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32
MIA
I’ve never ridden on a panther before.
Or a wolf, or a dragon or a griffin, but let’s stay with the panther for now because I’m on his back, powerful muscles rippling under my legs as he takes me through the trees toward one of the bonfires burning by the lake.
In typical fashion, and not surprisingly, the Academy has decided to turn this full-moon night of almost-tragedy into a party. The Battle of the Two Queens Party, that’s what it has been dubbed.
Students sometimes have no imagination. And I bet in years to come they’ll remember the party rather than the battle itself.
Then again, the title fits. The students are demanding that it’s made into an annual event with two girls reenacting the battle and four boys playing the conduits.
See what I mean?
I wonder if they realize how serious and terrifying this night has been. How important for everyone’s freedom. They seem to have woken up from the trance Ophelia’s enchantment put them in to find four amazing tame beasts and the whole school gathered around.
Of course party-time, booze and music was their first thought.
No imagination and not many brains to share among them, these students, and yet I feel a certain fondness as I ride about the campus with my boys.
Maybe it’s because I’m happy and relieved and can forgive just about anything right now. And though I’m drop-dead tired, I’m too buzzed for bed and my boys are still in beast form and I’m not leaving without them. I’d rather sleep out here among the trees to be close to them.
The wolf comes to rub noses with the panther and we’re surrounded by drunk students, cheering and singing off-key songs, raising their plastic cups of beer or punch. Even my dad is turning a blind eye to the drinking, it seems. I guess, in the bigger scheme of things, it seems unimportant.
I lift one leg and slide down my panther’s flank to put my arms around the wolf’s neck. “Jax.”
Ashton growls softly behind me, rubbing his big-cat head against my back.
The griffin calls out from the sky where he’s circling and dives down toward us. The students scatter with a lot of cursing and yelling—the first time Sindri dived down like this everyone was screaming, but this time they’re more prepared for the terrible spectacle of the white and golden griffin descending on us.
The griffin circles down, over the lake, sending wavelets crashing on the shore as he lands, his claws leaving grooves in the soft earth before he stops.
High above us, the dragon is still flying as I walk over to Sindri and put a hand on his eagle beak. His feathers ruffle and he turns his head to gaze at me with a starry eye, his lion body sinking to the ground, his huge, feathery wings folding.
An invitation.
I climb onto his back and once I’m wedged behind his head, fisting my hands in the rich fur where his feathery plumage meets his leonine back, he rises gracefully to his legs and jumps into the sky.
Cries of awe rise from the students, and I smile because it’s a marvelous thing, and I’m glad that my boys are accepted and admired in this form as well—a form they hated. I want them calm and happy so that they can soon return to their human form.
I like their beastly form just fine, but there are some things you can only do with a human body…
The exhilaration of flying up into the sky can only be matched by that of running on the back of a predator. I’ve done all of these things tonight, and I get to spend some time with each boy this way, holding them, hugging them to me as they move, reassuring them and myself that they are all right.
The griffin flies over the Academy grounds, and its expanses seem endless. He doesn’t stray far from the lake and the bonfires, though, and the dragon follows us, rolling under us or flying beside us. He seems to be grinning. When he breathes flames, the crowd below us goes wild, shouting and dancing.
I laugh out loud. It’s ridiculous. Most of them hated me until today and now they’re dancing and cheering us on, looking at me as if I’m a lion tamer at the circus, there to provide entertainment.
They just have no clue.
We soar over the trees, the dragon keeping pace, the wolf and the panther running below us, and then finally begin our descent—this time a bit further from the fires and the party. My hair and my dress flutter, strands of hair whipping my face. I should be scared.
But fear has vanished. It’s gone. The only thing I feel is exhilaration and gratefulness, excitement and joy.
The griffin rears up as he flaps his great wings to land, the lion paws on his hind legs grabbing at the ground. He takes a few running steps before he grinds to a stop and shakes his great eagle head, folding his wings in at his sides. He turns to look at me and I swear there’s a grin in there.
“Show-off,” I tell him and pat his feathery neck. I nod at the dragon who is landing now beside us, talons tearing through the earth. “Emrys is rubbing off on you.”
