Page 109 of Forging Darkness

Steel seems distracted. He scans the arena floor, but manages a quick “Yeah, I’m good,” before taking off. A few yards away, he drops to one knee, turning a body over in the sand.

The once-white shift Silver wore is now stained with black blood and sand. The gold-leafed crown has slipped to the side and is tangled in her matted hair. One side of her skirt is burned away, and the skin on that leg is scorched and blistered, as is half of her face.

I don’t even remember doing that.

“Is she . . .”

“No. She’s too stubborn to die.”

I saw my teeth back and forth over my bottom lip as I consider the situation. “Should we take her with us?”

Steel’s chest expands as he sucks in a breath. “We can’t. We need to move fast, and I can’t do that if I’m carrying her. If she wakes up, she’ll be doubly difficult to manage.” It’s clear he’s already thought this through. “I have to leave her.” But even as he says it, it’s clear that isn’t what he wants to do.

“Are you going to . . . end her then?” Since Silver appeared several months ago, that’s been the single focus of Steel’s existence—to kill her.

Using his thumb and index finger, Steel picks up a clump of her hair and moves it off her face. Passed out, Silver doesn’t seem quite as frightening. Her skin is still pale enough to see the snaking black veins beneath the surface. But with her eyes closed and pointed fangs not peeking through her lips, she looks a bit like a sleeping princess with her delicate features.

“No, I’m not going to kill her.” With one more sweep of his gaze, Steel stands.

I nod, but lift my eyebrows in question.

His hand rubs his forehead. “If you can bring me back, there might be some hope for her someday.”

That’s a lot of pressure. “I’m just as likely to burn her to ash as restore her.”

“Worth a try, though. That is, if she ever appears again.” Steel cracks his neck and turns his back on his sister. When he wraps his hand around my own, a small flock of butterflies flutters in my stomach. “Let’s go. We’ll fly south. It may be a while, but we’re bound to reach something eventually.”

The urge to flee is growing exponentially, killing the butterflies mid-flight. But we can’t go just yet.

“We have to take the orb with us.” I use my chin to point upward at the star-like orb sitting on the tallest point of Thorne’s tower.

“It’s what keeps us from phasing. They’re using it to bring humans into the spirit realm.”

Steel’s face hardens, reading between the lines of what I’m saying. This orb should not be in their hands.

“I’ll get it. Stay behind me and we’ll leave from there. Try to weave a bit when you fly in case they decide to shoot at us from below. It’ll make you harder to hit.” In a bright flash, he transforms into an eagle.

I take a deep breath and launch into the air, staying close behind him.

It takes hardly any time to reach Thorne’s tower. The orb glows brightly. This close, the silver waves of its energy are visible as ripples in the air.

Steel swoops low. His sharp talons wrap around the stone, and my breath catches. With hardly any effort it comes loose and we’re on our way.

As we soar unchallenged over Whitehold’s wall and into the dark night, I think we might just make it.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Steel

We fly through the darkest part of the night. I keep Emberly in my periphery. She’s struggling. Having never attempted a flight like this, she has to be exhausted. It shreds me. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not even able to talk to her in this form. We don’t have any choice but to press on.

The urge to look over my shoulder or scan the ground for shadows of Fallen or Forsaken never dissipates. My body is a knot of strained muscles. The sun is just peeking over the horizon by the time we stumble upon a ski village. The lights from chair lifts are the first thing we spot. It’s not until we crest the mountain that we see the red, green, and white roofs nestled into the valley below.

I caw to get her attention and bank left, circling back the way we just came. I imagine she’s cursing me in her head right now, but I won’t be able to explain until we land.

I descend onto a rocky plateau, a short distance from a cave I scouted. Setting the orb down in the snow, I shift back into my form in a blast of light. For a single heartbeat I’m nothing before I reform again. Unlike my shift to a bull, my powers reenergize when I’m an eagle.

Emberly lands with the grace of a newborn fowl, her legs shaking then buckling when they take the full brunt of her weight. I react on impulse, my arms shooting out to steady her. Her skin beneath my palms is freezing.

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