Page 39 of Ashen Wings

“Tenebris!” Jace cries but the Blightfang’s wings ripple and fold in on themselves.

The air column gives out like stone crumbling to dust.

“Fuck, Nova, hold on.”

The sky falls.

Morning light blurs and swirls, rushing like rapids, and we plummet toward the ground.

I don’t dare close my eyes, not when the earth is fast approaching. My thighs cling to the saddle with desperate strength. This is it. We’re moving too fast, falling from too high. The impact has zero chance of survival.

Tenebris’s limp wings flutter and stretch above us.

“Wrap your arms around me,” Jace groans, fighting the force of our downward spiral. Without hesitation, I throw my arms back and lace my fingers behind his hips.

“Trust me, okay?” he whispers through gnashed teeth. My already frantic heart is burning out.

“What?” But the question is only met with silence. Silence and the roaring rush of air.

I clench my core and ready myself for Morvayne. We plummet to the ground, like a comet from the cosmos. Just before our bodies collide with the barren forest floor, Jace throws himself over me, cocooning my body from the burst of force as we impact. Tenebris’s gargantuan frame skids through the ashen soil. Rock cracks, earth flies, and we collapse into a dust cloud. Jace’s arms rip from me and I’m thrown across the clearing.

I can’t see, can’t breathe. The risk of movement is too high without assessing my injuries, but there’s no time. Bodies creep through the dust cloud, some crawling on four misshapen limbs, others on two cracking skeletal joints.

“J-Jace? Tenebris?” I scan the smog, desperate to latch on to some distant solace.

Only the low, hushed groan of the lurkers responds. I push myself upright, cautious of any damage to my spine inflicted during the crash. The movement is sluggish, but not painful. Thank the gods.

“Jace!” I try again, but again only the stalking footsteps and quiet growls of the creatures echo through the clearing.

Sunlit particles scatter around me, clogging my vision with tears.

Panic coils in my lungs, expelling whatever remnants of breath I have left.

The lurker, groaning and wailing its voracious song, approaches with a cocked head.

“Tenebris?” Are both dragon and rider dead? Am I alone? Isolated? Left to fight these terrifying fuckers off? I’m going to die, devoured by my worst nightmares.

My desperate grasp brushes against the cold, hard steel strapped to my thigh. Thank Astora. I draw my blade toward the lurker, but the weapon doesn’t deter it from creeping closer. Every cell in my body tells me I need to run—to crawl—away from this thing, before it drains me just as it has this barren earth.

“Stay the fuck away.” I bare my teeth at the creature, but it simply tweaks its head in return. Its long, sinewy fingers scrape over the scorched soil as it closes the distance between us. One by one each digit cracks. I slide back in the dirt, disrupting the coarse gravel with my frantic boots.

The creature’s jaw unhinges and the section of filmy flesh where its mouth should be stretches.

My pulse flutters too fast. My breath comes too shallow. The skies, the earth, the whole damned universe freezes, and I’m lost in time and darkness.

My cheeks hollow as it crawls up my booted shins, but I can’t move. My fingers, now curled around the blade, beg for commands but they’re lost, and every thought fades.

The lurker takes them all.

Its weight on my body is lighter than expected, like it's made of dust and sun-dried skin.

Move, Nova. Fucking move.

But my limbs don’t respond. Darkness creeps over my vision, speckling the world with flecks of black and blurs of hazy color.

Raise the damned blade.

I command my hands, and again they refuse. The lurker’s fingers wrap around my biceps as it rocks its hips into a seated position over my lap. I’m greeted nose to nose with this creature of cosmic horrors. My stomach knots at the scent—stale blood and decayed parchment.