Emberhawk - Jamie Foley Page 0,109

Ryon craned his neck for a glance at Felix’s clawed feet, where Kira’s brother dangled. Ryon gaped as the elaborate muscles of Felix’s wings pumped and carried them toward Jadenvive’s main platform.

Plumes of smoke rose from white flames in several spots around the treetop city—Ryon counted five . . . no, seven. None on the earth, thank the skies. His family should be safe beneath the waterlogged roots.

But orange tongues of fire lapped at roofs and out of windows above ground. Several platforms and rope bridges had collapsed, some dangling by burning fragments. Ryon ducked against the wind as a home caved in on itself and sent the entire wooden layer falling to the forest floor below in a shower of victims and debris.

Creator, spare us.

Screams echoed alongside the roar of the fires. Ryon squinted through the smoke at people streaming toward an elevator as Felix approached. Ryon cursed the city’s architects. Three lifts—only three ways to escape.

The nearest elevator rose much faster than it normally did. People gathered at the dock’s rails in droves, clamoring to embark.

“Drop us off at the elevator!” Ryon yelled, hoping Felix could hear. If the Emberhawk were looking to do as much damage as possible, and if they were half as cunning as he feared, the lifts would need defenses.

A man on the elevator caught his eye. A fifth small rope flapped between the elevator’s four thick cables, attaching somewhere under his dark cloak, while the other stretched to a branch of one of the white-barked trees.

Why does he . . .

The figure held a hand out toward two of the elevator’s four ropes—one on either corner of the square platform. One burst into spontaneous flame and snapped a few seconds later. The elevator groaned and shifted as the severed cord flailed up to its pulley on the platform above. It whipped among the crowd, tossing people aside as if they weighed nothing.

“He’s cutting the cables!” Kira shouted over the wind.

Felix altered his flight path, dipping and swooping under the dock. He dove straight for the elevator as it ascended.

The man thrust both hands out toward the opposite rope. It blackened at the point where his arms directed, then burst into flame. Ryon reached out a hand to the fire, but he was too far away.

Felix tilted to veer within feet of the cable. He opened his maw and let out a chilling breath, and the flames snuffed out. Frost shimmered on the rope’s fraying edges.

Ryon itched for his bow, but to release his grip on Kira would mean plummeting into the nets below. He leaned into the wyvern’s movements, keeping an eye on the cloaked figure. The man crouched, his hood tracking Felix’s flight path.

Felix completed his gravity-defying turn and alighted on the elevator. He must have landed with only one foot and released Lee with the other—Ryon felt a shift in his balance as the platform shuddered beneath them.

The arsonist ducked behind a stack of hay bales, but Felix’s weight caused the elevator to tilt. The man reeled for balance as Ryon released Kira and slid down the black scales.

Felix reared back and sucked in a deep breath. A blinding flash of light erupted from his mouth, and a sound like thunder burst Ryon’s eardrums. He thought he heard Kira scream.

Ryon grabbed his bow and blinked through a green streak across his vision. It might have been in the shape of . . . lightning?

Kira still clung to Felix’s neck. Lee yelled something to coax her off, but all Ryon could hear was a high-pitched whine.

His light-blurred vision revealed a charred corpse behind a hill of flaming hay bales. The man’s safety rope had been seared in two, leaving the opposite end to hang limp from a distant tree branch.

Ryon gagged at the smell. He summoned the Phoera element and willed it against the fire, and it died down to smoldering ash.

“Guard this elevator with your life,” Felix said. At least, that’s what Ryon thought he said as Kira released her grip on the long neck and splattered into Lee’s arms.

“You stay here and guard it,” Ryon yelled back to Felix. “It might be the only escape route!”

A hurricane of wind tousled Ryon’s hair into his eyes as Felix took off and flew into the smoke. Ryon cursed and ran to Kira.

“Are you okay?” Lee asked her as he grabbed her arm. “Please go back to Tekkyn!”

She shook her head and pulled her arm away. “I’m fine.” She drew the d’hakka stinger