CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 62
SLADE
I’ve been flying for days.So many that they’ve bled together with every darkened dusk stitched in the sky.
Argo is fast, but he has to take breaks to sleep and to hunt, and this amount of distance would normally be broken up with either a fresh timberwing at the coast or with plenty of rest between.
I had no such advantage.
We’ve had to deal with storms that dumped water on us, beating wind, and an improvised route. Yet crossing over Weywick Sea was the worst. I made sure to cross the shortest amount of distance over the water, having us stop right at Third Kingdom’s outermost island, but even so, we nearly didn’t make it across.
When Argo landed on the shore of Second Kingdom, he collapsed. I stayed with him at the tiny canal that fed into the sea, and I was damn lucky that he woke up and had the energy to hunt for fish.
But every moment we couldn’t travel was a pressure physically felt. Every second I didn’t move meant I wasn’t catching up to Auren. I knew that Manu probably had changed timberwings at least twice, while I was pushing Argo further than I had any right to.
But I had no choice.
I rushed to leave, which meant I had no supplies other than the clothes on my back, the ribbon in my pocket, and the sword and dagger at my belt. I sold that dagger to a fisherman in exchange for new clothing and some travel rations. It was only once he saw the lines of power creeping down my hands that he paled and ran away, though he was wise enough to keep the dagger.
The oppressive desert heat of Second Kingdom has already made me sweat through my leathers, and Argo takes an entire day and night to recover. He’s fast though. Faster than any timberwing I’ve ever seen. If it weren’t for the break he had to take, I have no doubt that we would’ve caught up to them.
We should’ve caught up to them the night Auren was taken, but the bastards evaded me. They must’ve had more of a head start than I realized. Even though I was trying to have Argo track them, the path he was traveling kept changing, as if they were purposely eluding us and taking weird as fuck routes, which they probably were.
Argo doesn’t have much left in him. His wings are tired. His speed is next to nothing. It’s even worse than that night we raced toward Deadwell, because the punishing heat is sapping what’s left of his strength.
As for me, with the sun beating against me like furious fists, minimal food and water, and only blips of rest here and there, I’m running on pure fucking rage.
Rage, and the unmistakable guilt-laden fear.
Because they took her. They took her, and I wasn’t there. I know she told me she was glad of how things happened in Ranhold, of how she needed to save herself. I know she’s strong. That she can take care of herself, rescue herself.
But I should’ve fucking been there then, and I damn well should be now.
So I will fucking get to her.
Her ribbon practically scorches inside my pocket, a reprimanding reminder for the hurt that already happened to her when I wasn’t there.
I need to be there this time.
I’m getting closer. I should reach Wallmont within the day. Everything hinges on them taking her there. Because if they’ve taken her somewhere else...evaded me once more...
No. I won’t think of that.
We’re maybe just a few hours away from the capital now, and a new surge of hope claims me.
Almost there, Auren.
Kick their asses until I get there, but when I arrive, those fuckers are mine.
At this distance as we race over the dunes, my power writhes and builds, the roots snapping at my skin, ready to sink into this arid land and rot it through. When we pass a smaller city just off the coast, I know we’re getting closer, and it buoys my enthusiasm even more.
That’s when it happens.
Just on the outskirts, when Argo dips below the clouds. If he weren’t so overtaxed, if I’d been more focused, maybe we could’ve dodged it.
But the bolt came from nowhere, just a whistle I hear a split second before it pierces through his wing.
He lets out the most ear-piercing screech I’ve ever heard. His blood blows out in the wind, splattering me with blots of red. Argo pitches sideways, still shrieking, still trying to flap, to fly, but his stubbornness and skill is no match for the iron bolt stuck through the muscles and bones of his wing.
We fall.
I hold onto the straps of the saddle, leaning forward, draping myself over him and giving him all motion to move the way he needs to. There’s no steering his direction, no trying to urge him on. All I can do is brace myself against his back as he plummets. Even through his pain and our violent descent, he still tries to slow our fall, still tries to search out the best possible place to crash-land.
I can say with absolute certainty that the sand dunes look far softer than they really are.
Argo takes the brunt of the fall, tucking in his legs and his one good wing at the last moment, and lurches to the side just as we hit.
