Page 153 of Facade

“This is lighter than normal steel. But it'll still add weight to your flight,” he said gruffly as he inspected the buckles. I nodded, adrenaline coursing through my veins.

“Don’t come after us if we don’t return. I left you other coordinates in your quarters. Do not speak them aloud in case spies are listening in the waters,” Ryker instructed Gideon, who nodded solemnly.

Malachai pushed off the deck in a powerful thrust, the moon catching his shimmering red form as he spread his wings wide.

Ryker briefly made eye contact with me before doing the same.

“Be careful,” Lyra called as she stood hand in hand with Brax. I offered her a smile, as I took a deep breath, and pushed off the deck.

My back was screaming, every muscle already taut from the movement, but I hadn’t fallen yet as I wobbly flew between Malachai and Ryker.

Our lands were in view, and I gritted my teeth through the pain as I chanted in my head—almost there, almost there, almost there.

We flew silently and swiftly until we finally reached the beach. I nearly fell face-first into the sand, but Ryker caught my hand as we landed, holding me upright. I quickly pulled my hand back, stumbling away from him. The proximity to him was bad enough. Physical contact was a different sort of anguish.

It was eerily quiet. Not even the sound of the waves lapping over rocks reached our ears as we pulled out our weapons. Malachai held a finger to his lips before motioning us forward, and he went to the woods.

It wasn’t easy navigating the trees in our forms, but we had to be ready for anything. Ryker stayed behind me, and every once in a while, goosebumps covered my flesh as I sensed his eyes.

I refused to look.

After a while, we heard them.

Skurs.

Malachai motioned to some cliffs ahead to get a better vantage point. The plan had been for Ryker to be high enough to see how many enemies there were and, hopefully, be able to wipe most of them out with lightning, but we had to be sure none of our people were here.

We climbed the cliffs in silence. My muscles shook, and I lost my footing only to have Ryker catch me.

“I’m fine,” I hissed, pulling away from his touch, his brow creasing.

We made it to the top, where we saw an encampment of Fae with endless rows of tents and a huge cage of skurs in the valley below. Thousands of them. Even from here, we could smell blood and death from shredded carcasses the skurs left scattered.

“Shit,” Malachai breathed as we looked. “There are too many. There’s no way we can safely ascertain that none of our people are there.”

“I can fly closer,” Ryker suggested.

“No!” I snapped on instinct, forgetting my anger with him. “They could see you.” I knew my green eyes were lit just like their eyes were, but Ryker cocked his head to the side.

“Evanee, your eyes—”

Bells rang, shouts erupted, and the skurs’ shrieking had me cover my ears as all three of us tried to figure out what was happening below.

“Well, well, well. I do believe I’ll get a promotion for finding you three,” snarled a Fae soldier who'd snuck up on us from behind.

We all moved to pull our weapons.

“Ah, ah—I wouldn’t do that,” he taunted as he aimed an arrow at Ryker, and two more armed Fae came from behind him.

Ryker took a step back to the cliff edge as thunder boomed overhead.

“We heard about you,” the Fae sneered at him. “What a prize you are for our King.”

Cressida must have come here right after the fight and warned them to watch for us. Stupid. So stupid for us to think we could come home. My eyes darted side to side, assessing each threat as I took a defensive crouch.

Malachai moved impossibly fast.

He dove after the Fae in front of him, dodging his arrow before tackling him to the ground and slicing the male’s throat out with his talons, the flesh landing with a wet thump near my feet.