CHAPTER 12

SLADE

Argo's wing covering keeps out the cold and the bleak daylight. When I wake and start to shift with an uncomfortable groan, I earn a growl from him. My legs have gone numb from the weight of his head, my neck is stiff, and my stomach is aching with emptiness, but I think sleep did me some good.

It did Argo some good too, because after his initial grumpiness wears off, he wakes up like a fucking toddler ready to rampage, gripping my arm between his razor sharp teeth.

Arching a brow, I look at him. If he adds any more pressure, his fangs will pierce right through my sleeves. "I know you're hungry, but I probably taste like rot. I wouldn't risk it."

He scrapes his teeth like he's testing me, but then releases my arm. I roll my shoulder as I wipe off his slobber. "You're feeling better."

He lowers his wing and I look out from our enclosure and take in the overcast sky. Without being able to see the sun, I'm not sure what time it is. Argo stretches up, body lifting off mine, making the blood rush back into my legs that fill with pins and needles as I stand back up.

I grab the lone strap that's still hanging off Argo's body, the leather pulled and strained where it's hanging loosely from his side. I quickly unbuckle my pack and rifle through it, relief flowing through me when I realize that everything is still intact. The saddle is a loss, but I'm lucky my pack didn't get ripped off too.

I pull out my waterskin, a double portion of food rations, clean clothes, and then re-buckle the pack. "Go get yourself some breakfast," I tell him, chin jutting up.

He doesn't need to be told twice. He bounds away, snout in the snow as he attempts to scent out some prey, though I'm not sure how easy it'll be to come by.

I quickly tear into my own rations, realizing as I'm eating how fucking hungry I am. The dried and salted meal doesn't exactly hit the spot, but it's filling enough to quiet my empty gut. Although I don't relish it, I quickly strip out of my dirty clothes—filthy with dried mud from the bog.

I'm freezing my balls off by the time I've washed myself down with snow and yanked on fresh clothes. While I finish taking a piss, Argo comes up behind me and drops a dead snow hare at my feet.

I look over my shoulder at him as I lace my pants back up. "Thanks for the offer, but you go ahead."

Argo seems to lift his wings in a shrug before he starts to devour it. Washing my hands in the snow, I turn around as he swallows the rest of it down.

With a shake of my head, I fill my waterskin and then straighten back up. "You good?"

He licks his bloodied chops in obvious satisfaction.

I smirk at him just as a lick of wind starts dragging in, and I frown and turn toward it. There's something sharp in the air.

Smoke.

"You smell that?" I say to Argo, but he's shoving his maw into the snow, digging it up and swallowing the flakes.

Scenting the air again, there's no denying it, that is what I'm smelling. "We need to go up and see exactly where we are," I say. "We must be close to Ranhold."

Hopefully, it's not burning.

I swing up and over his back, using the strap holding my pack to wrap around my waist, somewhat securing me in place. When my hands are gripping the feathers on the back of his neck, Argo leaps up. The second he gets the air beneath him, he travels up and out of the trees.

Clouds and smoke hang low, like bushy eyebrows pulled down tight to obscure the eyes. Yet even with the clouds acting like low-hanging fruit ready to drop, there are gaps where they thin out, offering a veiled view.

"Try to get us out of this," I shout out.

Argo cuts through the clouds, flying much stronger than the night before, his energy obviously renewed. He juts up and then weaves down again when he finds a break in the air, and I blink through the haze until the landscape opens up below.

My stomach fucking drops.

" What the fuck ?"

This isn't Ranhold. This isn't the space between Fourth and Fifth. We're past that—further than the fucking Barrens. Because below us in the icy landscape, something unmistakably gleams despite the stricken gray of the daylight.

Highbell Castle. Right there, pinned to the side of the snowy mountain.

We're not in Fifth Kingdom. We're in Sixth .

But that's not what has ice filling my veins. It's the fae army flooding the land below.

There are thousands of them.

Lu said when she was fleeing, the army that sacked Highbell kept traveling straight through, marching toward Ranhold. But that had to have been days ago now, so either they stopped just outside Highbell…or this army has been continuously flooding in with even more soldiers.

The thought grips me by the throat.

Nudging Argo with my knee, I direct him to circle, flying back in the other direction, trying to take in the full scope of their numbers and see how far they stretch.

My mind whirls, still trying to get a grip on the fact that I'm all the way in Highbell. Why wouldn't Argo have turned around and taken me back to Fourth when I passed out? Or to Ranhold to meet up with Lu and Judd? Why the hell would he take me—

It dawns on me. What I said, right before my p?yur bond solidified—when I thought I was about to die.

Just fucking get to her…

Argo was taking me to Auren . To the bridge.

But by doing so, he's bypassed Ranhold completely. I have no way of truly knowing how long I was unconscious or how many days have passed. If I'm all the way in Sixth, everyone else will have definitely arrived at Ranhold by now.

Even if I flew all the way back, I'd be too late to warn them. And Argo can't travel to Fifth Kingdom and then turn around, cross into Sixth again, and fly all the way to the end of Seventh.

I'm out of time and with too much distance, so I have to choose. Orea or Auren.

And that's no choice at all.

I can't turn back.

I'm trounced with warring emotions that batter me. Fear for Ranhold and Orea, a bone-deep worry about what Auren might be facing in Annwyn. If they're invading here, I can't even imagine what dangers she might be facing.

I wish I could slice through the air and instantly make a rip that would take me to her, but I can't. So I need to get to her as fast as I can without it.

go go go go

Swinging Argo back around, my gaze pins to the distance. Fires glow in Highbell City, but not the usual flames you see lighting up a city. This is the destructive inferno of a place razed and burnt by an invasion of war. Except most of the city is long past charred.

Now, the flames have caught onto the gigantic trees that border the city. Smoke churns from the Pitching Pines, blowing up in thick streams. I should've realized that's where we'd slept, but I was too fucking spent to make the connection.

No wonder I smelled smoke. Hundreds of trees, maybe even thousands, are already burning, the curtain of flames pulling further out to the forest.

My attention turns from the giant trees to the traveling army, whose dark stream cuts across the snow like a bleeding gash, disappearing into the distance toward Fifth Kingdom. This number of fae soldiers will devastate this world.

My jaw locks, anger making my muscles bunch as determination solidifies through me.

I can't turn back, but I can still help Orea.

Because I can stop this army in their fucking tracks. I will wreak wrath and wield death.

I'll unleash a fucking dragon.