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Something was wrong.
Renton winced as pushed up onto an elbow. The gash in his chest shot wicked pain through his body.
“Easy,” Gireth murmured. His friend sat a few feet away, back propped against the wooden support of a Ruzgorn tent.
“Take me back in,” Renton ordered.
Gireth folded his arms across his chest, tanned muscles flexing and expression challenging. “Yeah? Why would I do that when I’m responsible for your well-being?”
“My well-being could be a hell of a lot better if Tenah was here with us, not trapped in a cave with monsters.”
Gireth’s cold stare wavered as it drifted to Firesteep’s walls in the distance, his throat bobbing. “I know.”
At least the rumbles from within the Blackrock Cliffs had ceased. Renton didn’t know what to make of that, only that the vision of the nightmare—blurry glimpses of the monster named Balhudhal—would haunt him for eternity.
“You prove to me you can stand and hold a blade, and I’ll take you back in,” Gireth said.
Renton urged his body to comply, but it took most of his concentration just to force a breath from his aching lungs. He touched fingers to his scar—covered now by a loose, charcoal tunic—running them over the bumps from the stitches there.
The corner of Gireth’s mouth tugged down. “Sorry, the stitches aren’t perfect. There wasn’t time for Tenah to completely mend it, so I did what I could.”
“Thank you, brother. Thank you for everything.”
Gireth swiped at his nose with a knuckle and sniffled. “It’s nothing.”
Rolling back onto a strip of animal hide serving as a cot, Renton asked, “The other hosts?”
“Turned to dust.”
Renton groaned, pressing the heel of his palms against his eyes and wincing at the pain from the movement. When he removed them, he spotted two bobbing silhouettes in the sky.
“Gireth,” he called out.
The welkins coasted into better view. Renton pushed up from the cot in horror. Only one of the riders was shadow in form, the other two Corrupt. The first rider, Lord Kherathi, clutched Tenah, broken wings and all, tight. The second rider, astride a midnight black welkin built for speed, resembled his brother.
“No need to strain yourself,” Gireth said, leaning over to pat his shoulder. “I get it. You owe me big time.”
“Not what I was going for,” Renton said, growling as he strove to rise on two numb feet.
Gireth’s meaty paw held him in place. “Ah, sure it was. Brothers for life—”
“Shut the hell up and look.”
Head tilting to the sky, Gireth snapped upright. “Oh, shit. Forget the mushy stuff then.”
Renton brushed passed him, unsure at first if his legs would hold his weight. But the sheer will to embrace Aeyis and Tenah powered his muscles along. He registered Gireth shouting out orders behind him, elaborating on how idiotic Renton was. How he would destroy his body and suffer the consequences in old age.
Renton halted as both welkins landed on the desert ground. Immediately, he crushed his brother’s mutated body against his chest, ignoring the little tear in his stitches.
Easing back from his brother, he knew better than to ask what Aeyis had been through. His brother’s blackened eyes and spiked shoulders, casting a hard edge to a soft soul, told him such nightmares couldn’t be put into words right now.
And all because Cirel had wanted to watch the world burn. Wasn’t that the root of this mess?
Loosening his grip in time for Gireth to attack Aeyis, Renton dragged his eyes up to Tenah. His heart stuttered at the sight of her cracked, charred arms and mutilated wings.
“What have you done, angel?” Renton murmured.
Kherathi dismounted, though he didn’t seem inclined to hand his daughter off. His eyes shone a dark rust color, not the endless wells of black Renton had come to know.
