Page 169 of Ravenrose

Up ahead, it appears to narrow as I approach a bend. But with my growing exhaustion and lack of food and water, I’m not quite sure I trust my perception of the distance.

I stop for a second, catching my breath and letting the warm sun hit my cheek, and I momentarily panic over my decision to go south. Perhaps it’s not too late to⁠—

Stealing a quick glance back over my shoulder, I freeze. A figure stands atop a rock cropping far to the north.

His silhouette dark against the setting sun, Ayer sits tall atop Dash with his sword and bow strapped across his back. He looks every bit the demonborn monster he is.

My heart stutters when I feel his gaze fall on me.

He shouts something, urging Dash abruptly forward into a gallop, and I’m already running. Hearing nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.

Turning around, I run, blindly sprinting for the narrowing of the ravine that I maybe—maybe— can make it across. My boots skid across loose stone, sending the rocks skittering into the deep ravine below.

I don’t look back. Too busy measuring the distance of the gap as I get closer to the bend. From here, it looks to be at least eight feet across, if not more.

Too far.

But I’m out of options.

The forest thickens again beside the ravine, swallowing me from view for a few precious seconds. I risk a glance back.

Nothing.

Somehow that’s worse.

Tearing out of the trees, I sprint across the grassy plain that runs to the end of the bend, checking behind me once more.

Ayer explodes out from the trees right behind me, his bow in hand. On foot now. The thick vegetation would have only slowed Dash down.

Shit.

He calls my name, but I ignore it, ignore him, throwing everything I have into reaching the cliff first. There’s a chance—the smallest of chances—I can make it.

If he catches me— No.

I propel myself forward, hitting the cliff’s edge at full speed, and leap. But the second my feet leave the cliff, I know.

It’s too far.

Terror rips through me—at the rocky cliffside just out of reach, at the empty air stretching beneath me for hundreds of feet, and at the jagged rocks waiting for me at the bottom.

No, no, no⁠—

I’m not going to make it.

I start to fall, my body twisting desperately in the air, hands reaching out like I can somehow reach the other side⁠—

Something tears violently free from my back. Pain explodes between my shoulder blades, and I scream as something buried deep beneath my skin finally forces itself out. Heat floods my spine, wind catching beneath me instead of around me, and for one disorienting second, my fall slows.

Dark wings burst open behind me. Massive. Spreading wide on instinct. The force of them jerks me upward, and I choke on the breath caught in my throat.

My wings.

I’m yanked into the air as they catch hold of an updraft, panic breaking through the shock.

The muscles in them feel foreign—weak, unpracticed. I have no control over the sudden stretch of them as they catch upon the rushing wind, swinging me sharply right. One wing dips abruptly, and I scream as I plummet straight down again before instinct forces another frantic beat of them.

It’s clumsy and graceless, but it’s enough.