Page 84 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

Others might try to climb the wall instead of flying over it, but the watchtowers were ready for them now. No one else would pass, but we needed to find the spiked ruby before they—or their rider—could hurt anyone.

People looked up as we flew, some lifting hands in acknowledgement. I didn’t let myself think about how many would be lost by the end of the day. Naila had done this. She got close to the legion, pretended to love Shula, and turned traitor for a reason I still could not figure out. But whatever her motive, anything that happened here was her fault.

We flew over a gathering of chairs and tables outside a hole-in-the-wall shop selling coffee and mint tea, the raucouslaughter of three women sat at a table filling the air, making my chest unbearably tight.

I would not let that laughter turn to screams. I wouldn’t.

Raheema jerked her head suddenly, a sharp alarm in the back of her throat. She’d spotted dark ruby scales between the tall buildings just ahead of us. The wyvern had made it to the heart of the kasbah. Fuck! It had made me sick to think of the people who’d be hurt near the wall, on the outskirts of the city, but here, where everyone gathered, where the mosque and souk drew a high density of our civilians…

I shouted to Sabira and we took off over the rooftops, faster, desperation mounting. Whatever the ruby and its rider had snuck in to do, we couldn’t let it happen. Would it land in the cobalt-tiled square and proclaim anyone who ran as guilty, like the dark clergy did in Wyfell? How long until those warnings turned to screams of fire as people burned where they ran?

“Faster,” I urged Raheema, a current of urgency in my bones, making me shake.

When she leapt through the sky to carry us over the rooftop of the three-storey madrasa I finally saw the bulky wyvern, black spikes not only running down its back but along its wings and legs and down its face to its nose. Its tail was tipped with a huge, barbed hammer. My heart stuttered, but Raheema didn’t slow and I didn’t tell her to pull back.

I could smell it now—hot iron and smoke and boiling blood. The same scent as the clash outside the wall, strong enough to make my stomach churn. Sabira whipped around to fly at my side, though her eyes were on something on the other side of the city: a group of four riders flying in formation, the front wyverns roughened and scarred and fierce, jaws parted to show vicious teeth.

“The guard,” Sabira shouted to me, clear relief in her voice.

I didn’t know what had taken the guard so damn long, but better late than never. With them flying across the Red Star to help the watchmen on the wall, I knew no other enemies would find their way into our city. But it left Sabira and I to deal with this ruby alone.

I choked down a gulp of bile. Sabira was as daring and capable as the heroines of my favourite adventures and I was—trying. I was trying. We’d be fine. It was one wyvern, and Raheema and I already took out the silver.

Agreeing, Raheema parted her jaws on a shriek of violent warning to the ruby, and its rider twisted to see who challenged him. Well, there went the element of surprise.

“Raheema!” I shouted when the ruby whipped its tail through the air, so much power in that barbed tail that I broke out in chills. “Drop!”

She tucked in her wings, plummeting through the air, but a shadow fell over us, casting her sky-blue scales in darkness. My stomach flipped. I could do nothing, strapped into the seat, to escape the brutal spike lashing at me, every inch of the wyvern’s tail covered in sharp, lethal thorns. Raheema dropped as fast as she could, twisting aside, and for a breathless moment I thought we could outmanoeuvre them but fire exploded through my thigh, raked down my knee and calf, and gouged into Raheema’s side.

We screamed in unison, hers a primal screech of rage and pain.

I panted hard, rough breaths, my vision blurring, going spotty, and I had to twist aside as the vomit I’d been fighting finally won the battle, spraying across the wall of the hammam Raheema veered towards, landing unsteadily on its rooftop, claws scrabbling at stone, leaving pockmarks.

Below, people yelled in surprise, screaming in panic, and that sound pounded through my head like an accusation. I shouldhave taken care of the rider before anyone had cause to be afraid. Instead, I’d fucked it all up, and flames of pain crawled up my leg where barbs had torn skin and muscle. The wyvern’s spikes weren’t made of the same substance as Mak’s; these were pure iron. Poison to a fae, especially when it had touched my blood.

I needed a doctor, but all I could do was pant and scream, and eventually my scream of pain turned to one of rage.

My people were running, fear spreading like a disease, and I hated it. My heart beat faster, filling with rage. I was so tired of watching people die, of hearing them scream. I wasn’t useless. I had Raheema; I was a rider now. And I had death in the pads of my fingers. I didn’t have to stand and watch, terrified, as people were hurt. I didn’t have to run for my life when I could fight for others’, when I could make the world a better place by taking out just one threat.

I gritted my teeth against the dark spots in my vision and leaned over Raheema, stroking her good side. She let out a pitiful sound, turning to nudge her snout into my hand. I stroked her nose, pulling more air into my lungs.

“Can you still fly?”

Her eyes sharpened, teeth bared. Her low reply told me only death could still her wings. I grinned back.

“Good.” It didn’t matter that I was in screaming, unbearable pain. I was a rider. I could do something good, something worthwhile. Everything I’d ever been told, every insult, every sneer ran through my mind and I gave them all a loud mentalfuck you.

Fuck you, Father. Fuck you, Xiu. Fuck you Nezar, Beni, and Emir.

What was it that Varidian and his legion said before they flew into battle?

“Let’s roast this fucker.”

More rocks skittered off the roof as Raheema braced herself, muscles bunching, ready to leap. I tightened my grip on the reins, squinting to focus my eyes, searching for the ruby wyvern and swearing when I saw it nearing the small gold dome. Sabira already raced after it, her wyvern snapping teeth at its tail.

We’d just leapt into the sky to join Sabira, to help her bring down this bastard rider, when the ruby’s target became obvious. There was a reason it flew up the minaret of the mosque, and that reason became chillingly evident when its vicious spiked tail slammed into the small gold dome atop the minaret, knocking it clean off the spire.

And when that dome fell, magic blast through me, through Raheema, and across the whole fortress-city.

---