Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

M y windrider hadn't been given the magical boost it needed and the pommel vibrated angrily as I directed it over the turrets which lined the outer wall of Echo Fort, forcing me to drop into a gut-lurching dive.

The magical contraption roared then fell terrifyingly silent beneath me, dropping like a stone for the last ten feet. I was reminded forcibly of the time I'd been dumped into the Altian Sea when my last windrider had burned through its power source after I'd been made to take a detour during a scouting assignment around the Zenhyr Peninsula off the coast of Pyros. But I wasn't going to hit water now.

The windrider sped towards the ground, still racing forward thanks to its momentum, and I dug my heels into the dirt, kicking up sand and grit while slowing my movement enough to be able to launch myself free of the magical vehicle.

I rolled across the dirt as the windrider crashed to the ground, flipping over twice and causing a Minotaur to moo indignantly. I bared my teeth at him in reply and he dropped his head in deference, turning to look over the cliff edge. I shoved myself upright and my boots pounded the ground as I ran on.

A blur of slivermade me throw myself down into a crouch, snatching a dagger from my hip which I drove into the dirt to make an anchor about three seconds before the enormous harpoon collided with the island.

Fae screamed as they were knocked free of the cliff by the resulting tremor, that same Minotaur mooing in alarm as he tumbled out of sight. Most of them would catch themselves with air magic before hitting the ground, but any of the Sinfair like me, too young to have been Awakened yet, would be meeting the ground below at one hell of a pace.

When the tremors subsided enough to allow me to regain my feet, I ripped my dagger from the ground and stood once more.

Generals were barking commands, Prince Dragor's army was rallying, units re-forming and preparing for battle, awaiting their orders before diving from the cliffs with air magic launching them through the sky.

I caught sight of General Imona to my left, her sharply cut black hair swinging forward for a moment, thankfully hiding me from her sight. I may have answered directly to the prince, but that didn't mean I wouldn't be forced to follow her commands if she found me here without orders in place from him to override her.

I hunted for the prince between the crowded bodies, shoving people aside and putting my back firmly to Imona.

The ground lurched violently and I grabbed the nearest soldier by the arm, steadying myself and possibly contributing to the fact that she lost her balance and crashed to the dirt, but I had no time to waste on her. My heart had just leapt into my throat, my skin prickling with unease because Ironwraith had started moving again and we were no longer headed south.

The land beneath my feet groaned and quaked as it began to tilt, Fae screaming all around me as those closest warriors to the cliff tried to run back to the fortress.

Between the fleeing bodies, I caught a glimpse of white just before Dragor launched himself into the sky on a column of air.

"Cut those lines!" he bellowed, but as I shoved my way between the packed bodies and took in the three gigantic harpoons which were imbedded in the bedrock of our island, my hope for that plan shattered like falling glass.

The lines which were dragging us towards the ground were thicker than the largest of tree trunks and woven entirely out of glimmering silver metal. We were fighting against the earth warriors of Avanis whose power over the element was as tremendous as our control over the sky. There was no way we would be able to cut through those lines before we were dragged to the ground by them.

The island continued to tip, the roar of the wind turbines which kept us aloft filling the air and blotting out the screams as our Wind Weavers poured every scrap of their magic into the turbines that held us in the sky, trying to rip us free of the tethers.

What had been flat ground was now a hillside, the angle growing steeper by the second and anything which hadn't been bolted down was now tumbling from the cliff edge towards the unforgiving land below.

I looked around, hunting for a windrider to hurl me into the air and finding a Fae readying to launch a skyglider instead. The contraption held no power like a windrider did, the wide sail using the air currents to transport a single Fae through the sky while hanging from the bar beneath it. They were mainly used by the Awakened forces who could use their air magic to manipulate the direction they took while silently spying on our enemies from far above, but they worked with or without the magic.

I ran for the Fae who was readying to launch, calling out to draw his attention and pushing into my Order gifts enough to make him blink stupidly at the sight of me, his mouth falling slack as he stared, his lust rising in the air. I took hold of the desire he felt, ignoring the compliments he blurted as I raced for him and setting my sights on the prize he still held ready to launch.

"You're more beautiful than the rising sun," he gasped, reaching for me.

I shoved him into the dirt, snatching the skyglider from him and throwing myself from the precariously tilting landmass in the same movement.

