Page 89 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

“He knew you wouldn’t,” Varidian told me, kissing my shoulder to calm me. “He trusts you.”

The words carved through my shields, past my ribs, and into my vulnerable parts. My hand shook worse as I hovered it over his scales. Go on, his impatient grumble seemed to say. I pressed my palm to his warm back, exhaling a sigh when he remained in the air, beating his wings, unhurt. Alive.

Two people I could touch without killing them. I was reeling.

“Hold on,” Varidian reminded me. “Mak, get the dome. Sabira! Grab the other side between the two of us—”

A sky blue blur shot at us like lightning, a constant litany of growls and snarls and shrieks leaving her parted jaws.

“The three of us,” Varidian corrected, nodding to her albeit tightly. “We need to put the dome back in place and pump it full of magic to restore the wards.”

“I’m almost out,” Sabira shouted across the thump of wyvern wings—both ours, I realised, and the group of enemy wyvern getting further into Red Manniston. How were they being controlled? Was their puppet master here, in the city? Or in the mountains, watching? “I didn’t have much magic to begin with.”

I didn’t know her power, and that seemed like a thing I should have asked. I opened my mouth to ask but the sky wavered and tilted around me, and I hissed, gripping Mak’s spike in tight hands.

“Ameirah?” Varidian demanded.

“I’m fine. This is more important. I can get healed later.”

“Healed…” He seemed to notice the smear of blood I’d left on Mak’s ivory scales all at once and jolted, a little sound in the back of his throat. “Who did this to you?”

His voice was low and murderous. It wrapped around me like a hug, making me smile.

“I already killed them.” I patted Mak’s warm scales. “Let’s go, big guy.” The sooner we fixed the shields, the sooner I could passout. Preferably when we were on the ground and not thirty feet in the air. Raheema rumbled a worried sound; I brushed her off.

“You heard her, Mak,” Varidian said, his voice far sharper and tighter than it had been a minute ago. He held me tighter, but we both knew he’d need his hands to restore the shields’ magic.

I squeezed my eyes shut when Makrukh dove suddenly and without warning, wind racing past us, tearing at my skin, my hair. Only Varidian’s arms locked around my middle kept me on Mak’s back, a fact I ignored because I didn’t like it. I hated feeling so helpless just minutes after I’d felt useful, like I’d finally done something good. Passing out from iron poisoning in the middle of a vital mission would completely undermine me saving Red Manniston from the ruby and its rider.

I waited until Mak stopped, hovering in the air with Sabira’s wyvern and Raheema opposite us, to drag in a breath of air, open my eyes and ask, “Will it work? Putting the dome back, filling it with magic—will it really work?”

“It’ll push out any wyvern with harmful intentions,” Varidian confirmed, his hand flexing on my stomach, like he knew he’d have to let go of me soon.

My nostrils flared as I fought a wave of dizziness, gritting my teeth to hold onto consciousness. Not yet, not yet…

“Raheema,” he said, his tone commanding. “Grasp that edge there and follow Mak’s example. Donotdo anything rash or impulsive.”

She ducked her head, her silver eyes big and soulful. Her low sound was one of assent as she got into position. Raheema’s brown wyvern did the same, the three creatures grasping the golden dome in the talons of their back legs, wings pumping to keep us all in the air. I ignored the way the dome wavered in my vision whenever I blinked, but I couldn’t shut out the hot pulse of pain in my leg, worse with every moment. I needed totell Varidian the barb had been iron, needed to tell him I was poisoned before I fainted, but I didn’t want to distract him when this was so important.

Another crash sounded, closer than before—bricks and rubble and roofs collapsing. A home, or a beloved qahwa shop or a library. My heart pulled tight. If I’d caught the ruby before the rider reached the mosque, this could have been prevented.

“Careful!” Varidian snapped as wings thumped the air, Mak, Raheema, and Sabira’s wyvern rising higher, carrying the dome off the ground. It wasn’t completely pristine I realised, some of the gold had been scratched off as it fell, but it was a miracle it was in one piece. “That’s it, keep it steady.”

I tried to keep my eyes open to watch the dome rise, wingbeat by wingbeat, through the air, but the whole world swum into one hazy cloud of golden stone and bright tiles and bright golden domes. Through squinted eyes, I watched the ground get further and further away, the dome rising higher, gripped in sharp talons as Varidian yelled orders and encouragement.

The sound of his voice wrapped a cloak of safety around me, a strange but welcome feeling. It was nice to know I was safe, to have somewhere to belong, where I was welcome and wanted. I turned my head to rest my cheek against his shoulder, watching the arches and spires of the mosque rise around us.

“Slow!” Varidian yelled. “Don’t drop it now, we’re so close. I need you three to hold it in place while I charge up the shields.”

“I can help,” I mumbled, though my lips were a little numb and I was clearly in no state.

The kiss Varidian pressed to my head made me warm inside. I almost closed my eyes but held on at the grating sound of the dome finally settling into place. Panic cleared my haze for a moment when Varidian released one arm from around me and said, “Mak, get me close. Ameirah? Shit, stay awake for me, dearling, you can’t sleep with that much blood loss.”

I made a low sound, noncommittal. I didn’t want to sleep but it was hard to keep my eyes open.

“Varidian,” I heard Sabira say, her voice tight. “She doesn’t look good.”

“I know,” Varidian snapped, his arm tightening around me. “Mak, closer. We’re running out of time.”

---