“Get us to safe ground!” I commanded the khrysaor, praying to the Angels she would follow my direction.
She swooped ahead of Zanox, taking point, and as we passed, I gasped at the arrow through Jezebel’s arm. One unlike anything I’d seen—gleaming black stone in the head and night dark feathers at the end. Her face was pale, but she was conscious, teeth gritted.
“Who the fuck—” she bit out.
I searched the ground, but no one was beyond the capital limits that I could?—
“There!” I shouted, pointing to the sign marking the boundary of the vineyards.
A woman with wine-red hair stood with a bow in her hand and a haughty smile gleaming on her lips. Her stark white dress billowed around her curvy form in the gentle breeze, but even from here she seemed out of place. Ethereal.
“Zanox, turn back!” Jezebel demanded as we soared toward the city center, her words labored. “We need to”—she hissed, and silver-blue light pulsed around her again, untamed and angry—“to get her.”
The khrysaor didn’t listen. He wouldn’t if Jezebel needed a healer.
“Dynaxtar!” I tried, hopeless that she would obey me over her rider.
But she dropped lower, slowing her pace to be even with Zanox. The two shared a silent exchange, and then Dynaxtar was circling.
And my heart stuttered, that idling blood and breath sensation from before returning, making me weightless.
She hadlistened to meover Jezebel. A long-slumbering sense woke, like the khrysaor’s decision struck a primal instinct, and I was wound around its cause.
Jezebel swore, that silver-blue light pulsing around her again, but it faded with her voice as Zanox raced to get her to safety. I knotted my hands in Dynaxtar’s mane, searching the ground as we circled over the vineyards.
The khrysaor banked, and I nearly shrieked, tightening my knees to stay seated. A black arrow shot past her wing, right in the path of where we’d been a moment ago.
“Good job, girl!”
She preened beneath me and maneuvered through a barrage of a dozen arrows. Dynaxtar was sleeker than Zanox, able to dodge and bank much quicker than his size allowed. She wove inand out of the clouds as if she’d been practicing for this since she woke, and I flowed with each sharp turn and dip.
“There!” I called, spotting the red-headed woman again, her bow loaded?—
Dynaxtar tucked in her wings to dive, but a blur shot out of the vineyard, tackling the woman to the dirt. Just before they disappeared from view, I glimpsed cascading dark hair and a willowy form.
But they didn’t emerge again. And when we landed, we scoured the neat rows of grapes, but we couldn’t find them.
I only shook my head at the empty vineyard, sticking close to Dynaxtar’s side as we hurried back to the city and ignored the fact that the woman who had saved us looked eerily familiar.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Malakai
Sand flew uparound us as the gryphon’s taloned feet slammed into the earth. The sun was just starting to rise, bathing the dunes in a wash of pale gold.
Fuckinggold. I didn’t ever want to see that color again after Ophelia’s light scorched whatever connection she had with Echnid from her body. It had flared for nearly the entire flight, until she slumped against my back. The only sign she was alive was her breath brushing against my shoulder.
Shouts echoed around us, and as the sand cleared, weapons were jammed in our faces. Curved scythes glinted in the sun from warriors dressed in lightweight leather vests, linen tunics, and bronze adornments.
Soulguiders.
“State your business!” one demanded, the blade of his scythe jutting closer to the gryphon. The beast snapped its jaw, chomping down on the weapon until it snapped cleanly in two. The warrior jumped back, ripping a hooked sword from his belt.
“Get your weapons away from it!” I growled.
The warrior lifted the pathetic blade. “What is it and how did it get here?”
Two guards crept around the tail of the gryphon’s lion body, and I held tighter to Ophelia’s arms as she groaned against my spine. Her wings drooped around us, dragging her weight down.
