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“If you slip, babe,” Lander said from right behind her, “I’ll just shift into a giant bird and catch you. I promise.”
At the mention of birds, I glanced up and pinpointed a few flying creatures soaring in circles above our heads. Not the harpy eagle—it had taken off with a burst of powerful wings as soon as we’d started crossing the bridge, but what looked like seagulls. Except these gulls were unlike any I’d seen before, their feathers mostly a glossy black and their beaks a vibrant orange.
Funneling my blockade toward them, I sent a thought skyward until the gulls came zipping toward us and fluttered around Emelle with chattering excitement.
“A new friend?”
“We love new friends!”
“Are you a faerie? Can you fly?”
“No,” Emelle answered back with a wobbly smile. “But I wish I could.”
By the time we had made it a quarter of the way across, she’d visibly relaxed as she traded conversation with the birds, the others now in tow behind us.
The bridge, however, didn’t stop dipping and swaying and creaking with every step. When I peeked down, my own stomach swooped at the sight of all that empty space between me and the sunlight refracting off the gulping waves below.
Emelle was right. There wasn’t a single plant to catch us if we fell.
Don’t you know the first rule of crossing flimsy bridges in desperate need of repair? Coen’s dark, fathomless presence swept through my mind, stealing the tousled breath from my lungs. He didn’t glance over his shoulder, but I could feel the weight of his attention encasing me anyhow.
After forcing out an exhale, I wrinkled my nose at his back. I seem to have missed that lesson at the Esholian Institute. What is it?
Don’t look down.
Right on cue, my eyes lowered against my will again, and my gut lurched sickeningly. One little problem. Can’t seem to figure out how to stop doing that.
You could always stare at my ass instead. God knows I’ve done that enough times to you.
I clamped down on a smile, my eyes flicking up at the working muscles of his backside as he started up the incline of the bridge three planks at a time. Beyond him, Jagaros and Kanuk had already made it to the other side. Fine. But only because you’re begging me to.
A low chuckle escaped Coen from up ahead, one that sent pinpricks dancing along my skin. If you think this is begging, then I have several lessons to teach you, via.
Oh? My heart ticked up. And when is that going to be? Tonight?
It happened sickeningly fast. As soon as I said that last word, a ripple seemed to crawl up Coen’s back, his shoulders twitching again. My eyes rose from his ass to the back of his shirt, and there was a fraction of a second where I imagined ripping it off—not for the initial reasons that had devoured me a mere two seconds ago, but to inspect that damned tattoo beneath the fabric…
Then his shirt actually yanked up, my Object Summoning hands acting of their own accord. Coen stumbled forward, and panic surged within my bones as my third magic went rogue.
The bridge lurched, the snapping sound of a rope echoing throughout the canyon. Planks splintered in half. Emelle crashed into me. Someone screamed.
And we were falling.
CHAPTER
24
RAYNA
Once, when I was five years old, Fabian and Don had brought me to their blacksmith shop down the road to teach me the basics of candlestick-making.
I’d been sitting on a tall, metal stool to observe the top of the anvil, where Don had placed a glowing orange rod straight from the forge onto the anvil’s surface. Fabian had slid a pair of much-too-large gloves onto my little hands and helped me wrap them around a hammer.
“Now, what we’re going to do is strike, then rotate, strike, then rotate,” he’d said, and guided me as I attempted to do exactly that, elongating and flattening the rod to make a tenon. Strike, rotate, strike, rotate, strike, rotate…
On the next strike, Fabian had removed his own hand from mine, and my grip had slipped. The head of the hammer had slammed down below the tenon, the rod had jerked from its position, and I’d tipped backward before it could fly into my face, my stomach bottoming out.
It had been the first time I’d ever felt that gut-wrenching rush of free fall. But back then, the ground had only been a few feet below my head, and my fathers had caught me with their Object Summoning hands before my skull could crack against stone.
