Page 28 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame (Heir of Wyvara #1)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AMEIRAH
R iding was agony, every bump and jolt driving shards of pain through my bruised tailbone and up to my ribs. It took three hours of weaving around sharp grey peaks and low slung mountains to finally lose the wyverns stalking us. Varidian only allowed us to pause for five minutes for me to mount Makrukh in a rush of frantic movement and desperate jumps. He’d held me so tightly to his body since that my ribs screamed at me. I could have told him to loosen his grip at any time, but I needed the reminder that I made it out, that I was alive. I’d been so convinced I would die.
I kept my right hand curled into a fist even as the wind pulled at me, refusing to touch Makrukh without a glove, gripping his spike with my other. Varidian might have been immune to my magic but that didn’t mean Mak was.
When the wind slammed into my face, air aggravating my smoke-sore airways, a cough rattled my body, bringing tears to my eyes. My ribs felt shattered, mangled inside me, but the coughs weren’t helping. I still had smoke stuffed up my nose, lurking in my lungs, every inhale a reminder of what had happened at Wyfell. It didn’t matter that clean air surrounded us now, that the mountains offered calm and safety; there was no forgetting the sound of the souk burning, or of people screaming, or the sight of the farmer murdered on the platform like the first act in a horrific play. Had Masuma and her mother made it to safety? My eyes stung.
“Ameirah,” Varidian began.
“I’m fine,” I cut in, the same answer I’d given half a dozen times since we entered the mountains. I hadn’t seen any other wyverns for an hour, except the silver-blue that followed Mak so close he kept snapping warning with his teeth. She was undeterred, pressing as close as she could get. As close to me, I suspected. I didn’t have the space in my mind to think about what she suggested, that I was her rider. Of course, there was plenty of space for all my father’s, brothers’, and Xiu’s remarks about me being so vile and evil that no wyvern would allow me within ten feet of them, let alone permit me to mount.
“I can feel your turmoil. Talk to me,” he urged, covering my bare fist with his hand, heat bleeding into me.
“How many people died?” I asked finally, my voice a rasp barely audible over the whistle of air through mountain passes.
Varidian was silent, the quiet charged between us. “Too many,” he said eventually, his voice raw. “But we survived. We survived.”
At what cost, I wanted to ask, but that wasn’t fair. I didn’t know what would have happened if he and Mak hadn’t found me, if they hadn’t carried me away from the burning souk, from the dark clergy who had multiplied like rats in Wyfell’s streets. I knew others must have run to their wyverns and flown to safety like we did, but there were thousands of fae left. Thousands who had no wings, no escape. My breath shuddered in my chest, sending a flash of pain through my middle.
“It feels like this every time,” Varidian said, resting his chin on my shoulder, his voice subdued. “When we survive and others don’t. It should feel like relief, but instead it’s air crushed from your lungs, a pit in your stomach, and endless black thoughts.” His lips found the side of my neck. “I feel it too, dearling, you’re not alone.”
I screwed my eyes shut for a moment. “There was a woman and her daughter. We hid in a doorway while wyverns flew over us and—I don’t know if—if—”
“That’s the part I hate,” he confessed, stroking my stomach in small circles. “Never knowing. Even if we could track down the woman using her name, a city the size of Wyfell would have dozens, and after an attack on that scale…”
“I know,” I murmured, my eyes stinging as Makrukh’s wide wings carried us around the sharp edge of a grey mountain, the rock familiar—we must have been close to the Red Star.
“There are people I think about, some of them everyday,” Varidian said sombrely. “I don’t know if they made it, if the tigers got them, or if Kalder had killed them but—Aliah sat me down and gave me a stern talking-to one day. Not knowing works both ways—good and bad. We can choose what to believe. We don’t have to believe the worst. Even if we never know what happened, we can choose to believe they found a way out, survived, and rebuilt their lives somewhere new. It doesn’t work on the worst days but I focus on what Aliah told me. I remember we can choose.”
I bit the inside of my lip, the sting in my eyes fiercer. I chose to believe Masuma’s mother waited until Mak and the blue wyvern chased off the emerald, and then they ran for safety. I chose to believe they made it to the outskirts of the city, where people had begun to evacuate. I chose to believe they survived and were being taken care of even now. Maybe someone had given Masuma a wooden doll like the one I owned when I was young, with a knitted blue dress and gold edging and long, black hair.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment, my voice hoarse.