Ironwraith gave a violent jerk as it was wrenched further east and the soldier whose glider I'd just stolen tumbled away beneath me with a cry.

"Let me touch your haaaaaaaaiiiiir!"

He would probably be fine – he had air magic after all.

An up-current caught beneath the triangular canopy of the glider and I cursed as I was hurled skyward, clinging to the bar beneath the thing and cursing my hot-headedness for not pausing to strap myself in.

Ironwraith retreated beneath me, the sprawling mass of our moving island revealed as I sped higher. It was tilting horribly, the usually flat landscape now at a forty-five degree angle to the ground, our forces launching from it in droves while supplies and equipment tumbled to the earth far below.

I dropped my gaze from the island, taking in our position. We hadn't completed our retreat from Cascada yet – Ironwraith now straddling the gulf of space which created the no-man's land between earth and water, its shadow touching both territories just south of The Crux itself.

The Raincarvers hadn't given up their fight with us, their forces rushing to attack as they saw the advantage of our predicament and moved to make the most of it.

To the east, Avanis, the lands of the earth wielders, spread away from us, those three enormous cables dragging Ironwraith towards them foot by foot, but the rising sun made it almost impossible to see what awaited us on the ground when they brought us down. Because Ironwraith was falling. The truth of that impossible fact hit me like a winter storm as I looked to our warriors who were fruitlessly trying to carve through the cables which were dragging our land from the sky.

I threw my weight to the right, forcing the skyglider to turn and tilting it downwards so I could get closer to the battlefield, the sound of clashing blades and screaming Fae a chorus I knew well. My place was in the depths of the bloodshed, not high above it in the safety of the clouds. But as the glider pitched downward, its canopy shielded my eyes from the blazing sunlight which was cresting the eastern horizon, giving me a clear view of what awaited us in Avanis.

My lips parted as I took in the endless ranks of soldiers thirty miles in the distance, at least twenty thousand of them – a full force, not a skirmishing party like ours. They surrounded three enormous contraptions which secured the harpoons to the ground, slowly cranking them and winding us in.

I called out, looking for a general, colonel, or even better, Prince Dragor, but the updraft had dragged me far above the battlefield and the skyglider was descending too fucking slowly.

We couldn't let them drag us down. If the Stonebreakers forced us to crash near that army, they would overrun us in a matter of hours and Ironwraith would be lost.

I looked around desperately, not bothering to keep calling out as my voice was stolen by the wind. I needed to get down from here and I needed to find the prince.

A hundred feet below me, a squad of six waterborn Pegasuses were flying into battle, charging for the Skyforgers who were battling to dislodge the harpoons.

I yanked a dagger from my belt, reaching out for the Ether that surrounded me and opening up a channel within myself for its dark power. When I was fourteen, I was sent to war for the crime of having been born in a land other than my own. I was given seven years to prove myself worthy of a chance to enter Never Keep and unlock my air magic. I'd been trained to fight since I could hold a sword and had torn my way upwards from the very bottom of the pecking order.

I'd known that my early deployment, just like all Fae born with the weak blood of our enemies was designed to carve us from their ranks. They wanted us to throw our lives away on the battlefield and rid them of the tarnish of our company. But I wasn't the kind to bow to fate. I'd known I would be facing bigger, stronger, well-seasoned warriors on the battlefield and I'd known that I needed every edge I could claim for myself. Which was why I'd offered up a piece of my soul and risked my life to learn how to wield Ether and perform blood magic. The knowledge of the practice was openly available, but the Oracles who taught it only deemed a few worthy of their teachings. I'd proven my worth to my Sage, Moya, and she had given me access to the power I'd needed to survive. The key to it was balance – sacrifice for gain. You only had to be willing to give up whatever it demanded, and I was always willing.

I smeared blood from the cut on my thumb across the blade of my dagger, roughly marking out the rune Teiwaz, in the shape of an upwards pointing arrow for authority, then I picked my mark and hurled the dagger.

The purple Pegasus beneath me whinnied in pain as my blade sank into the joint between its wings, the horse-like creature rearing from its position and beating its wings rapidly as it looked around for its attacker.

I tugged on the Ether, a rush of power hurtling through me as the blood I'd offered up met with the blood of my prey. Within moments, I had hold of him, forcing his body to go rigid, a wild neigh rolling from his throat as he lost control, his wings frozen on either side of him.

