Page 49 of The Demon Tide

Bracing myself, I glance down at the darkness of the refugee encampment that’s sprouted up on the border’s western side, the tents donated by Noi’khin sympathetic to the plight of those fleeing east, the refugees newly barred from entering.More people and tents every day.

More people than there are tents.

“There’s a Red Grippe outbreak down there,” Min Lo says to Vothe, her tone low with challenge as we fly toward the mountains. “They need care. Not to be housed in thin tents without enough healers to tend them all. I’m organizing physician and apothecary apprentices. We’re petitioning to be allowed through the border to help them.”

Vothe stays silent, his onyx brow knotted as he takes in the tents far below, the vast encampment lit only by sporadic torchlight.

“Two people were claimed by the Grippe this past week,” Min Lo continues gravely. “A mother and her eight-year-old son.”

As Vothe meets Min Lo’s gaze, I can see the intense conflict igniting in his dark eyes.

I’m starting to realize there are two Vothes—the effortlessly powerful Vothe who charms the whole Wyvernguard and claims it as his own, and the Vothe who thoughtfully listens as Min Lo challenges him. Who refuses to shun the Death Fae and is on good terms with Sylla Vuul.

Who is capable of changing his mind, much as he seems to wrestle against this tendency.

That’s the Vothe I yearn to be with.A shimmer of heat traces through my lines.That’s the Vothe I’d like to grab hold of and send lightning straight through.

Vothe suddenly turns and catches my gaze with his slit-pupiled eyes. A frisson of lightning jumps between us, setting every nerve in my body alight.

Min Lo taps the craft’s control board and our skiff swoops up toward the lightning-spitting mass of Wyvern-fabricated storms lining Vo Mountains’ apex. She taps the controls and a buzzing, translucent half dome of sapphire blinks into existence around the skiff, the wind abruptly cutting out.

“Hold tight,” she cautions with a glance over her shoulder as she meets my eyes. “We’re flying right through those storms.”

Vothendrile

A killing wind whips against our skiff as soon as we clear the Vo Range and its fabricated storm band and enter the unfabricated chaos to the west of it, the forewarned storms already here, hours before they were forecast. Our visibility is reduced to close to nil as rain hammers down and a fusillade of lightning bursts against our shield.

Our rapidly decaying shield.

Min Lo’s head whips toward us, concern flashing in her dark eyes. “The storms were supposed to move in later... I don’t have enough charge in the shielding runes.”

My back pressed to the railing, I throw my palms backward to make contact with the shield’s crackling energy, then close my eyes and let out a hard exhale as I release my water and wind magic into the shield’s outer surface, thrilling at the feel of my power making contact with the larger, raging storm.

Another surge of power rushes through mine, and its sheer force steals my breath away.

I open my eyes to find Trystan’s wand raised to the shield, even though he was granted sanction to use it solely for killing kraken. It’s difficult to concentrate around the sensation of my power fused to Trystan’s as I throw more wind into the shield, and he propels what feels like an ocean of water through it, our power a near cyclonic match.

Trystan lowers his gaze to meet mine and a backflow of our melded power flashes through us both, his lips twitching up as his eyes spark, and I fight off the sudden urge to lunge forward, pull him into a kiss, and stoke our power even higher.

A child’s scream cuts through the maelstrom, breaking our thrall.

The flash of surprise in Trystan’s eyes mirrors my own.

“Can you hold the shield?” I yell to him through the roar of the wind.

Trystan nods and murmurs a spell, feeding a more powerful rush of his fire and water power into it.

I throw off my tunic, close my eyes and exhale as my wings burst from my back, my horns stinging against my scalp as they arc up. Then I splay my palms against the shield and flow a final burst of water power into it and into Trystan’s heady rush of magic.

I open my eyes to find Trystan’s wide eyes fixed on my unfurled wings. An invigorating sting of his lightning aura crackles over my skin as I turn and leap from the rune skiff.

The wind slams into me as soon as my body passes through the watery shield. Pulling in my wings, I dive straight toward the Zonor, as another high-pitched shriek manages to cut through the roar of the wind and thunder. I catch a glimpse of the other skiffs, mere pinpricks of fogged sapphire light against the storm’s steely gray, all of them forced south. The violent, boiling surface of the water comes into sharper view through the sheeting rain, and my gut cinches.

Boats destroyed. People clinging to detritus.

A little blue-hued Urisk girl is struggling to stay afloat just below me, clinging to her mother on a bobbing plank of wood. As I watch, they’re wrenched apart by the force of the Zonor’s funneling undertow, the mother sucked into the churning vortex, the little girl screaming as she thrashes, then silenced as she’s sucked under, as well.

There’s no time to think about who should be let into the Eastern Realm and who should be kept out. There’s only the punch-to-the-gut shock of people drowning below me.

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