Page 28 of Ties of Death

Losing your seat means losing your life.

My panic amplifies, white-hot, burning, making every moment feel so much longer.

Part of me wishes it wouldn’t. I don’t want time to catalogue where I went wrong. Holding on better to Raindrop, being more aware of my surroundings, forcing Daenn to talk to me before we left so things wouldn’t have stayed so unresolved between us.

Oh, how I wish I had talked to Daenn.

And then my body slams into something, and I’m encased.

“I’ve got you,” Daenn says into my ear. “Hold on to me.”

My mind catches up with what’s happened. Somehow, he’s caught me. Somehow, I’m not dying.

I scramble for something to grip. I get my arms around his torso, digging my fingers into the grooves of his armor, and bury my face in his chest. He helps me shift so that I can straddle Storm, but the position is awkward since I’m not sitting in the true saddle.

So I shift to wrap my legs around Daenn’s waist instead, locking my ankles together and clinging to him for dear life.

A small grunt escapes him as I secure myself, and I shift to loosen a bit.

“No,” he commands. “Don’t let go.”

So I don’t. I trust Daenn will get us out of this. My stomach lurches as Storm beats his powerful wings. We’re heading back up.

I dare to turn my head, and I get a glimpse of our destination: the gryphon rider who attacked me. It was more than one, I realize. I count two, which means there’s probably a third. If it’s not a lone rider, then more than likely they would follow the standard battle tactics, and all the clans fight in groups that are multiples of three.

My silver spiral tingles, unnaturally warm in contrast to the biting cold of the wind driving its way into every crevice. Now that my panic is subsiding, my predominant emotion is anger as we drive hard toward the gryphon riders.

But… that makes no sense. I’m not angry; I’m relieved. Relieved down to my very bones that Daenn got to me in time.

But Daenn is angry. The coiled tension is obvious in his body under my arms and legs. I can see his deadly focus trained on the warriors ahead of us as we close the distance.

My mind snaps through the past few days, a dozen little moments where my emotions made no sense to me, how my silver mark tingled at the same time.

In an instant, I know. I can feel Daenn’s emotions over our bond.

I don’t have a chance to process that because in the next moment Daenn and the first warrior clash.

I cling to him, bury my head, and make myself small, slipping one arm at a time down to wrap around his torso instead of his neck so I’m not hindering his range of motion. It’s not comfortable, but it’s all I can do for him right now. I have no weapon. I am nothing but added weight and bulk in this fight.

The screams of the gryphons are loud enough to cut over the wind around us. I sense the moment the first man falls.Daenn’s movement shifts and Storm is no longer hovering in the air, but rather diving, no doubt to meet the second man. As we jolt, Storm swerving in what I assume is a dodge, I see the third gryphon coming in behind us.

I squeeze Daenn’s chest, but when I try to speak, my words are swallowed by the wind. Even if I could warn him properly, he has an enemy at the front.

My mind spins frantically, desperate to help. I’ve never been trained as a warrior, a killer.

A killer.

I latch on to the word. Without waiting to think it through—there is notimeto think it through—I reach for my magic.

A slow sleep is better than nothing, and at these heights, it is a powerful weapon.

The magic still feels slippery, effervescent, but maybe my desperation helps, because I’m able to grasp it better than before. I imagine that I grip it in my hands. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I focus on the man behind Daenn, and I will the magic to hurtle toward him and punch him in the chest.

I gasp as something rips away from me. The magic—and my strength.

But it works. The man slumps in his saddle and his gryphon veers, confused by the sudden sagging. My body trembles, and it’s all I can do to keep my grip on Daenn.

He must sense it because one arm comes around me like a vise, pressing me to him.

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