4. Elianna

Chapter four

Elianna

I reveled in the winds as they rushed around my face, whipping my hair around as we soared through the sunlit sky. The four of us kept our eyes peeled for the retreating army, but it appeared they had already marched farther back than we anticipated.

“Do you think they already made it back to their camp?” Zaela shouted over the loudness of the breeze.

I contemplated momentarily as my eyes continued to observe the ground below. “I would be shocked unless they had arrived on horseback and hid them beyond the battlefield.”

“I did notice some horses in the distance when we shot that bastard down. It’s definitely possible,” Gage chimed in as he held his arms out at his sides, just as I had done once I was finally comfortable flying.

I turned to Jace, and he shrugged a shoulder. “Regardless, we will catch up to them. If they made it back to a camp, we will just light up their whole fucking army.”

I gave a wicked grin in response to him. “Agreed,” I breathed .

A sudden growl rumbled beneath us and up through the saddle as Nox’s gaze looked to a dark mass a few miles ahead of us.

My spine instantly straightened, and I crawled halfway up his neck to get a better look.

My eyes squinted from the blinding sun as I noticed the village.

“Nox, that’s just Celan Village, it’s not—” I cut myself off as my eyes focused in on the giant, moving mass. “Holy shit, it's their camp,” I breathed as I whipped around and leapt back down onto the front of the saddle to face them.

“They really made camp there?” Jace asked through a grumble of annoyance.

“It’s a little poetic, don’t you think? He destroyed the village, and now we get to destroy him in that very spot,” I taunted him.

The tiniest smile graced his face. “Well, when you put it that way…”

I blew out a breath. “Are you ready? Things are about to get heated. Literally,” I said as I looked at them through furrowed brows.

Gage was the only one who laughed.

I carefully reached over and unslung my bow from my shoulder, ensuring it was within easy reach. My opposite hand gripped the saddle tightly as my gaze fixated on the camp awaiting our arrival.

Every second in the air brought us closer to my revenge. Every breath my lungs took hitched at the thought of obtaining a sliver of my desired vengeance, and what it would feel like to finally bring their deserved karma to them—and that karma was me .

Jace’s chest pressed against my back as he gently kissed the side of my neck. “Give them hellfire, my Lia,” he whispered into my ear, sending a shiver through me.

My grin was infinite as I lifted my bow high and roared a battle cry. It echoed through the clouds we soared through, signaling Nox into a nose-dive directly toward the enemy war camp built on our own terrain.

Our bodies were at the mercy of the relentless winds, forcing us to grip the saddle tightly. The closer we dove to the camp, the clearer our view of what we would be dealing with became.

Their soldiers had already formed the lines that I had drilled into their brains so gods-damn well in another life. A life where I blindly led them to slaughter thousands of innocents. A life that would forever stain my soul and haunt my nightmares for the remainder of my existence. I couldn’t change the past, but I would do everything I could now to make it right for a better future—a better and safer realm.

We were barreling straight toward them, and none of the soldiers abandoned their posts.

Out of nowhere, an arrow whizzed by my face.

“Fuck! Lia, look out!” Jace shouted from behind me as I ducked down from another one.

The sudden onslaught of arrows seemed to come from every angle—launched into the air from the back of the lines, raining down on us.

Ignystae was on the tip of my tongue as I prepared myself to give the order .

Straightening my body, I peered down below to see how close we were, and my eyes flared. “Nox, pull left!” I shouted as I forcefully flattened my hand on the left side of his neck. He turned just in time before we would’ve crash landed directly into the army.

Shouts rang out from the ground, and arrows continued to fly at us from all sides as we circled the masses below.

They didn’t deserve to be immediately incinerated—that would be a mercy.

They deserved so much worse.

Jace placed his hand on my shoulder behind me, a reminder that he was there, as we soared over the army in taunting circles.

My eyes then locked on the camp itself instead of those before us. I realized that if they had nowhere to flee back to or supplies to replenish their empty sheaths, they were sitting ducks.

I sucked in a sharp breath—it was now or never. My knuckles turned a ghostly white as my grip on the saddle tightened. The word worked its way up my tongue, sizzling my veins like lightning in anticipation.

My nostrils flared as the veins in my neck pulsated, and I screamed, “ IGNYSTAE !” My voice was unrecognizable as it bellowed the word into the open air.

A blast of scorching heat erupted as Nox shot an enormous wall of fire down onto the camp, answering my command with its fiery force.

The tents and those who had remained inside them were immediately engulfed in flames. They screamed in agony and terror as they desperately tried to put out the blaze .

“Holy gods!” Gage shouted from behind me. “Hell fucking yes, Lia.”

“Mother of the gods,” Jace breathed.

“It worked.” Zaela’s words were barely audible.

My lips twisted into a wicked, menacing smile. It had worked. Veli was right—Nox understood the tongue of the gods. A growl of anticipation rumbled beneath us as if the wyvern realized this himself.