Varidian kissed my shoulder in response. “Will you tell me if you’re okay?”
I inhaled a slow, cautious breath, trying to avoid more spikes of pain, and asked, “If I agree to tell you, will you promise not to let go of me?”
“There’s no force or magic in this world that could make me let you go.”
His wild declaration almost made me smile. He was one of the most dramatic, crazy, romantic men I’d ever known, and I’d known fictional men.
“I’m not okay,” I admitted, blinking back tears, the mountains swirling ahead of us. “I keep seeing that man get killed, and the clergy marching through the city like an army, and the wyverns circling in the sky for prey, setting innocent people alight. I can’t think of anything but that, and I want to cry, or scream, or maybe unleash my rage on those wyverns with my bare hands. I can barely think for pain because my ribs got crushed and I think—I think they might be badly damaged. And I was so, so afraid you were killed in the crush. I saw someone go down and never get up again and I thought—what if the same happened to you? Even with you here, with your arms around me, I remember that fear and I can’t breathe.”
“Ameirah, look at me,” he said, his voice the calm to my panic.
I turned my face, meeting his eyes through a blurry veil. He kept one hand on my stomach, the other lifting to my face, his thumb caressing my jaw. “Those feelings are completely normal, dearling. If you want to cry, I’ll hold you. If you want to scream, scream—the mountains won’t judge you and neither will I.” His lips pressed to the spot between my eyes.
My next inhale shuddered. “I can just… scream?”
“As loudly as you want.” He kissed the bridge of my nose this time, then my lips.
“What should I scream?”
“Fuck usually works.”
I laughed, ignoring the way my stomach swooped when Mak dove around the edge of a mountain, trusting Varidian not to let me go as I kissed him softly. I didn’t think I could laugh, but somehow Varidian brought it out of me. He made me feel okay even for just a second, and that thought made me kiss him harder.
“You might want to cover your ears,” I said when we broke apart, gulping down breath. I faced forward again, pulling as much air as I could into my lungs without pain piercing my ribs, and then I roared at the top of my lungs, “Fuck!”
I let the word drag out, let the shout expel my rage, my fear, my shame at fleeing, my confusion and panic at those dark clergy. When I ran out of breath, I ignored the slashing pain in my middle to pull in more air and screamed again. This time I startled at the loud, shrieking cry that joined mine, and my eyes jumped to the blue wyvern who flew alongside us, her silver eyes fixed on me, something like understanding in them.
For a split second, peace flowed into my chest, soothing the ragged edges of my emotions, and my scream turned to laughter. “I didn’t know wyverns could swear.”
Her murmur told me there was a lot I didn’t know about wyverns, but not in a belittling way, almost sassy. Makrukh grumbled under Varidian and me, prolonging my smile.
“Feel better?” Varidian asked, spreading his palms across my stomach, extremely careful of my ribs now. He avoided the worst places like he knew exactly where to find them, and I wondered if he could sense it through our new mark.
“Actually… I do,” I replied, surprised to feel a weight lift from my chest. It would return, but for now it was easier to breathe, and I didn’t want to burst into tears.
I didn’t know how he did this—riding into battle, watching people die, having to fly away and leave them to the mercy of our enemies. I couldn’t begin to fathom how strong he must be.
“We’re home,” he said, nestling me closer to him, his hand flexing on my stomach. “Look over the ridge of that mountain; the Diamond is just on the other side.”
We’d approached Red Manniston from the opposite side than before, sneaking up on the kasbah from behind, and as the spires, towers, and domes spread out in front of us, a rush of relief hit me. It didn’t feel like returning to Strava yet, but it did feel like home in a way. We’d be safe here.
Unless those dark clergy and wyvern riders had ridden here while we evaded them in the mountains. My stomach knotted at the thought and I scanned the skies, my chest tightening again.
“How would we know if those wyverns had reached here?” I didn’t know any of the wyverns who flew through the skies above the kasbah, couldn’t tell friend from foe.
“Mak?” Varidian asked, stiffening behind me.
The white wyvern became hyper vigilant, his horns stabbing the air as he scanned the sky as we neared the city, the Diamond just ahead of us. He flicked a glance and a low rumble at the sky blue and she shot away from our side, leaping into a graceful arc over the city.
“Hey,” I complained mildly, pretending my stomach wasn’t souring with fear again. “Who put you in charge?”
