than once, he screamed aloud as he settled himself into the talon’s saddle.
“Get me to the main gate and keep,” he told her, pulling at her one remaining rein until her head turned in the correct direction. “There’s something I have to do.”
Tek gave a frightened trumpet, but she stomped forward, pushing through Mab soldiers, brushing past gryphons and Guardsmen, and dodging blasts of fire from the sky.
Nic’s thoughts swam back and forth, but he saw little, and made sense of even less. His mind showed him his path, Eyrie’s path, and all he could do was follow it.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
ARON
Fire strafed the ground near the moat, setting the water to boil and cooking corpses and mocker-fish alike.
Aron and Canus the Bandit both leaped away from the destruction, but Aron never took his eyes from his quarry.
With one hand, Aron dragged Stormbreaker away from the water’s edge, enough to be certain the remaining water-bound mockers wouldn’t kill him. His graal was nowhere near strong enough to reach out to Dari, and he didn’t think he could have much impact on the battle at hand.
Flashes of silver at the far edges of the woods caught Aron’s attention, and a glistening wave of energy rippled out from the trees. It took Aron a moment to understand that the wave was actually made of people, tall and light-skinned and unarmed, dressed in simple cloth instead of armor. Led by Rakel Seadaughter, the citizens of Dyn Vagrat—nearly all of them, it looked like—flowed onto the battlefield and spread out amongst the fallen, reaching to minister to wounds and suffering.
Almost at the same moment, Canus the Bandit lowered his blades. When his attention shifted to the rise on the side of the valley behind Aron, Aron figured it for a ruse.
Then he heard the shouts from the battlefield, and the change in the cries of the dragons.
Turning himself so he could see both Canus and the rise, Aron noticed what looked like a hundred golden-skinned, leather-clad people standing along the hilltop that had given him his first view of Triune, and his full understanding of the destruction the castle now faced. His senses sharpened, and his graal told him that none of these people were armed.
His instincts led him to focus more closely on one man, who stood slightly forward. Aron let his awareness slide through the Veil, and his enhanced sight showed him a familiar leather tunic, stitched with the ruby image of a dragon in flight.
The man seemed to sense Aron’s presence, and he nodded as if in greeting.
It is, in part, for you that we are here, Aron Weylyn.
The voice was so quiet that Aron wasn’t positive he heard it, but the light in the man’s eyes made him more certain. You, and your friend Nic. If Fae like you have returned to this land, perhaps we shall find our place amongst you.
Dari and Kate let off a fresh round of screams, sounds that dug so deeply into Aron he couldn’t answer the man. He could barely keep his senses as Dari’s cousin Platt raised his hand, and his host of Stregan warriors charged down the hill, forms shifting with each step they took.
“Brother save us,” said someone, maybe even Canus the Bandit. “They’re Stregans, too. They’ve come to protect their own.”
A talon ran past Aron, and at the same moment, a battering ram once more struck the gates of Triune.
“Tek?” Aron called, but the talon didn’t slow. Her rider was wreathed in a red so ruby-rich and deep Aron knew it had to be Nic, but that made no sense to him.
With a great cracking groan, the beleaguered wood finally gave way, just in time to admit Tek and Nic, and a host of Altar warbirds behind them.
As the skies of Eyrie exploded with fire-breathing dragons, Canus the Bandit fled past Aron toward the ruined gates, as if he were chasing after Nic and Tek, or maybe the Altar soldiers.
It took Aron a moment to react, but he started running, too.
To reach Tek and Nic.
To pursue the Bandit.
To escape the fire raining down on the battlefield—he really didn’t know.
Aron just ran, brandishing his short sword before him.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
DARI
Dari came back to herself on the ground, with her cousin Platt beside her, holding her hand and guiding her quickly through her transition.
Kate had landed with them, and was also fast returning to her human form.
Dari gave a cry at how thin her twin was, and how fragile she seemed, then she let go