“Lia, have Nox eliminate the army before he’s out of his flames!” Jace reminded me.

Right. One more fireball at their remaining supplies couldn’t hurt, though.

My command rang out once more into the smoke-filled air as my fingers started to ache from gripping the saddle so tightly.

Nox circled and sent another blast of flames down at their supply wagons, which immediately turned to ash.

“YES!” Zaela roared behind me.

“Everyone, hold on!” I screamed as Nox turned quickly to the right and soared above the soldiers below.

My wyvern came to a halt before the army. He beat his wings in perfect unison, the powerful downbeat of them keeping us aloft, hoovering above the soldiers. They continued to shoot their arrows up at him, but they just bounced off his armor of scales.

Nox released a blaze of relentless flame down at the forces who refused to yield to us and his inferno.

Screams of agony and fear rang out between the roar of the flames as he lit up the entire army .

I hoisted myself up and steadied my balance on Nox's shoulder while gripping his neck for support. I felt Jace’s body tense behind me as my eyes searched the burning terrain below. Disappointment nearly suffocated me when I couldn’t find Kellan among the troops in the flames. I searched every bellowing, terror-filled face. None of them were him.

Thick tendrils of black smoke wafted into the air around us and almost completely blocked out the midday sun.

“Where the fuck is he?!” I screamed right before my jaw ticked.

“Lia, I—” Jace’s sentence was cut off by a sharp hiss as an excruciating sting radiated through my own arm.

I whipped around, jaw agape, and beheld my mate as he clutched his arm that an arrow had skimmed through, leaving a gash open in his flesh.

The arrow had cut through his armor. Jace hissed again as his eyes found mine. Blood dripped down the metal.

I was at his side in an instant and pressed my finger to it. My fingertip instantly sizzled from the contact, the skin bubbling as if it were burned.

The arrow’s head had been dipped in wyvern's blood.

My eyes flew up and met his once more, but I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t comprehend a single thought as my vision darkened completely and enclosed around me, draping me as if it were crafted from Veli’s shadows.

“Jace! Are you okay?!” Zaela roared as she joined Gage in unleashing their arrows down into the burning army.

“I’m fine,” he lied, as my arm burned from his pain. Jace reached his hand out, cupping my cheek as he attempted to bring me back to reality. “Lia,” he breathed. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“No,” I whispered as my eyes rapidly darted back and forth between his own, but they were unseeing in my rage.

My body pivoted to look below once more, and my eyes finally locked on the source of the blood-dipped arrows.

Kellan stood atop a burning wagon as he reached into his pocket and dumped a blood-filled vial onto another set of arrows as he took aim at us.

“Nox!” I screamed as my stare bore into Kellan’s. I watched the tip of his lips twist into a smirk as he released the arrow aimed at us. “ IGNYSTAE! ” I roared, my voice unrecognizable.

My friends yelped, holding onto anything they could as Nox took off at terrifying speeds. We barreled through the smoke-infused air and toward Kellan, a cascading wall of flames erupting from Nox’s gaping jaw.

I nocked my arrow into place and released it as we rapidly approached him. Kellan leapt from the wagon, barely escaping my arrow by tucking and rolling, and then took off in a run into the line of tents that were up in flames.

Nox hooked a sharp right turn and swooped down after him once more. We raced through the line of burning tents, so low to the ground that any soldier unfortunate enough to stumble into our path was instantly splattered against Nox’s chest.

The screams were slowly dying down as the fire absorbed everything in its path. Tents, wagons, and supplies had been reduced to ash. The soldiers were no longer concerned about fighting us and focused all their attention on surviving the attack.

They wouldn’t. I would make sure of it.

The time it took to catch up to Kellan felt as if it were hours when it had been mere seconds. Time slowed as I raised my hand and screamed my command into the burning sky.

Nox unleashed the last of his flames directly at Kellan’s back. My sweat-slicked face contorted into a sinister grin, eagerly anticipating the sight of Kellan's body engulfed in the flames—only it never came.

Kellan pivoted to the right and dove out of the way, only half a second before he would’ve been consumed by the inferno.

My eyes flared with fury as I watched him strain to push to his feet before taking off once more between the burning tents. Nox struggled to turn at such speeds and had to move to circle back.

“ Fuck. This, ” I seethed, my teeth clenched so tightly that I thought they would shatter.

I spun around in the saddle, grabbed Jace by the chest plate of his armor, and pressed my lips to his. “I love you,” I said on his mouth.

“Elianna, don’t you fucking dare!” he roared at me, but it was too late.

I jumped up onto my feet, glanced down to the ground fifteen feet below us, and leapt from Nox’s back.

I tucked my knees tightly to my chest and rolled once I hit the terrain. My body refused to waste even a single second as I sprang to my feet and took off running after my former lover.

The echoes of my mate’s shouts of panic were lost in the roaring flames surrounding me.