“He’s older, bigger, and more experienced,” Varidian translated Mak’s rumbled reply. “That gives him rank. Also,” he told me quieter, “he’s bossy and likes to order people around.”
Makrukh heard the comment judging by the sharp glare he shot over his shoulder, his attention only stolen when the blue wyvern zipped back to his side, her body expanding with rapid breaths.
No threats, she told Makrukh. I repeated it for Varidian, glancing over my shoulder and struck by his small smile.
“What?”
“You understand her.” His blue eyes glittered despite today’s grave events. “That means there’s a bond there already, and you can strengthen it by spending time together. I told you any wyvern would be lucky to have you.”
Heat flooded my face and gathered in my chest. “Don’t be so smug; it’s unbecoming.”
“It suits me well,” he disagreed. “And there’s nothing wrong with being proud of my fierce wife.” He grew serious as Mak crossed the distance between the mountains and Varidian’s home. Our home. “I’m proud of the way you handled yourself today, Ameirah. I know it was terrifying, and it was chaos, but you survived.”
“Only because you and Mak found me,” I muttered, looking away. I remembered the awful helplessness I felt facing down the emerald wyvern, remembered being unable to get up, to defend myself. I vowed to never feel that way again.
But that wasn’t the only uncomfortable feeling inside me; something niggled at me, a feeling of unease so fierce it was almost dread. It wasn’t mine.
My eyes landed on the blue wyvern flying alongside us, and I opened my mouth to ask what was troubling her if there were no threats flying over Red Manniston, but Mak dove without warning, streaking from the sky like a falling star to the lawn at the back of the Diamond.
“Fuck, Mak!” I cried, holding on so firmly I might have bruised him if he wasn’t covered in protective scales. My ribs flashed with sudden pain when he landed, no matter how smoothly he set down on the grass. For a long minute, I couldn’t find the space inside my body to hold breath.
“Ameirah?” Varidian asked when I held myself deadly still, afraid any movement would send more pain through my ribs.
“I’ll be fine,” I bit out with what little air I had left, my eyes finding the blue wyvern again when she let out a mournful noise. Did she… feel my pain?
“I’ll get down first, then I’ll catch you.”
“Don’t touch my ribs,” I managed to say, keeping my face forward to avoid whatever look of concern he wore. I’d be fine. I just needed to rest and let my body heal and—
Mak was staring at me now, those crimson eyes slitted in consideration.
“What?”
My stomach jolted when he lowered his belly to the grass in a slow, careful motion, almost fluid. He clearly expected me to do something, turning his head back to look at me, coaxing me with a soft rumble.
“Varidian?” I shouted down, the ground still insurmountable even with Mak lying as flat as possible.
“He says to grab his horn and climb onto his head, then he’ll set you on the ground.”
When Mak brought his head close, I saw his plan.
“Don’t drop me if I faint with pain,” I said breathily, gritting my teeth against what was sure to be blistering agony when I released my hold on his spike and leaned across the small distance to grasp his horn. The lash of pain was so severe that tears stung my eyes and bled down my cheeks. My breath shattered. Mak gave me a soft, encouraging sound, nothing but concern in his eyes. I locked my jaw, stifled the scream that wanted to burn my tongue, and hauled myself onto his head between his horns by sheer force of will.
Mak lowered me quickly, sliding me into Varidian’s arm. Tears flowed so thickly I barely saw my husband before he lifted me into his arms, his lips on my forehead, leaving kisses and reassurances against my skin.
“Wait,” I managed to slur through a fog of pain. “Something’s wrong… blue wyvern.”
She made a soft sound in response and through my blurry eyes it looked like she held out her foot. There was something on her claw… Had she been injured? No, Varidian supported me with one arm for a moment, ripping the thing from her claw.
“Shit,” he hissed, severe enough that I jolted.
“What?” Unconsciousness was going to take me. Even speaking caused a flare of pain so bad that black spots crowded my vision, but I wanted to know what was wrong.
“It’s a leaflet. Says the same bullshit the clergy did in Wyfell. If you have information about the lightning soul, inform them. If you’re found harbouring it, you’ll be seen as just as guilty.”
“They found us here,” I sobbed, fear cinching my chest.
When Varidian began to walk, blackness closed around me, but I held on long enough to hear his reply.
“Not yet, it’s only a leaflet. But it’s only a matter of time before those dark clergy come here, too.”