Men and women littered the ground in shades of red, blue, and gray. But the hand of the Lord of Death wasn’t the only thing that unified them. Every corpse oozed gold blood, regardless of skin color.
The age of the Perfect Chimera would be ushered in with blood.
Cvareh pulled on Saran’s feathers, banking across the clouds, surveying the battleground below him. Rok continued to make attempts to push further into Ruana. But without the help of Tam, they were continually thwarted. It had been a stalemate for months, but he was beginning to see signs of the momentum shifting.
“Hold your position!” he cried over the winds, swooping low enough for the survivors to hear him. “Another wave comes from the west!”
In the distance, a swath of bocos cut their silhouettes against the skyline. At first, seeing ten to thirty attackers at once would have been cause for concern. But manpower made all the difference. Rok’s numbers were dwindling, Cvareh was certain of it. Meanwhile, his numbers were only increasing with every transport of Perfect Chimera.
Cvareh rose higher, squinting against the afternoon light. He saw no rainbow trails. That had been another evolution—the decreasing number of Riders. But from what he heard of the attacks increasing on Loom over the past weeks, he had every suspicion that Yveun was refocusing his minions on the lands below.
The cry of a boco had him twisting in his saddle.
“You looked like you were thinking of doing something reckless,” Cain remarked, flying close.
“Never.”
“Let them reach the island. We can take them on land.”
Cvareh nodded, realizing it to be true. As much as he wanted to cut his enemy right from the sky, they had the advantage on the ground. Perfect Chimera could pilot gliders, but the vessels were in short supply and were primarily allocated to ferrying more soldiers from Loom—not for fighting.
Like an explosion, a plume of clouds tangled in the rainbow tail of a glider breaking through the God’s Line far below. It curled upward, chasing after the single-manned vessel that shot toward the sky.
“One of ours?” Cain squinted.
Cvareh didn’t need to squint. He saw the tattered flaps of a white coat almost blending in with the clouds and immediately knew. Every muscle in his body tightened in response to the sight. “Arianna.”
The glider moved with suicidal speed and reckless agility toward the Rok fighters. They noticed the Fenthri barreling at them like a bullet out of a gun and shifted course. Arianna didn’t change her trajectory, continuing head-on.
“We have to help her.”
“Cvareh, no.” Cain tried to stop him.
Cvareh wasn’t about to listen. She had come to fight. There was no world in which he wouldn’t do it at her side.
Gunshots echoed over the wind as Arianna sped past the pack of Dragons. One man lunged from his boco at her, only to miss and whistle for his mount to catch him before he was swallowed whole by the God’s Line.
“Arianna!” Cvareh shouted, wondering if she could hear him.
If she could, she ignored him.
In a maneuver that would make Helen both jealous and proud, Arianna continued her ascent, high above the pack of Dragons that were now pulling on their floundering boco to try to keep up with the more agile machine. She pulled on the handles, tipping it in a wide arc until she was facing down at the God’s Line and the Dragons beneath her.
Arianna let go of the glider and Cvareh’s heart went straight to his throat, blocking another scream of concern for the woman’s wellbeing. He watched as she seemed to float in the air, falling alongside the vessel, a hair’s breadth away. She hoisted a weapon that was strapped to her, holding it with surprising calm given that she was a puppet to gravity and pummeling toward fifteen Dragons all scrambling to kill her.
Cvareh couldn’t stop his eyes from closing at the beam of bright light that exploded from the gun.
Another shot rang out and the column of pure magic that punctured through Dragon and boco alike lingered on the wind as though it was trying to draw a line in reality itself.
Arianna reached back for the glider. Another Dragon dove, intending to knock her off-course before she could recover the mechanical safety net.
Cvareh gave a roar and kicked Saran’s sides. Faster, he willed the bird to fly faster. He let go of the boco’s feathers, feeling the wind whipping his clothing against him as he straightened away from the diving bird. He wouldn’t be fast enough if he relied on the boco alone.
His feet pulled from the stirrups, curling under him, and Cvareh launched from the saddle, claws out.
He met the Rok man in a tumble of feathers and blood. Cvareh sought purchase as his enemy’s boco squawked and spun through the air, trying to catch the wind once more with the fighting Dragons on its back. He raked his claws across the other man’s face as the Rok fighter desperately tried to cast him off.
Petra had always told him that once he used the gift of his lungs on Nova, there would be no turning back. Every Dragon on the entire island would feel the shock wave of his magic. It was his greatest strength, and when Petra had lived, it served her and Xin for Cvareh to never let it be known.
But Cvareh was the Oji now.
He hoped his sister was right in her assumptions, because he wanted every living soul to know that they were up against a force strong enough to command time.
Cvareh sucked in the air through his nose, filling his lungs, and felt the world slow. He looked over and almost lost time in his startle. Arianna’s piercing eyes stared back at him. They seemed to look right at him, even though her hair was frozen in a windless world.
She’d recovered herself on the glider, pitched downward, parallel to him.
Trust me, those eyes seemed to demand.
And he did.
Cvareh sliced at the Rider’s hands and legs with determined swipes. He peeled muscle from bone in deep gashes. He didn’t hold time for more than a second—he needed to conserve his magic for the battles ahead—but that was all he needed.
Time snapped back into place as he breathed again. Cvareh was once more in free fall.
Now he spun through the air with a Dragon dazed, confused, and thrown from his boco. Cvareh gripped the man by the throat and plunged his hand into his chest. He took the warm Rok heart and let go of the suddenly still body.
Magic cracked through his mind with a sort of dizzying elasticity. For the first time, Cvareh felt what he’d done to others when he stopped time.
“Hold on!” Arianna cried, coughing blood into the wind.
He closed an arm around her waist, his feet cementing to the glider behind her. Cvareh tore a hunk of heart and shoved the rest into her face. Arianna ate from his hand, and they shared the spoils of their fallen foe.