Powdery sand explodes around us, and Argo lets out another shrill cry that rolls in my skull, clashing into me just as much as the impact.
I unbuckle myself as fast as I can and slide off his good side, boots sinking into the sand as I hurry around him to get to his injured wing. The bolt is big and heavy—probably set off as soon as we were spotted crossing outside of the city. We’ve fallen far enough away that there’s probably a good mile between us and the city wall, but that’s worse, because all I want to do right now is rot the fucker who did this.
I take in the damage to Argo’s wing, grim realization settling over me as I take it in from all angles without touching. The iron arrow is stuck in the center of his right wing, matting his brindled feathers with blood. The end is far too thick for me to pull out without causing more damage and pain.
The one silver lining is that metal corrodes.
Argo cries, this time a noise more like a whimper, and it fucking guts me to hear him sound like that. The beast is one resilient and tough creature, and to see him broken down into this...
“I got you,” I murmur to him, and his huge brown eye pins to me, as if there’s a blink of understanding at what I’m about to do.
Touching it with as little contact as I can, I slowly spread rot down the metal. It looks like the iron does nothing at first, but then, it slowly begins to weaken. The color turns grimy with rust, pitting appearing along its length. When it begins to flake off in corroded strips and the metal appears ancient, I reach up and snap off the end.
Argo jerks, biting his teeth at me, but I move quickly and yank the rod out, tossing it behind me. He instantly curls his wing toward him and starts licking at the blood, which I take as a good sign that he can move it at all.
He’s panting hard, froth gathered at his maw, and when I move around him to check his legs, he gives me a warning snap again.
“Easy, beast,” I say, though if I’d just been shot with a bolt and took the brunt of a violent crash to the ground, I’d be lashing out at everyone too.
When I press up on his chest and lean down to check the condition of his legs, my stomach drops. His left one is held at an odd angle where it’s tucked beneath his tilted form, and I can tell without even touching it that it’s broken.
“Shit.”
Broken leg and a wounded wing that I don’t know the full extent of. He’s completely debilitated; there’s no possible way that he can move, let alone fly.
I get back to my feet, looking around the barren land, but there’s no shelter from the sun, nowhere for me to keep him hidden or protect him from the elements.
We’re both sitting ducks in a boiling pond.
When Argo lays his puffing face down against the scorching ground, sand blows from around his nostrils and blooms in front of his mouth. He makes a dejected, beaten noise again, and it twists the blade of guilt lodged in my throat.
I tear off the waterskin hanging from my waist and start to drip the liquid against his maw. He instantly opens his mouth, and I pour water in until it’s nearly empty. He licks his lips, looking at me with a steady blink before he slops his abrasive tongue against my hand as if in thanks and then closes his eyes.
Sucking down the last of the water, I sit against Argo’s good side, knees up, eyes pointing toward the direction of Wallmont.
The miles that still stretch between us from here to the capital seemed small just minutes ago. Now, they seem insurmountable.
So close.
Too far.
Argo can’t fly. Can’t walk. He’s going to die out here because of me. I’ll have to walk to the city that shot him down and steal a horse and race across the desert to get to Auren, and it’s going to be too late. I’ve taken too long, and now, without being able to fly...
The moment I leave to head for the city behind me, I’m giving Argo a death sentence. My teeth clench together, my fists too. The choice I have before me is to either leave him here alone to slowly succumb to his injuries and the elements or to rot him where he lies, by the very touch he’s learned to trust. A touch that, right now, lashes with incensed lines that have traveled down the lengths of my hands with volatile twists as it lengthens past my knuckles. The rotting depths of my anger seep into the ground and spread like ferreting veins that stretch out in a hunt to scour the land in punishment before I pull it back.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the reach of my fury crossed all the way to Wallmont. I’m tempted to let it try. Let it swallow the city behind us too, cause every last person to spoil and molder.
Argo’s been my faithful beast for years, and this is the thanks I give him. A desert grave where he’s hurt and hot and vulnerable. My hand comes up to stroke the soft feathers of his neck, and when he lets out a near-silent purr, emotion thickens in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
To him. To her.
So fucking sorry.