Page 109 of Gift from the Wing

When we step out, he whips around with a snarl on his lips until he realizes it’s me, then his face crumbles. Just as I try to step back into the darkness, he wraps me up in his arms.

“You saved her,” he whispers.

“Not yet, I haven’t. Help Jamie,” I say quietly, then push myself away from him.

I shove the emotions clogging my throat as far down as I possibly can. If I think too much about how she’s lying on that stone, almost too hot to touch, unresponsive, and fading fast, I’ll break into a million pieces. Even my men won’t be able to fix me completely again.

Finding Ry and San together on the farthest side from where Oakly is, I nearly throw myself at my gentle giant when I see him with them, tearing down men left and right. He stands so strong, and I call on this part of him to build me back up in this moment.

Walking up behind him, I lay my hand on top of his outstretched one. He doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even have to look down to know it’s me. I feel him open himself up, welcoming my element into him, and I command them to merge.

Wrapping vines around the waist of the E.F. members in the thick of this mosh pit, he snatches them back to us, and quicker than the Mastery members can figure out what’s happening, he opens the stone platform. As the thirty or so men fall to their deaths, he closes it back up.

“Jamie needs Ry and San. I’ll be back,” I tell him when he turns to me, but he shakes his head.

“Stay with Oakly. We’ll have this cleared in a few minutes and we’ll meet you over there. Roye, Dyce, and Keeper have teams with them searching the other halls. Palace teams are moving hostages out.”

“If you need me—”

“I will, little warrior.”

With a quick kiss to my forehead and a nod to Ry and San, I whisk us back through the shadows to join Jamie, Nikoli, and Oakly.

The sight is not what I wanted to see.

She’s still completely unconscious, skin red, and Jamie’s beginning to sway.

“I need Draken,” he commands.

“Jamie needs you. Where are you?”I ask, panicked.

“Be there in one minute, little wanderer.”

I know the one-minute time will prove to be true because the ground beneath my feet shakes with his roar and I know he’ll be soaring through this volcano to get to me.

“He’s coming. We should go ahead and move her to the healing wing when he gets here,” I say frantically as Jamie begs Oakly to take what he’s giving her.

“If we could, I already would have. Until they have these halls cleared, we can’t get out with her like this. We can’t transport out of here. This fucking volcano, this fucking weird magic, these fucking people,” he bellows.

His brothers move in closer to him, while never taking their hands off Oakly as well and the rising tide of my anger swells once again. Not at him or his yelling. I take no offense whatsoever to it because I’m not feeling much better. The biggest difference is where Jamie might yell because he’s angry, I may kill someone.

I stop my pacing as the beating of wings draws my attention and Draken, in the smallest dragon form I’ve seen him in, comes racing toward us.

“Little wanderer,” he says, swooping me up the second he shifts back feet from us.

“It’s bad, dragon,” I croak.

“Don’t say that. He’ll heal her up and she’ll be okay. I’ll power him up until he’s about to combust from all the magic,” he purrs softly, cupping both of my cheeks.

All I can do is nod, and he accepts that for now.

I resume my fretful pacing as I watch the number of Mastery members continue to dwindle down. I don’t have to hunt for Tillman when I want to find him. Other than towering over everyone, the E.F. members naturally gravitate toward him. Corentin, on the other hand, I’ve had to keep my eyes peeled for. One second there’re five of him fighting, the next, I can’t find him anywhere.

Caspian’s the only one I haven’t been able to see, and I grow more and more panicked as I watch Corentin approach Tillman and pull him into his light. I feel it in my chest that they’re heading toward me, but my ghost is nowhere in sight.

“Cas, where are you?”

“Be there in just a moment, Primary.”

---