take them!”
Serafina felt her limbs lifting upward, then her body. She couldn’t keep the panic from sweeping through her. They were lifting her off the ground. But she didn’t want to leave the ground! She liked the ground!
But suddenly, she was in the air, she was floating, she was flying. As she flew upward, she saw the intensity of the forest fire all around them. The mountain was on fire. Braeden’s figure standing in the center of the tiny clearing became smaller and smaller as the birds lifted her. Then she was flying across the canopy of the forest like a hawk, above the flames and the smoke.
Waysa was flying beside her, hanging from the talons of the hawks and ospreys like she was.
Within seconds, the blaze of the forest fire fell behind them. The night became dark and cool again as they flew up into the clear moonlit sky over the dark green canopy of the untouched forest.
Serafina craned her neck and looked behind her, searching for Braeden. She could see him in the clearing surrounded by the fire. He was shouting commands as hundreds of hawks and other birds grabbed hold of Gidean and the surviving wolves. The flames were pressing in, the smoke choking him, but he wouldn’t leave his friends behind. He was determined to save them all.
“Get out of there, Braeden,” Serafina said, but she knew it was useless.
When she looked back a final time, the flames had engulfed the clearing. There was nothing left but fire and great torrents of sparks rising up from the top of the burning mountain.
“Wait,” she called to the hawks that were carrying her. “Wait! Go back! Go back for Braeden!”
But they didn’t understand her. And they didn’t turn.
The birds carried her and Waysa high over the trees and the mountains, which rolled dark and quiet below them. The sorcerer’s storm had cleared. Up in the sky, a feathery scattering of white clouds drifted past an impossibly bright moon, with a crush of glittering stars above. Looking down again, she spotted what she knew must be the French Broad River, dark and shimmering, as it wound through the mountains.
As they flew slowly up the valley of the great river, she saw Biltmore House on top of the hill, its gray towers striking up into the sky, the moonlight touching its sides.
But all she could think about was the valiant friend they had left behind.
Serafina fell to her knees on the ground in front of Biltmore, her chest heaving with anguish. But she quickly got herself up to her feet again and looked toward the mountain in the distance. She could no longer see the flames. The top of the mountain where they had been fighting had burned black, a thick cloud of smoke pouring from its heights.
Waysa stood beside her, gazing up at the mountain with her, his face filled with dread.
Biltmore’s grounds had been badly damaged by the floods, and some of the house’s foundation had been torn away, but for now the storm had receded, and the sun was coming up.
“I’m going back up there to find him,” Serafina announced and started on foot toward the mountain.
“Wait,” Waysa said, grabbing her arm.
Serafina’s stomach felt like it was twisting into knots. She hated standing still when she could be moving. “We can’t wait here, Waysa. Come on, we’ve got to help him.”
But Waysa turned and looked at something in the distance.
Waves of morning mist were rolling through the trees and across the wide expanse of grass in front of Biltmore, the rising sun casting rays of light between the waves, dappling the front of the house in moving bands of gold.
“The a-wi-e-qua have brought him home,” Waysa said softly, his voice filled with awe.
Serafina didn’t understand what Waysa said until she saw the herd of elk emerging slowly and silently from the mist of the forest.
The elk of the Blue Ridge were large and magnificent forest creatures of old that Serafina knew only from the drawings in Mr. Vanderbilt’s books. Seeing the elk here, now, was impossible, for the last of the mountain elk had been killed by hunters more than a hundred years before. Then she remembered the large, stag-like animal that Braeden had called in to carry Rowena to safety the night before.
Was it possible that a few had survived all these years, hidden deep in the mountain coves and the shaded marshes where no one could find them? Had they come out now because Braeden had asked for their help?
The lead elk was an enormous, thousand-pound beast with a massive rack of antlers rising some four feet above his head like the majestic crown of a forest king. Braeden rode on the elk king’s back, holding the thick, dark brown mane with one hand and the wounded Rowena draped over the elk’s neck with the other. The elk king led the herd in a slow procession across the grass toward her and Waysa.
Serafina felt a swoosh of relief crash through her. She rushed forward and helped her tired, bruised, soot-stained friend down from the elk’s back. His clothes were burned and torn, but it appeared that he hadn’t suffered any major wounds.
Waysa gently pulled Rowena’s limp body from the elk’s back and carried her in his arms, her long hair hanging loosely toward the ground.
Braeden turned to the elk king. “Thank you, my friend,” he whispered.
As the elk herd turned slowly back into the forest and gradually disappeared into the morning mist, Serafina knew that she would probably never see them again.
She wrapped Braeden in her arms. “I was so worried about you,” she said. “What were you doing up there? You almost got yourself killed!”
“I had to save as many of the wolves as I could,” he said, shaking his head. “But finally the hawks pulled me out. I still can’t believe we lost. I thought we finally had him, but…we lost so many of our friends. My horse, and many of the crows and the wolves…”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. She knew he was hurting.
He shook his head sadly, even as he held her. “I told them all how dangerous it was going to be, but they wanted to fight anyway. They were very brave.”
She hugged him a little tighter before she let him go.
“Our friends fought with great honor, and you led them well,” Serafina said. “We fought against our enemy the very best we could.”
She and Braeden followed Waysa as he carried Rowena toward the house. Braeden went ahead and opened the front door for him, and then led them upstairs.