Page 85 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

The shields. It just knocked out the shields. And now any wyvern could fly into the city.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

VARIDIAN

Blood sprayed from the fragile underbelly of a wyvern, fire burned scales and skin, and the horrific smell of death choked me. All this violence in the name of hunting my wife.

I shook with it, vibrating in my skin, my bones, my blood. Rage spread like disease, impossible to control.

Calm.

It was an order but I ignored it, twisting my hands through the air over and over, focusing on riders while I trusted Mak to remove any wyverns from our path with his huge jaws or massive tail, sometimes slamming bodily into them to snap them away. Around me, my legion fought with the experience of years of campaigns and a viciousness borne from refusing to die, refusing to lose the fight, refusing to let the Red Star burn like Wyfell.

I regretted flying away from Wyfell, leaving it to its fate when it was my duty as their prince to fight to my last breath, but Iwouldn’t make the same mistake here. None of these bastards would take my home, or my wife. I thought of the shell-shocked fear on her face after Wyfell, thought of the tremble in her voice when she spoke, the rage pouring from her when she screamed so loud her voice echoed off the mountains.

Blood pounded between my ears, faster and faster. I was losing control, falling apart, but I didn’t give a shit.

You’ll care later. You know you will.

I shook my head, slashing my right hand through the air, sinking control magic through the chest of a rider with hair longer than mine and an expression so seething with hate that I sank the hooks of control deeper. I gouged his soul, his mind, his heart, and crooked a rigid finger.

Drive your sword through your own stomach, lean all your weight on it so it breaks through your back.

His mind was weak, easy to manipulate. Some took several layers of suggestion but my magic cut though this man’s like a knife through butter. In seconds, he’d driven his sword all the way through his gut and falling off the back of his mount, but the wyvern kept attacking. They’d all done the same, even when their riders fell. They didn’t erupt into screaming rage like any wyvern losing its bonded rider, didn’t go feral and mad with it. Nor did they collapse in the agony of a severed bond. This was… strange mechanical, almost automatic.

I didn’t fucking like it.

Mak twisted out of the path of razor-sharp claws, the fight pushing us closer and closer to the wall where watchmen flew and wyverns shouted warnings. I prayed Ameirah was safe behind the wall. Sabira would keep her safe, at least.

Mak’s rough grumble as he slammed his back legs into the wyvern of the dead rider was clear. What the fuck are you waiting for?

I whipped magic around the wyvern, driving hooks into its mind, its soul, until I felt the core of what made it. Like so many others, I drove it into the unyielding mountain face and suppressed my wince at the crack of its neck.

I hated killing wyverns. They were our allies, our fucking family, and killing them felt like a perversion of everything that made me Ithanysian. It coated my tongue in a sickly taste, tightened my stomach in a cramp, but I could only think of the Red Star’s vulnerability and the fact these wyverns were here for my wife right now.

“That’s the last of them,” Zaarib shouted, making both Mak and I jump as he and Dahab came up alongside us. “We got all the bastards.”

I exhaled a rough breath, casting a look around us, searching the grey sky for the others. I found Shula, Aliah, Nabil, Zaarib, and no enemy wyverns. Thank fuck for that.

I dragged a hand over my head, shaky with relief, with the rage still pumping through my blood. I needed to set eyes on Ameirah. She was the only thing that would settle the storm of emotions ruling me. She calmed me every time, her presence a balm even when I was terrified to let her close.

If I let her close, if I drew her into his madness, she’d be hurt.

Mak rumbled under his breath, turning us to face Shula and Aliah when they joined us, Nabil racing towards us, blood streaking both wyvern and him.She could be hurt anyway. This legion came to hunt her.

I knew that. Iknew.Why did he think I couldn’t breathe or think or function right? I hissed and tasted salt water and power on my tongue.

“There’ll be another wave of attacks,” Aliah said, her face pale and serious under her orange scarf. Her eyes were hard when they met mine. “We need to fortify the wall, and get as manypeople from the surrounding areas behind it. These riders will kill anyone in their path to the lightning soul.”

Zaarib scoffed. “They don’t give a fuck about the lightning soul; it’s all an excuse to them. I know zealotry when I see it, and I didn’t see it in a single one of these riders. Whatever their motive is, though, you’re right. We pissed them off by beating this legion to a pulp. They’ll be back.”

Nabil caught up to us, his emerald panting, teeth bared beneath him. “If they’re working their way west from the wall, they’ll hit Daurith next.”

“Fuck!” True panic hit, every bit as barbed and severe as my fear for my wife. Daurith was the home of wyverns, their sanctuary. Daurith was where wyvernlings hatched and grew, where wyverns learned to fly and hunt and fight and live. It was where gentry children were sent to bond with their wyverns when their magic bloomed. It was full of younglings, babies. Static noise roared in my head.

“We can’t let that—” Shula began, but whipped around so fast my stomach jolted, afraid she’d snap her own neck. “The shields,” she whispered, her face slack, almost grey.

I felt it then. A wave of magic erupted from the heart of my home. Magic I’d poured myself into to guard the city, to keep out any enemy legions. Sweat beaded on my upper lip, my breathing heavier, faster. It had been anchored to the mosque at the heart of the Red Star. The only way it could have fell was if—

---