Page 73

I t’s nearly dawn by the time we pick our way back down to the river, swim leisurely across the water, and stagger back out onto the shore to collect our clothes—which I’m not surprised to find that Fortiss hid thoroughly out of sight.

Walking beside him in the pre-dawn light, I feel different, changed in ways I can’t fully articulate.

The connection we forged by the river feels like a thread binding us together, invisible but unbreakable, even as we return to our roles as warriors with responsibilities beyond ourselves.

My limbs feel languorous, heavy, but not in the way that I feared with the weight of hardened cement anchoring me to the bottom of the river. Instead, everything flows easily, slowly, almost like a dance.

“We head out at daybreak?” I ask, turning to see Fortiss simply staring at me. The sky has lightened enough that everything is soft and lush, and I glanced down at my body, suddenly concerned that he can see an injury I have not fully accounted for. “What?”

“You’re beautiful,” he says simply, and there’s something vulnerable in his honesty, as if he’s offering up some secret, sacred truth. “I always think it, but I don’t always say it. And perhaps if I say it enough, you’ll believe it.”

“Probably not.” I roll my eyes, but my hands are shaking as I pull on my clothes.

In some ways, nothing has changed between us.

In some ways, everything that came after that moment by the Shattered City was simply part of a single stroke of the sword.

And yet every moment, every breath I draw with Fortiss seems like it opens up new possibilities—and new dangers.

Unbidden, the image from the Eighth House prophecy chamber surges forth in my mind, Fortiss’s mouth slack, his eyes dead beneath the weight of the crown of wings.

A crown he now carries with him everywhere, according to Syril. I glance sideways and note the leather satchel even now, bouncing against his hip.

I draw in an uneasy breath. “I think—I think I should carry the crown, Fortiss. I’ve already lost my connection to Gent. If I have to use it again, if the skrill return—I can…I will. I don’t want you to have to make that choice.”

“I…” Fortiss breaks off, and for a long time he says nothing, the two of us walking more slowly now toward the sick beds where my gear is stowed.

But before we draw too close to the lights of camp, he stops and turns to me.

Without a word, he lifts the satchel over his shoulder, then drapes it almost formally over mine.

“You will regain your connection to Gent,” he says fiercely, leaning forward until our foreheads touch. The simple point of connection makes me want to cry, and I press my lips together firmly to forestall the urge. “You will.”

This simple contact—forehead to forehead, breath mingling with breath—feels more intimate than even our precious hours by the river.

It’s a promise without words, a connection that transcends the physical.

In this moment, I understand that what’s grown between us is more than desire or convenience.

It’s something I’ve never allowed myself to imagine possible.

Something I can’t imagine living without.

“I hope so,” I whisper, and then his arms come around me, and we embrace a long moment in the dark, stronger together though we must, in this, stand apart.

At length he shudders, then steps back again.

He glances up toward the sky. “I think we’ll head out at a sharper clip this morning,” he says, and then a soft, quick smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

“I think we need Tennet to get back on his feet officially too. He’s milked his injuries long enough. ”

I straighten my tunic. “Syril’s worried about him,” I point out, and Fortiss snorts.

“And that’s why he’s played the fainting flower. But?—”

“Woohoooo!” The sky snaps tight, and I look up to see Caleb’s Divh, Marsh, burst into view, the plumage on his birdlike head sticking straight up, his powerful arms thrashing the air, his small wings and legs churning violently, as if he needs every appendage to gain the speed he needed to land.

“What the—what is he doing ?”

“His job.” Fortiss laughs, but he’s already heading that way, and I scramble to catch up with him.

“We talked about this last night. Enough of the Savasci warriors have improved or are on the cusp of improving that we need to start making better time across the plains. Even if we can cut off our trip by a few days, we should try to do so. We still need our warriors to heal, but I begin to think that they would heal more easily in connection with their Divhs.”

I consider that, but I see the value in what he’s saying. Even the memory of my connection to Gent with Fortiss wrapped in my arms is enough to make me feel stronger, more whole. And maybe, if all these Divhs connect with their warriors…maybe Gent will be able to find his way back to me too.

Another scream sounds across the heavens, and this one, I know even better. Szonja, Fortiss’s beautiful dragon, arrives and soars low across the plains before banking toward the forest and the riverbed. She knows where Fortiss is, and he raises up a shout then takes off at a run for our campsite.

I let him dash ahead, though I keep even with him enough that I can watch the furious scramble of the dozen or so warriors as they all head out to where they can reunite with their Divhs.

Girls and women join battle-scarred guards as they spread out across the field, and one by one their Divhs appear—griffins and raptors, flying lizards and soaring eagles, even the glorious phoenix.

To a one, these Divhs can fly, and I blink as that realization strikes me.

Had Fortiss chosen this party intentionally with flight in mind? But what of the horses? What of?—

Another scream cuts across my thoughts as Tennet’s glorious golden dragon appears in the sky, his head darting around as he works to locate Tennet. I see him the same time Ayne does, and I’m almost lifted off my feet at the sound of Ayne’s triumphant roar.

But Tennet isn’t alone. He’s leaning heavily on Syril at the edge of the campsite, so heavily that I frown at him.

He’s fine. I don’t know what startles me more, Fortiss’s assessment of Tennet’s legitimate injuries or the fact that I can hear him so easily in my mind.