I muttered a prayer to Gemini and released my hold on the skyglider. I fell like a stone through the air, my muscles tense, pulse rioting as I forced myself to focus on nothing beyond my target.

The Pegasus was locked in place, his wild panic making the rest of his herd turn for him, and my hands began to shake as the blood magic threatened to cease. I had seconds before I lost him, seconds in which I could force his blood to fall to my command and end his life, but that wasn't my purpose just yet.

I slammed onto the Pegasus's back and rolled, his wild whinnying filling my ears as the sudden addition of my weight almost knocked him from the sky.

I grabbed a handful of purple mane, jamming my boot against his feathered wing and almost dislocating my fucking shoulder as I was nearly thrown free.

The blood magic shattered and he began to beat his wings, bucking and thrashing beneath me as he climbed back towards his herd who had all wheeled in the sky to face me.

I scrambled upright, yanking my dagger from his flesh and sheathing it before drawing my sword.

They were on me before I could fully take the measure of them. I ducked and swung, blood spraying as my blade carved into a powerful neck then ripped along the belly of another who was forced to wheel above us. They fell from the sky and the others flew around to come for me again, the sharpened points of their horns aimed directly for my heart.

Through the clash of colourful bodies, I'd spotted one of our own – a Manticore with the body of a lion and leathery wings like a bat, charging into the fight to assist me.

Roars met with whinnies, the beast I stood on threw himself to the side, my blade cut through flesh and then I was falling again. Bodies tumbled around me, the Pegasus herd dead or dying, screaming to the wind which wouldn't save them, and then the Manticore was racing for me.

I held my sword away from him as he came, diving beneath me then tucking his wings, but just as I was about to land, a bolt of ice speared through the sky and took him in the chest.

My eyes widened in panic as the beast was hurled away from me and the sickening sight of the ground rushing closer became the only thing I could see.

I threw myself into the Ether, hunting for a target, using the blood of my enemies as an anchor but it was happening too fast, the world whipping by and-

Strong arms banded around my waist, jerking me back into the sky and I choked down a breath as I turned in my saviour's grip and found Cayde looking at me with an eyebrow raised.

"Do you always need saving this regularly?" he asked, his powerful wings beating at his back where he remained shifted only partially so that he could make use of them.

"I never needed rescuing before I had the displeasure of meeting you," I snarled, the press of his muscular chest against mine a disconcerting sensation as we soared through the air.

"Are you certain? Because I'm getting the impression that your reputation was exaggerated."

I bit back the retort I wanted to offer him, instead taking in the battlefield once more, my fingers gripping his forearms as if I were going to shove him back, though we both knew I couldn't.

The Skyforgers were making no progress with destroying the harpoons and the Raincarvers were forcing us to engage with them while we needed to be preparing to take on the Stonebreakers waiting for us in the distant field.

"Take me to Prince Dragor," I demanded, hunting for him among the warring Fae and coming up empty while Cayde soared back towards Ironwraith, carrying me above the melee to the relative safety of the flying island once more.

"I have my own orders to follow," Cayde replied dismissively. "Find him yourself."

I opened my mouth to demand his cooperation but he hurled me away from him before I could so much as call him an overbearing ass.

I bit my tongue on the yell which threatened to escape me as I hurtled towards the tilting landscape of Ironwraith, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream at his brutish behaviour.

I hit the dirt before the gates to Echo Fort and rolled to absorb my momentum before regaining my feet once more.

The gates were open before me, Skyforgers racing out in their battle leathers, every one of them armed to the teeth and looking furious, but it wouldn't be enough if the Stonebreakers managed to get us to where that ambush lay in wait.

We were losing altitude, the roar of the wind turbines a ferocious cry that was pitching towards a whine as they were pushed to their limit in their efforts to resist the harpoons.

A flash of white hurtled from the sky and my heart leapt with relief as I found Prince Dragor coming in to land on the battlements above the gates to Echo Fort.

I took off at a sprint, diving into the ranks of Skyforgers, shoving my way through them, using my elbows and fists where necessary. I had to get to him before he engaged the enemy again. I had to tell him what I'd seen.

Figures closed in around the prince as his generals and advisors all clustered to him, no doubt discussing tactics and receiving their orders. I'd seen the same thing play out countless times and I knew I didn't have long. The prince was decisive and ferocious with his battle tactics and he could easily be gone again within minutes.

