Page 88 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

I barely even felt the sear of iron poison in my leg, barely felt the hot pounding of pain from where spikes ripped skin and muscle—until I slammed into something hard and unyieldingthat my whole body rattled, my head jolting on my neck. My leg erupted in sudden fire at the impact.

I screamed with what air I had left, thrashing mindlessly, tears streaking my face, gluing my hair to my cheeks as the wind—the wind had stopped ripping at me, and I was laid on solid ground. No, not solid. It was moving in rough, jerking motions.

I sobbed, my eyes screwed shut and my whole face crumpling as rough arms pulled me upright, manhandling me until I sat with my back against his chest, my whole body shivery and hot with pain. Or maybe that was from the iron barbs.

“Fuck,” Varidian gasped behind me, the sound sharp, short. “Fuck.Fuck,Ameirah.”

It hit me all at once. I wasn’t going to die. I couldn’t hold in the emotion. Sobs wracked my body, tearing up my chest, and I struggled to breathe. I flinched at a loud boom in the distance, and Varidian’s arms tightened around me.

“I would—make a joke about—falling for you but—seems in poor taste,” I rasped.

It took herculean effort to drag my breathing under my control, to catch more than scraps of air with my lungs, to stop shaking. I knew we were flying, felt the beat of Makrukh’s wings as he carried us through the air, but even when I opened my eyes my vision was blurry. Raheema’s panic hit me like a blow to the stomach and I winced, searching around us for a smear of sky blue. All I saw was the grey sky and—

“Is that fire?” I gasped, pulling more air into my chest, blinking until I could vaguely see. Mak flew in a wide arc around the spires and domes of the mosque, and in the distance, near the mountains, large swaths of orange and yellow devoured buildings.

Varidian’s chest expanded with a rough breath. “The legion outside the wall was a distraction. There’s a much bigger one snuck up on us.”

“The shadow,” I breathed, and swore viciously, remembering the shadow of wings Sabira and I saw at the distant mountains, flying for the Red Star. “Fuck, I thought you’d killed them all.”

“Damn, menace, there are a hundred of them. How deadly do you think I am?”

I turned my face to look at him, glad that my vision had mostly straightened. “Very,” I said seriously.

When our eyes met, a tightness dropped from his shoulders and he blew out a sigh. “You scared the shit out of me, Ameirah.”

“Sorry,” I murmured, and kissed him quickly, conscious of the violence and fire unfolding around us. “Though I didn’t exactly plan to fall from Raheema’s back.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat and crushed his lips to mine, kissing me harder, rough with an edge of desperation. “Donotfall from Mak, or I swear I will make you regret it, Ameirah.”

I blinked. “Threatening to kill you is my thing, Varidian.”

“Oh, I won’t kill you,” he rumbled, his voice deep and as growly as Mak’s. “I’ll just withhold those orgasms you love so much.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Bastard.”

He kissed me again, quickly, and leaned back. “Unapologetically, dearling. But we need to focus.”

“Then you shouldn’t have brought orgasms into this,” I muttered.

He ignored my remark. “I tried to control the legion who came over the mountains, but someone had already wrapped them in threads of control.”

“Someone has the same magic as you?” I demanded, my heart skipping. I was unsettled and uneasy around the idea of controlling power before I met him, but I knew I was safe with Varidian because he’d never use it against me and no one else possessed it. That was why the newspapers made such a hugedeal of his power—because it was as rare as it was lethal. The magic of villains and dictators throughout history, almost as feared as lightning souls and their chaos magic. You could never know how it might be used, or what a person would be made to do using it. But Varidian was safe.

Whoever was controlling the wyverns was definitely not safe.

“Not the same,” he said, his voice tight. “But similar enough that I can’t sever the threads. There’s only one thing that will take them down, and it won’t be easy. I need you to get back on Raheema and fly home, lock yourself in the cellar and don’t come out until it’s quiet outside.”

My heart thumped with a sudden pulse of anger. “Not a fucking chance.”

“I had to try,” he sighed, like he’d expected my response. “Then hold on to Mak, and don’t let go. We need to get that dome back to the top of the minaret. It’s the only thing that has a chance of pushing the wyverns out of the city.”

I did as he said, jumping hard at the crash of a building on the outskirts of the kasbah. I couldn’t see the destruction from here but—I saw wyverns, a cloud of wings and malice flying over the mountains and into the city. They must have passed over the Diamond to get there. I didn’t want to look and see how our home fared. It if was in ruins, my heart couldn’t take it.

I tore my gaze away before it could reach the Diamond, fixing my attention on where I held onto Mak and—I screamed, ripping my hands away. My bare hands.

“I could have killed you!” I cried, a vicious tremor starting in my fingertips, spreading quickly up my palms to my wrists, my arms. My vision wavered and it was a sign of how fucked up everything was that I couldn’t tell if it was panic or poison making everything hazy.

Mak whipped his head around and widened his eyes, giving me a little rumble.

---