Page 115 of The Horde King of Shadow

Zaridan was below, patrolling the pass to watch for me, an exercise Sarkin had told me they’d done endlessly.

The tethers tightened in my grip.

Lygath drew closer and closer. I stepped up to the ledge to draw his attention. Those golden eyes flashed in the sunlight, and then his speed increased, a mighty gust of his wings preceding the burst, and a roar unleashed from him. It boomed along the cliffs, echoing deep and long. It raised the hairs on my arms, nearly making me shudder.

The call of a Vyrin.

Now everyone will know you’re here, you proud thing,I thought, grinning.

I backed up as much as the ledge would allow. I gazed at the spot where I would meet Lygath, ignoring the rising sounds of alarm from the Sarrothian horde that echoed in the pass.

Closer…

Closer…

Closer.

“Now.”

I sprinted along the ledge, the tethers tight in my grip.

I swore I could see my reflection in Lygath’s golden eye, flying as close as he did to the cliff.

I jumped.

Chapter 40

SARKIN

“Where is she?” I growled to Feranos, stalking toward the cliff’s edge, the horde parting for me until I reached my wing commander.

“She’s at the pass,” he said quietly. “Sarkin…Lygath is there too.”

Fear spread like ice in my veins. I’d known something was wrong the moment I’d woken to find Klara gone.

“And Zaridan?” I asked, wrapping my hand around my bare wrist. I didn’t remember the last time I’d been without my cuff.

“She’s down there,” Feranos told me, pointing to the lower pass. We couldn’t see her from this angle, but I knew that my Elthika would be watching Klara. “Theilla’roshis over. What is shedoing?”

My teeth snapped together. “Claiming her Elthika.”

Feranos’s expression looked grim when he met my gaze.

“Call Vorna,” I ordered him, watching his fingers immediately flash to his cuff. “I need him. I need to get to her and?—”

“Lygath! He’s there!” I heard the cry from a horde member. My head whipped to the Tharken cliffs, and I saw hisshimmering scales in the morning sun. In the far distance, I watched him glide through the pass.

“Where is she exactly?” I asked Feranos when he stepped up beside me.

He pointed his finger toward the top of one of the cliffs, very close to where she’d been situated during theilla’rosh. “There.”

Klara’s form was just discernible from this distance.

And Lygath would reach her in mere moments.

“I’ll never make it to her in time,” I rasped, my heart thudding in my chest in realization. The only thing that wasn’t making me lose my mind with fear and worry was that Zari was down in the pass. She would catch her if Klara fell. But what if something went wrong? What if Lygath attacked her this time instead of allowing her a death fall?

The only thing predictable about Lygath was his unpredictability.

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