I can hear him! For one wild breath, I cast my mind out farther, searching, searching for Gent in my awareness, my beautiful Gent, his powerful arms outstretched, his massive paws pounding the ground, his head thrown back in a fiercely joyful howl.

But my Divh does not respond. Our connection remains broken.

Punching down the desperate emptiness that rises inside me, I focus intently on Tennet.

He’s half-leaning on, half-dragging Syril away from the camp, out into the open territory.

She’s shaking her head, trying unsuccessfully to pull away from him, but a moment later, the decision is taken from her.

Ayne skims over the grassy plains and plucks them both up off the ground, tossing them high.

My stomach churns, but they don’t break apart.

If anything, Tennet twists midair, clutching Syril tight as Ayne swoops out and away, then drops beneath them just in time for them both to sprawl on his back between his wings.

The two of them scramble for purchase, and their voices break through my mind as well.

— idiot , Syril rages, while Tennet laughs with unbridled glee.

Talia—look! At Caleb’s shout, I swing around to see Marsh standing at the edge of the plains with his great arms folded, his bird head tilted quizzically as he surveys the progress of the makeshift battalion. I follow the trajectory of his gaze, and I can well understand the pride in Caleb’s voice.

Of the dozen freshly banded warriors, ten are in the air, and the two most injured who remain on the ground are sheltered beneath the wings of their Divhs, leaning against both talons and paw, drawing strength.

If Gent were here, this isn’t a sight I might even see, so consumed would I be with connecting with my own Divh, riding high clasped in his great paw, clinging for dear life as the wind rushes around us, and he races forward laughing at the sun.

But Gent isn’t here, so I draw what joy I may from this army I have helped bring into being, their bands once part of my band, but now unequivocally their own.

And as I watch, their voices surface in my mind as well.

Their laughter and fear, exhilaration and joy.

I hear Fortiss shouting a command, and I mouth the words as well, startled to see the reactions among the troops.

They can still hear me. They can still talk to me. Only Gent can’t.

And Gent, of course, is all I care about.

They continue their maneuvers for another hour, and as I watch, I find myself drifting farther and farther along the camp, eventually coming to rest beside a large boulder that juts out at the edge of the woods.

It’s just big enough for me to scramble up and seat myself with an almost royal view of the proceedings.

With every pass, the Divhs seem to grow more certain of the skill of their riders, and the riders seem to strengthen their hold and their seat on their mighty creatures.

They swoop and dive, roll in the air, soar straight up and then plummet down, and all of them are buzzing and chattering in my mind.

I relay Fortiss’s orders as they come, and the Divhs respond with breathtaking speed.

It’s a joyful, relaxed training, and I recognize it as a healing one as well.

The bonds between these warriors and their Divhs were forged in the cauldron of battle, but despite five hundred years of Protectorate lore claiming otherwise, battle isn’t the only reason for Divhs and warriors to connect.

I settle back, once again trying to stuff down my despair and confusion over my broken connection with Gent.

Perhaps my role in this new order is to serve as Fortiss’s first general, helping direct this battalion of Divhs, connecting them together, reporting back.

It will never be the same, of course, but perhaps it will be enough.

Talia—look up— Fortiss’s voice shakes me out of my reverie, and I strain up, hoping without any real hope to see Gent’s mighty form galloping across the plane.

Instead, I see only Szonja banking toward me.

She’s coming in far too fast, and I leap to my feet, waving my arms to signal where I am.

Like so many of the Divhs, her sight is not her strongest asset, unless it comes to finding her own warrior.

But it’s a bright day, and I’m garbed in our dark traveling gear. Surely, she can see me.

She doesn’t slow, though. Instead, her wings stretch wide and her powerful hind legs curl under her, and I gasp with shock as her talons bear down on me.

At the last second, I turn my back to her, hunching down, just in time for her to wrap her claws around me and lift me high.

She screams again with pure, unfettered ferocity, and wings up-up-up.

Blearily, I wonder if this is some new training attempt of Fortiss’s, some battle formation he learned in one of Daggar’s history books or conjured up in his own fevered imagination, but we swiftly leave the other Divhs behind.

We soar up even higher, and I finally understand what Fortiss is trying to do—enter the Blessed Plane with me as a passenger—or at the very least, fling me forward into it, like Gent flung us over the border to the Western Realms.

It could work, I think; it should work. We successfully brought Miriam into the Blessed Plane before she was even banded, and though my connection has been severed to my Divh, surely I can travel in a similar fashion. Surely the crime of wearing the winged crown won’t keep me from that.

And if I could travel this way, so could horses, so could anything that we chose to move from space to space, plane to plane.

The Blessed Plane could be an extension of the Protectorate, a byway for travel in times of war, if nothing else, and maybe in times of peace as well.

If we could travel this way, if we could connect?—

Pain rips through me with such agonizing force I feel as if my muscle and sinew are being wrenched off my bones.

I scream in utter agony out to all the Divhs and warriors, my mind blanking with the horror of it, and I’m not surprised when a shocked Szonja drops me straight out into open air.

I vaguely register Fortiss’s howl of dismay and urgency as he realizes something has gone terribly wrong, but I blank in and out of consciousness as I plummet down, down, down—my mind teetering on the brink of madness.

Still, in the back of my thoughts, a certainty grows within me. Gent will catch me. Gent will always catch me. My connection with Gent was forged at the dawn of the Protectorate to protect my long-ago ancestor, and he will protect me as well. He will catch me.

He doesn’t.