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“About a day,” Einar told her. “Adara did this to me too the last time we visited Talamh, and she also put this strange putty on my ears to make them pointed.”
“You’re not going to do that to us too, are you?” Yaggir asked, rubbing the rounded tips of his own ears.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like the putty doesn’t come off, but no—we don’t have time for that, so make sure you wear your hair down, and keep your hoods up whenever possible.” We were traveling in the dead of winter, so it wouldn’t look suspicious for us to cover our heads.
We said our goodbyes to the other dragons, then walked the five miles to the city gates. “It’s too early for the city to be this busy already,” Quye said as we entered Talamh through the eastern gate. Groups of people were hurrying up the street, their voices pitched high with a kind of anxious excitement. “I’m going to fly ahead and see where they’re going.”
Before I could argue, Quye transformed into her owl form in a flash of light, winging her way ahead of us. Noticing an abandoned newspaper sitting on a café table, I snatched it up and flipped to the front page. My heart dropped into my chest at the headline printed across the top in bold words “ANTI-WAR REBEL SCHEDULED FOR EXECUTION ON MONDAY.”
“Blast it,” Einar swore, reading over my shoulder. “That’s today!”
We broke into a run, heading for the city center plaza, where the execution was scheduled to take place. The closer we got, the thicker the crowds grew, forcing us to elbow and shove people out of the way in our haste to get to Mavlyn.
“This is impossible,” Einar growled as we got caught in a bottleneck at the plaza entrance. “We need to get to higher ground.”
“Let’s go this way.” I grabbed his hand and pushed our way through the crowds and to the left. Yaggir and Diyani followed on my heels, watching our backs as we entered a narrow alley. The guards on duty were so preoccupied with the massive influx of people that they didn’t notice us, and to my relief, the alley was deserted. We shifted into our half-dragon forms, wings unfurling from my back, scales rippling down my extremities to cover my forearms, hands, and feet, and flew up to the roofline.
Quye joined us on the roof and shifted back into fae form as we laid flat against the snow-covered tiles to avoid the guards. “They’ve already got Mavlyn up there, along with a group of prisoners,” she hissed as we peered into the packed square. Sure enough, I spotted Mavlyn standing off to the side of the stage, bound in heavy iron chains at the wrists and ankles. She stood next to ten other prisoners, but while they all appeared to be in various states of distress, some staring apathetically at the ground while others sobbed and wailed, Mavlyn didn’t show any emotion at all. She stared blankly ahead, and while I was too far away to see the look in her eyes, I had a hunch that they would be completely empty if I could.
“She’s been infected by shadow taint,” Einar growled. “Look at the lines on her neck and wrists.”
“But why hasn’t it reached her eyes?” I asked. I’d expected them to be black, like the other shadow-tainted fae and creatures I’d encountered, but they were still green. “Is she resisting somehow?”
“The Traveler’s Grove,” Quye breathed, dawning comprehension spreading across her face. “That’s where she is.”
“What?” Diyani screwed up her face. “What are you talking about? She’s standing right there.”
“There’s no time to explain,” Quye snapped as we watched the executioner walk onto the stage. "We need to act, now."
The executioner carried a wicked-looking axe, and two guards followed behind him, bringing a low stone table and a large bucket. My stomach lurched as they set them in the center of the stage—the prisoners would rest their heads on the stone, and once the executioner swung his axe, they would tumble neatly into the bucket for easy disposal. “We need a distraction,now.”
“Diyani, Yaggir,” Einar said. The two nodded, then launched themselves into the sky, beating their wings hard to gain altitude as quickly as possible. They transformed into their full dragon forms mid-flight, and the crowd looked up as the two majestic beasts cast long shadows across the square. Their excited murmurs turned into screams of horror as the dragons dive-bombed them, opening their mouths to spew jets of flame through the air. They aimed them just high enough to avoid the crowds, but some of the buildings caught fire, smoke rising from the walls to curl into the sky.
“Don’t let them kill anyone!” I barked at Quye, then jumped off the roof with Einar, snapping my wings out to catch an updraft. As Quye used her wind magic to snuff the fires out, Einar and I made a beeline for the prisoners. Most of the guards were too pre-occupied with evacuating the gathered crowds and shooting at the dragons, but one of them spotted us, and I hissed in pain as an arrow tore through my left wing. Gathering a ball of fire in my hand, I hurled it at the guard to distract him while Einar flew low, snatching Mavlyn up in his arms.
“Incoming!”Yaggir warned, his telepathic voice echoing in my head. I turned to see a dozen griffin riders winging their way toward the square from the palace, armed with crossbows.“We’ll cover your retreat—get out of here!”
The two dragons engaged the griffin riders as Einar and I flew out of the plaza, Quye following us in owl form. Two of the griffin riders peeled away from the group and tried to follow, but to my surprise, four more dragons dove from the clouds to intercept them, raining fire as they went.
“Diyani called them for reinforcements,”Einar explained, grabbing my hand and pulling me away as I stared open-mouthed at the aerial battle taking place right before my eyes. “Now let’s go!”
I tore my gaze away from them, and we flew onward, pushing ourselves hard. This time, no one made any attempt to follow us, and we made it back to the forest in one piece, though my wing still bled and my muscles shook with exhaustion.
“Sit down,” Einar said as the remaining dragons crowded around us. He gently laid Mavlyn on the forest floor. “You've done a lot of flying these past few days and your body isn't used to it yet. You need to rest.”
“Is this her?” one of the younger dragons asked. He stared at Mavlyn’s too-pale face, at the blackened veins crawling across her skin, a troubled look in his eyes. “She doesn’t look too good.”
“I need to help her.” Shrugging off Einar’s hand on my shoulder, I crawled on my hands and knees across the dirt, ignoring the exhaustion in my trembling muscles. Mavlyn’s chest rose and fell with steady breaths, and she didn’t stir when I took her hand in mine. She’d somehow fallen asleep during the journey, and if not for the obvious signs of shadow taint riddling her body, I could have convinced myself she was taking a nap.
Closing my own eyes, I drew on the power from the primal stone, using it to shore up my flagging strength. Icefire rushed into my veins, the burning cold energy filling me with renewed vigor. I carefully pushed that power into Mavlyn’s body, gradually spreading it through her system to drive out the taint while trying not to overwhelm her.
At first, nothing happened, but after a few minutes, black steam began to curl from her skin. She bucked violently in my arms, and Quye and Einar moved in to hold her down by the hips and shoulders so she wouldn’t hurt herself. My heart ached as I watched my best friend tremble from head to toe, but I forced myself to continue, to keep the icefire flowing into her until the black veins disappeared and a healthy color returned to her skin.
Finished, I sat back and wiped a sheen of sweat across my brow. “That was far more difficult than turning the shadow creatures back,” I said.
“That’s because Nox implanted a piece of herself into Mavlyn,” Quye reminded me. She stroked Mavlyn’s face, brushing a sweaty lock of auburn hair away from her forehead. “You need to eat and replenish your strength for the battle ahead.”
I shook my head. “I can’t eat now, not while Mavlyn is still in this condition.” My gut churned with worry as I looked upon my friend’s comatose form. “Why is she still like this? Why hasn’t she woken up?”
