Page 37 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“You’re young and inexperienced and unused to flying such a challenging passage,” Zaarib said, laying out my faults with zero softness.

I reached for the glove over my right hand and ripped it off, stalking forward. Varidian moved so fast I didn’t register his movement, locking his arms around me from behind. To anyone else, it would be an embrace, but my husband restrained me so I didn’t murder his friend.

“We’re missing something,” Aliah observed, tucking the ends of her scarf beneath her leather jacket, a furrow between her bright eyes. “Why do you look so rattled, Varidian?”

Did he look rattled? Good.

“Because I can kill with a touch of my bare hands,” I answered, stealing his reply, and for once it felt good to confess that. I laid it between me and his legion like a sword, like a threat. “One touch, and you’re dead.”

“We’re not a danger to you, a-lalla,” Fahad said, trying to ease tempers again. It didn’t work this time. He paused at his wyvern’s side, hesitating to mount. Feeling the explosive charge in the air.

“Like you weren’t a threat to my cousin?” I asked softly. My vision tunnelled, and I forgot there were villagers nearby, watching, listening. I didn’t care. Let them hear.

“Enough,” Shula snapped, her voice like a thunderclap. Rain tipped down on us, heavier all at once, and I wondered if she really was thunder, if she had control over the weather. “There are things you don’t know, a-lalla, and standing here arguing isn’t going to help. The longer we stand here, the more danger we’re in. Fahad, Varidian, if you’re set on flying, go now. We’ll wait for you at the fortress.”

“You do remember I outrank you?” Varidian asked, a little dry, mostly rough with annoyance—at me, no doubt.

“In title but not intelligence,” Shula retorted so quickly I almost smiled until she met my gaze, unyielding and as hard as rock. She straightened her shoulders, muscled arms relaxed at her sides. “You’ll be safe on Saif with me, I give you my word I won’t attack you or let you fall. I won’t even let you fall prey to your own stupidity.”

“That’s generous,” I muttered.

“After what your cousin did, itisgenerous,” Zaarib snapped, his eyes flashing with warning.

I matched his glare, daring him to start a fight.

“Can you stop glowering at my wife?” Varidian sighed, his arm flexing to pull me flush against him. His heat was like comfort and promises of safety and I didn’t trust it. “I happen to quite like her, and I’d prefer her to be in one piece when I return and not poked through with holes.”

Zaarib’s eyes sparkled as he opened his mouth.

“Don’t bother,” Aliah interrupted, rolling her eyes. “We all know filth is about to come from your mouth. You’d better go, you two. The rain’s only going to get worse. There’s a disturbance in the air; I can sense it.”

“What’s your power?” I asked, wondering what I was up against.

“Aether,” she replied, a strange look in her eyes—sadness, not suspicion or anger like everyone else displayed. “I sense the spirit world, and it’s unsettled.”

“That’s… a rare power,” I murmured, remembering the stories I’d read about those who wielded aether. The most powerful could use it to drown a whole island in gauzy, life-sapping magic. A veil would surround a place and by the time it drew back, all would be dead. The less powerful could use it to soothe a fever or heal a wound or ease a terminally ill person to eternal sleep.

“Only one in a hundred thousand fae possesses it,” Nabil input, sounding marginally less like an asshole, though not by much.

Varidian lowered his head, his mouth by my ear. “Can I trust you not to murder anyone while I’m gone?”

“No.”

“Please, Ameirah.” I didn’t like this pleading tone. I didn’t appreciate how it softened me and brought out sympathy when I was content to be furious with him.

“Fine,” I muttered, scowling at the wyvern’s and riders around us. “I’ll wait until you’re back to kill them.”

He kissed the top of my head and drew back, leaving the place his lips had touched tingling but the rest of me cold. The rain pounded down harder, running off my leathers but still managing to soak through to my bones.

“Be careful,” he said when I turned to scowl at him. He caught my gaze and held it for a long moment. “You’ll be safe in the fortress, and Shula will keep you atop Saif but—be careful.”

When I blinked, I saw buildings buckling under the violence of crackling flames, and scorched skin turned from brown to blackened and raw, shapes and faces unrecognisable. I saw the boy shredded on the ground, the tiger standing over him, blood on its maw. I couldsmellit. Burned flesh and blood and acrid wood fire.

“Don’t die before I can murder you,” I forced past my tight throat. I wanted to draw Varidian back to me, wanted to hold him close and use my fury at him to ward off the memories, those visions, all those deaths.

He brushed a wet strand of hair off my cheek, thoughts shaded within his eyes. “I won’t die before I can earn your forgiveness.” His gaze lifted to something beyond me—Shula. “Help her mount. And if I find out any one of you made asinglesnide remark about Ameirah, you know what’ll happen.”

Aliah groaned, her eyes creased in a wince. “Stop threatening us with that.”

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