Something I choose. Fen.
Do I want to know what you said to them?he asks, the joy at our minds’ reunion buzzing in my veins.
A threat I’m sure you would approve of.
As I climb onto his shoulders, Ruben sidles up beside me.
‘I penned the horses in with flames.’ He points to a ring of smoke rising in the distance. ‘Thought we might still need them, assuming we got away alive, that is.’
‘We’re cockroaches,’ I say, feeling a smile on my lips as I say the words. ‘We’re a Godsdamn roach infestation.’
As we move forward, Fen sniffs beneath me.
I’m not sure I would consider myself in that category, but I understand the sentiment.
Don’t worry, it’ll grow on you,I promise.
There’s no need to run from my would-be captors. Instead, we stride, our fearlessness evident in the backs we clearly expose to them. To let a single arrow fly would be death to them all, and they know it.
Still, as we reach the horses, I turn back to see them attending to their dead and injured. Lifting the bodies, bandaging the cuts.
All but one.
Her gaze is locked on me with a stillness that implies it has been there all along.You can run,half-breed, she calls after me,but you cannot escape what you are.
A hiss reverberates through the channels as I snarl my response back to her.
Watch me.
We ride hard,eager to put as much distance between the Torailians and us as we can. Those we left may be in no fit state to fight again, but there are almost certainly more close by, and to call them to attack would take little more than a thought in one of their minds.
And so for a while, no one speaks. Ruben’s fire pen caught all butone of the horses, and without question or conversation Caz and Thessa have doubled up, although even they are silent.
It’s not until several hours later, when there has still been no sign of pursuit, that the tension starts to release its grip on the group, although we maintain our pace.
Better safe than sorry.
As the stress fades, Kyor and Elska up their speed to scout ahead, while I remain at the back of the group, just in case I need to rip the earth up by the roots again, although it is not tree roots that steal my attention as we continue thundering along, but rather a branch. Or rather, what is on it.
A stray raven.
On impulse, I reach out to Fen.Slow down. I want to try something. Pull me back if I’m gone too long.
I have too many powers that I cannot control, and I know I’ll remain a liability if I do nothing aboutanyof them, so before Fen can object, I deliberately thrust my awareness out towards the onyx corvid. The first try lasts a blink of an eye. That’s it. And then I find myself back on Fen’s back. But a blink of an eye is not nothing, and if I can achieve that, I can achieve more.
Determined not to be defeated after my first attempt, I try again, this time focusing on the sensations that I have felt every time the slips happened before. The way my consciousness felt as if it slid out of my body and into somewhere anew. Somewhere I either wanted to be – like with Kay – or needed to be – like with the ring.
The aim here is to move somewhere I want to be rather than need to be, and as I’ve done that more times than the other, it shouldn’t be hard, should it?
Softening my eyes and limbs, I draw in a low breath and let my mind slip away.
The instantI open my eyes again, my view has changed, and it is more than a little disorientating to see myself still sat upon Fen’s back, with eyes white as pure ice. I understand now why the others were soconcerned. It’s definitely not normal, but I am well past the days of believing I can ever call myself that again, and with anticipation quivering within me, I launch myself into the air.
Down below Fen lifts his head to see me soaring, dipping his chin in acknowledgement a moment later.
Enjoy your flight, Little Raven.
I let out a terrific screech in acknowledgement, making his ears flick at me.
