Externally, he pushes me with the smooth part of his jaw, nudging me toward his flank with firm but gentle urgency. Clear command for me to hurry the fuck up and mount.
With a sigh, I make my way around him, pausing to pull a sword and dagger from the rubble. I slide the former into the unused sheath at my back, tucking the small blade into my leathers.
Reaching what’s left of the saddle ropes that haven’t burned away, I sweep my hand over a patch of Rygun’s scales still bearing none of their shine, and freeze—finding them ice cold despite the lava baths.
“Rygun—”
He snaps at my back. So close I feel the atmosphere squirm away from the crunch.
I throw a snarl over my shoulder, grit my teeth, and set to climbing the ropes—each painful push and pull fueled by determination to end this. To take Arkyn’s head, then get Rygun somewhere warm.
Tosurviveso we can make it back to our family. So I can tell Kyzari that not a dae has passed that I haven’t wished she was mine … since the very dae she entered this world.
Not.
One.
Dae.
I clear my throat, toss my leg over Rygun, and settle deep into the tattered saddle blanket, no reins or strap left to grip. Instead, I do it the old-fashioned way, leaning forward to fist two of the many spikes that run parallel down his spine.
Rygun heaves beneath me, lifting his head to cast his gaze toward the smoggy red sky alight with the blasts of a wounded world. He stretches his wings and powers them in deep, billowing thumps, body tensed as he launches into the air.
“Lukith—kai hik atuín—da zun,”I wrestle out between sharp breaths.
Let’s chase him toward the sun.
The world continues to shake, as though some giant is tossing it from hand to hand. With each violent jolt, fissures explode through the endless tunnels like cracking glass, raining shards of stone. Plugging the humid air with powdery dust that clogs my lungs, making me hack and heave.
I don’t falter, sprinting north through the warren of reeking dungeons I’ve been handled through so many times the path is chiseled on my soul.
Unlike every other time, the cells are overburdened with folk screaming for help, many bashing their food pans against the bars. Arms pushed through, hands snatching the air.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take me long to come across a pair of Arkyn’s masked guards charging through the tunnel, flaming torches in hand, bellowing for the prisoners toshut the fuck up.They’re so busy belting out orders, using batons to smash reaching fingers, they don’t hear me approach. Probably don’t even register my presence until they’re dropping to the ground with broken necks.
Everyone in the nearby cells falls into a watchful silence as I search the guards’ cloaks. “Free as many as you can,” I say, tossing one of two plundered keychains into the most convenient cell.
A young null catches it, wide green eyes peering out at me from the darkness. An older female behind her asks, “Do you know what’s happening up there?”
“The moons are falling.”
I don’t stick around for the words to hit.
The moment we explode free of the molten crater, Rygun churns.
We hunt the fading trail of embers left by the Elding Bird; a trail that shoots north toward The Burn, arcs west, then cutssouthlike a flaming arrow.
No …
My heart plunges as we pulse in place. As Rygun’s head swings farther left, his body twisting until we’re pointing toward Netheryn. To where, in the far-off distance, Arkyn’s beast is cutting a path through the blasting tumult like a ruddy glimmer in the dim.
“NEI, RYGUN! NEI! HUK ATÁH TUÍL ÁHN-UH!”
I bellow the words while also blasting them at his internal blockade. Orders for him to hold ground. That we’ll find another way.
“HUK ATÁH TUÍL ÁHN-UH!”
He roars in raging defiance, tosses his head, and powers his wings with such force my head knocks back, charging south while I bellow myself breathless. Thundering orders he ignores, chasing the sputtering trail left by the Elding Bird’s wings and tail feathers.
