29. Marius

Tahlia’s head thumped against the muddy earth. Her body shook violently on impact. Panic ripped Marius’s chest and his stomach churned. He climbed onto Ragewing’s back, then helped Fara up and settled her in the saddle. Pale as a fading dragon lavender bloom, she didn’t say a word. Ragewing would have to carry Lija and Tahlia too.

“Will you struggle to transport so many?” Marius asked Ragewing.

Stop fretting about me,Ragewing said into his mind.

I will not,Marius said. You will be carrying us all. It’s far too heavy a burden.

We will rest along the way. I can do this, rider.

Marius prayed Ragewing wouldn’t end up exhausted into death after this chase.

“Lift your arms, squire,” Marius said quietly to Fara.

She obeyed, her movements sluggish. He ran his whip around both their waists so there was less of a chance Fara would fall during this difficult journey.

Marius’s gaze strayed once more to Tahlia. Her eyelids were nearly purple and her mouth was slack.

Ophelia’s curse had invaded her body. He’d known it the second she touched him because a cold unlike anything winter could dole out had nearly knocked him backward. It would kill her. Her death wouldn’t be from plague as he or Fara would suffer if Katk got his hands on them, but the curse’s own dark end. How long would she last? What could they do to save her?

Why did you do it, Tahlia?

He swallowed hard and tapped Ragewing’s scales. The dragon lifted into the air.

Marius’s mind twisted around her sacrifice, trying to comprehend why she had given herself for him. Didn’t she grasp the fact that his life was a husk without her in it? She’d barged into his world and turned everything beautifully upside down.

With one of his taloned feet, Ragewing took gentle hold of Tahlia, then he gathered Lija around the middle. His wings beating an erratic rhythm and his scales heating under the press of Marius’s hand, Ragewing launched into the sky.

The ground below showed evidence of Katk’s flight. Some of the scant trees in the area had been crushed into the moss and mud. Footprints the size of Lija created a trail leading out of the Kingdom of Spirits and well into the farmlands of the Realm proper. A barn lay half-smashed and a crowd of folk ran down the king’s road to the south.

And there was Katk in the distance, climbing along a foothill. He splashed down into a lake and waded through. Water rolled up and over the lake’s edge to flood an inn that sat along the road.

Ragewing increased his speed, his sides heaving with the effort.

Marius gritted his teeth.

Damn you, Ophelia.

After they cleared the first of the true peaks, Marius tapped Ragewing, asking him to land and rest.

The dragon relented, the fatigue obvious in the way he panted and the labored movements of his wings. His head hung low as he circled a small clearing near one of Katk’s footprints. Ragewing eased Lija and Tahlia to the ground first, then landed.

Marius untied Fara with a careful, quick movement, not wanting to startle her. She had started to shiver with shock. He dug in one of his bags and found an extra cloak. Pulling it around her, he spoke softly, trying to ease her heart with meaningless words of comfort.

“All will be well.” The words tasted like something very close to a lie—so bitter that it puckered his tongue. Not even his deep mind believed they would come out of this without experiencing great loss.

He helped her from Ragewing’s back. It was miraculous that both Lija and Ragewing had deigned to allow Fara to fly with them. Perhaps the fact that squires could not ride bonded dragons was out of date and the dragons had evolved in a way the order hadn’t anticipated. Thinking about less serious topics such as that kept Marius from losing his mind. His fear for Tahlia was the air he breathed, choking him to near senselessness.

She is strong,Ragewing said.

There is no solution. Ophelia was clear about that. As was Trevain.

As though Marius had summoned him with his silent words to Ragewing, the ghost appeared over Tahlia’s inert body. His golden glow illuminated the hollows of her cheeks. She already appeared thinner.

Marius sat Fara on a fallen tree and tucked the cloak tightly around her.

“Can he help her?” Fara asked, her voice raw and rough.

Marius looked in the direction she gazed. She meant Trevain. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to him.”

“Tahlia really likes him. Be nice.”

“I’ve been nice. I just don’t trust him because he has no reason to be helping us. Also, I thought he would be trapped in the Kingdom of Spirits. I wonder why he is here and how he managed it.”

“Have you ever noticed how much his eyes look like hers?” Fara asked, tilting her head.

Marius left Fara and knelt near Tahlia. Trevain floated beside him. He did have a similar set to his eyes.

“Trevain, can you help her? You know what happened, don’t you?”

“I do. I will do what I can to keep her in the realm of the living. I will push her spirit, nudge her, so to speak, with my soul.”

“Why?”

“She is my descendant.”

Marius’s mouth fell open. “Did you always know?”

Trevain shook his head, his horns glittering slightly within their own ghostly light. “I had begun to guess, but… I returned to the realm between worlds and saw the truth there. Mother Twilight guided me. Her mother came from my line.”

So that was why Mother Twilight had met with them. Tahlia was one of her own.

“Before you knew that,” Marius said, “you were helping us because…”

“Because you aren’t evil. The varjuline are. Katk is. It had been ages since I’d seen anyone not of evil spirit in our lands. Aside from a few others like me, of course. Also, I was dreadfully bored.”

Marius huffed, tilted his head, and nodded. “Well, I’ll take any help you can give. I don’t see how my dragon will manage to get us back to the order’s castle before Katk arrives there and kills them all.”

Trevain leaned close to Tahlia’s face, his gaze touching her forehead, her throat. He pressed his hand to his chest and then to Tahlia’s. Light blinked brightly around his ghostly fingertips. “Oh, you won’t be alone. The goddess’s belt has called Tahlia’s own to her. Look now,” he said, still eyeing Tahlia.

Marius turned to see a thunder of dragons cresting the next peak, their wings dark slashes against the lightening sky.