I made it to the base of the fortress, craning my neck back to look above the enormous wooden gates which led inside. I couldn't see the prince or his advisors anymore but I hadn't seen him take to the skies again either. The route through the fortress and up onto the battlements would take too long to navigate so I sheathed my weapons, took a running jump at the wall and grabbed the closest window ledge.

I began climbing quickly. My training had gone beyond brutish warfare and combat; I had been crafted into a weapon with countless sharpened edges and I could creep through the shadows, scale buildings and execute assassinations just as proficiently as I could halt the blood in my enemies' veins.

Up and up I clambered, using cracks in the mortar as often as the ledges beneath windows to scale the sheer wall. There were four floors between the ground and the battlements above, but I kept my gaze firmly on my destination, not once wasting time on looking down. A drop could only kill me if I was fool enough to fall.

Ironwraith lurched violently as a fourth harpoon collided with it and I cursed my own arrogance for tempting fate as I almost fell from my precarious handhold. The world rattled beneath me and more Fae were flung from the cliffs.

Through some miracle and maybe a favour from the stars, I held on, gritting my teeth as I continued to climb.

I was breathing hard as my fingers clasped the top of the battlement at last and I heaved myself up onto the parapet, ignoring the four swords which swung my way as the advisors surrounding Prince Dragor were startled by my arrival.

I disregarded them entirely, my eyes locked on the prince whose white battle leathers were now stained with vibrant splashes of red, his icy eyes pinning me with violent expectation.

"The Stonebreakers are drawing us into a trap," I panted. "I took a skyglider to a point way above the clouds and on my descent, the canopy blocked the blinding rays of the sun, revealing a host of twenty thousand awaiting our collision with the ground where those harpoons are mounted."

The advisors, now all dressed in their own leathers, burst into speech at once, Tobias and Varnon bellowing to try and outmatch each other's voices while Amoria eyed me sceptically.

"Silence," Prince Dragor hissed, his word enough to have them stopping mid-sentence.

He stalked to my side, gripping the battlement and glaring out into the blinding light of the rising sun. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, and I followed his lead, but the dazzling sunrise made it impossible to confirm my claims.

He turned to me and I raised my chin, meeting that chilling, penetrating stare as he weighed my worth and made his choice.

"Command the Wind Weavers to cease powering the turbines," he barked, pivoting to look to his advisors once more, and I suppressed the grin which itched to fill my lips as General Imona glowered at me furiously. "If those dirt lovers think they can force us into a trap, then they have severely underestimated us. We won't be dragged to the ground at their whim – we shall crash where we are and rip the harpoons from Ironwraith's belly with the force of gravity to aid us. All un-Awakened Sinfair who have not already been deployed, injured parties and any warriors whose power has been depleted in battle are to board a Skimmer and evacuate before we make contact with the ground. Everyone else is to take to the skies – they have five minutes and no more."

"We're directly over the wilds!" Tobias protested and a chill ran through me at the thought of that magical wasteland beneath us and the monstrous creations which roamed it to maintain the borders between the warring nations.

"We are still straddling it," Varnon contradicted. "We will collide not only with the wastelands but will touch down on both Avanis and Cascada."

"Good," growled Dragor, his fist curling with anger at his side. "We will carve off the lump of stone which has been captured in the grasp of the harpoons then replenish what we have lost from our enemies' precious lands in payment for what we will be forced to abandon to the wilds."

"You mean to claim new land?" Amoria questioned, her silver hair the only thing which seemed utterly unmoved by the wind that continued to whip around us. "The king hasn't sanctioned-"

"You answer to me, not my father," Dragor sneered, though to my surprise, Amoria didn't wither beneath the cold contempt in his expression. "And I assure you, the king will not question my choice in the matter when we return to the homeland not only with our target but with new lands claimed against our enemies."

"We'll inform the Wind Weavers," Imona said. "The Crossborn can assist-"

"The Sky Witch will remain with me," Dragor growled and the shiver which rattled down my spine made me uncertain whether I was pleased by his intervention or not. "Prepare the Carvers. Inform the rest."

The advisors left in a rush of air magic, each of them using it to hurtle themselves towards the various sides of the island where the Wind Weavers were working furiously to keep us aloft and battle the pull of the harpoons.

