Page 60 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

Every blow I struck, she matched. It wasn’t just a fight, it was a reflection. Like I was staring into what I could become if I stopped trying to hold on to the light.

If I fell.

Kaelith growled beneath me.You cannot face her alone.

I don’t think I ever had a choice,I whispered back, locking eyes with the woman who was never meant to survive.

Seraveth grinned, just once.

And the real fight began.

The cyclone hit like a hammer made of wind and malice.

Seraveth didn’t raise her hand or chant a spell, she simplylookedat me, and the sky answered. A spiral of wind tore into the clouds, condensed in her palm, and then she released it.

It slammed into Kaelith with a sound like shattering stone, a force that shouldn’t have reached us at this altitude. My dragon roared, twisting in the air to shield me with her wings, but the impact cracked through us both.

And then I heard it.

Snap.

The leather strap beneath me tore, and the world tilted. One heartbeat I was astride Kaelith, her violet scales beneath me, her voice screaming in my mind?—

And the next?—

Nothing.

I fell.

Kaelith’s scream ripped across the sky, wild and guttural, her wings folding as she dove after me. But the cyclone had thrown her off, and she spiraled, unable to reach me in time.

The wind roared past my ears, and in the blur of color and sky, I saw a face.

Perin.

His smug, satisfied smirk just before we left the landing platform.

Did he sabotage my saddle?

I didn’t have time to dwell.

Dark Fire lashed out of the sky like a whip, curling around me mid-fall. Not Kaelith’s—Hein’s. Zander’s dragon. The magic wrapped around my body, warm and searing, like a rope anchoring me to the sky itself.

But just as I began to slow, just as my fall almost stopped?—

The tether snapped.

I was falling again.

The ocean met me like a wall of ice.

I crashed through the surface with a bone-rattling shock, the impact tearing a scream from my lungs I barely managed to choke down. My armor dragged me under immediately, the weight of it pulling me into the darkness.

I held my breath, pushing my limbs through the pressure, swimming, barely, until I touched sand. I crawled, lungs burning, until my head finally broke the surface.

I gasped, spitting saltwater, hair plastered to my face.

The beach stretched before me in a blurred haze, but above, high above, the battle was over.