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It felt like the first time I had truly breathed in months.

CHAPTER NINE

I allowedmyself time to adjust to the sensation of being airborne, trying to ignore my unwanted passenger. So far, I had just allowed the Vördr to guide our way, soaring above the clouds for what must have been half an hour at least. I didn’t exactly know what I was supposed to do—how I was supposed to steer him. There were no reins. I’d never even ridden a normal horse with no reins—on the ground.

"If you want him to turn, press with your leg on the opposite side of the direction you want to go," Aether's voice broke through. We had been riding in such silence that I almost forgot he was behind me.

I tested his advice, pressing my left leg against Tryggar's side, but the Vördr merely snorted, continuing his path straight ahead as if I hadn't done anything at all.

"He's not listening," I called back.

"Press harder. He needs to know you mean it."

I dug my heel in with more force, but Tryggar seemed to take that as a challenge, surging higher into the sky instead. The suddenacceleration had me clutching the saddle horn, my knuckles white. Aether’s grip on me tightened.

"Clearly, your teaching methods need work," I muttered through gritted teeth.

We crested just above the clouds, the mist cool against my skin, before Tryggar finally decided to break through them of his own accord. The landscape below came into view, and my sharp intake of breath had nothing to do with the altitude.

The world below unfurled like a nightmare made real. As we descended, my throat closed around a cry I couldn't quite swallow. This wasn't just destruction—this was obliteration.

Dried riverbeds carved through the earth like open wounds, and what must have once been forest stood as nothing more than a graveyard of twisted limbs reaching toward an eternally twilit sky. Each detail that came into focus felt like a physical blow. I thought the conditions in the city had been terrible, but nothing compared to the gray world below. This was death itself, stretching as far as I could see.

And we had caused this. My people. My realm. The Guard I had sworn my life to.

Bile rose in my throat as I remembered our training lessons, learning to fight the Wraiths, pride swelling in my chest as Laryk told me I was the answer—that I was what he’d been looking for to finally annihilate the foreign threat. He couldn’t have known about this, could he? He had made me feel like we were the righteous, fighting for our realm, fighting for our survival.

We hadn't been heroes. We had been executioners.

"It's all gone," I managed, the words tasting like ash. Behind me, Aether's silence felt heavy, accusatory.

“Yes, most of it.”

I turned my head slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of his expression. But his face was as inscrutable as ever, shadowed by his dark hair.

“The drought has spread, and with it, death. Entire villages abandoned. Crops failed. Water sources turned to dust.”

My stomach churned, a mixture of the altitude and the grim reality below. Seeing it made it all too real.

Tryggar’s wings shifted, and the creature let out a low, guttural sound, almost as if he, too, mourned the state of the land. The Vördr’s shadow stretched long over the ground, a fleeting specter passing over the remains of what once was.

My gaze fell to a cluster of ruins below. What might once have been a village square was now a tangle of collapsed roofs and shattered walls. I imagined the people who had lived there—children playing, traders haggling, elders sharing stories by the fire. Now, it was nothing but ghosts.

“Let’s land. There’s a clearing there just to the left.” Aether’s voice came from behind me.

“Land? How am I supposed to?—”

“How did you expect us to get back on the ground?” His words were slick with that annoying calmness he always managed to maintain. Made even worse by his grip on my waist. Given how tightly he was holding me, I might as well have been attached to him with iron chains.

“Well—” I started, nearly huffing to myself when I realized I hadn't thought that far ahead. I mean, I hadn’t thought I would beflyingtoday at all.

“I figured Tryggar would eventually just take me back to the city and land on the lawn!” I shouted through the wind, my grip on the saddle tightening as we soared higher, the ground below a blur.

Aether’s voice brushed my ear. “Well, you managed to attract the most stubborn Vördr of the herd. If you’re waiting on him, you could end up across the realm.”

I gritted my teeth. “Don’t tempt me.”

Tryggar gave a loud snort and banked right. The wind whippedby as his wings beat powerfully, and my stomach lurched with the sudden shift.