"If this fails then we will likely all die in this place," Dragor said once we were alone, his gaze moving to The Crux and I followed the line of his attention, looking down at the scarred and destroyed hunk of land which marked the only place in all of The Waning Lands where three nations met. The ugly destruction of that blackened, desecrated ground was achingly perfect to me in its ruination. It felt like I was looking at the heart of our continent, the truth of the rot the Endless War had caused. The reality of what we all fought over so eternally – what so many of us gave our lives for in the end.

"I won't die," I replied because it felt like the truth. I wasn't going to let my bones fall to rest in this hellish place, surrounded eternally by hatred and more death. "None of us will," I added as I felt the prince's eyes studying me from far too close for it to be safe. "We have you."

I looked to him as I said it, inhaling sharply as I found him leaning into my personal space, his cold eyes peeling me apart and inspecting me too closely to ever find me worthy. When he looked at me like that, I felt as though he could see the blood running through my veins, the weakness which I had been born with, the truth which no action of mine could ever truly banish.

I swallowed and he tracked the movement, his attention trailing to my mouth then back to my grey eyes once more.

"What loyalty you preach," he said softly, though his words sounded like a bellow as the turbines chose that precise moment to go quiet, the magic falling silent and Ironwraith plummeting from the sky.

Dragor didn't react but I lurched for him, gripping the front of his battle leathers and holding on for dear life as we fell in a rush of motion, Fae screaming in the distance, the wind a tumultuous roar. My pale pink hair whipped around me, my heart remaining in the heavens far above as we fell and fell.

Dragor smiled slowly, stepping close to me and taking hold of my waist between his large hands, bending down to keep his eyes locked with mine.

"You are my creature," he said, his words a demand which I somehow heard above the roaring of the wind and the screaming inside my own skull.

"I am," I swore because he was the one thing which could offer me a true place in this world and if being his weapon, his assassin, his monster meant that I belonged, then I would become whatever he demanded of me.

His magic wrapped around us like the fist of a giant and he launched us from the parapet a moment before Ironwraith collided with the ground.

A wave of dirt and debris exploded in every direction and I could have sworn the Wind Weavers hadn't even slowed our descent at all. Though the fact that Echo Fort and all the other buildings which clustered across the expanse of Ironwraith still stood proved that they must have done so enough to protect the integrity of our land.

Dragor lifted me above it all, the dazzling light of the sun blinding me as I looked out towards the earth lands of Avanis. His grip on me was firm, possessive and unyielding, the hard planes of his body crushed to mine so tightly that I was certain he could feel the pounding of my heart against his.

The Fae of Cascada were screaming, running, crying out in horror as a huge portion of their town was crushed, no doubt wiping out many of their people. More cries drew my attention to the other side of the island where Ironwraith had collided with Avanis, land of the Stonebreakers where a single warrior screamed in a grief so pure that the sound of it pierced my cold heart and made a chill run through my veins.

I looked down at her, somehow seeing her clearly through the cloud of dirt and warring bodies, my eyes locking with hers and the pain of her loss washing through me so vividly that I was certain she had to have some form of psychic ability.

I opened my mouth to point her out to Dragor, uncertain why I had even noticed her between the clashing masses which surrounded us but before I could speak, an arrow streaked through the air and struck her in the throat, silencing her cries.

A burn flared in my chest as I watched her fall, something in me twisting uncomfortably as I wrenched my eyes from her corpse.

"We need fifteen minutes to carve the land struck by the harpoons from the island, sire," Varnon called, shooting towards us through the sky on his own pillar of air magic, his red hair flying back from his face as he moved.

"I want a square mile carved from each nation before we depart," Dragor snarled, a need for vengeance colouring his tone.

"Yes, sire," Varnon agreed, his eyes taking in the way Dragor held me before snapping away just a fast. "But there is a problem – the beasts which roam the deadlands approach Ironwraith from the north and south. Perhaps we should opt for haste instead of-"

"You have your orders," Dragor sneered. "My warriors can handle a few beasts of metal and flesh."

Varnon nodded his understanding, then shot away.

"Come, my Sky Witch," Dragor purred, hurling us through the air towards the destroyed landscape of the no man's land where ranks were forming to face whatever horrors now converged upon our island. "Let me see how prettily you dance among the monsters."