Page 27 of Heir of Autumn
A piercing cry emanated from the thing around my throat, a sudden, powerful gust of wind blowing me off my feet and onto my ass. I blinked hard, dazed, until I understood that the impact had come from the forceful arrival of a guardian. A guardian of air, to be exact.
“The harpy,” I breathed.
I leaned back, raising my head slowly as the imposing guardian stood over me like an avenging angel. He’d manifested in the exact same shape as before, his handsome, chiseled features and strong nose evoking his half-avian ancestry. Feathers as soft as silk yet as strong as fine filaments of precious metal adorned his body, his enormous wingspan, all the way up to the pseudo-crown that cascaded from his head.
The harpy held every muscle in his bare torso taut as he allowed his presence to linger. He gazed upon me as he had before, with a hardness to remind me that I didn’t truly control him in my capacity as a summoner, that he only deigned to cooperate, not obey. He offered me his hand, every finger ending in barbed brass talons. I gulped and reached out, letting him pull me to my feet.
“Thank you,” I said. “For coming. And for helping me off the ground as well.”
His glare as hard as gemstones, the harpy nodded. Strange. I was low on essence already. Granted, the guardians had manifested in moments of great distress in the past — against other guardians, for one thing, responding to my emotions even when I didn’t summon them on purpose. But why did only the harpy appear this time?
“Wait. Are you here to help me fly?”
The harpy nodded and crossed his arms, muscles bulging. He stretched his wings to their fullest span, feathers falling all about us, looking every bit like a superhero. Namirah cooed and clapped. She knew her birds better than anyone.
“Seriously, you can command guardians now?” Evander threw his hands up and grunted in annoyance. “And he’s hot, too. Gods, how come Locke gets all the sexy summons? Maybe it’s time for me to diversify.”
The harpy furrowed his brow, then ruffled his feathers, a smug, satisfied smile on his lips. Maybe he was even flexing a little bit. Trust Evander to flirt with all of my conjured creatures, whether they were guardians or eidolons.
“Why, thank you kindly,” the harpy said.
I almost fell on my ass again. His inflection was perfect, his speech refined and elegant. Totally not what I was expecting from a harpy, someone who I assumed mostly communicated through shrill bird cries and through ripping their enemies apart with their talons. Was that prejudiced? Maybe.
“Hold on,” I said. “I didn’t know you could speak.”
“Well, you never asked.” The harpy sniffed and raised his chin. “A bit rude, if you ask me.”
“I would never be so uncouth, personally,” Evander purred. He waggled his fingers at the harpy. “Hi there.”
The harpy almost grinned, but he hardened his features and cleared his throat. Seriously, with the flirting. Mr. Harpy von Studly over here looked like he was enjoying it, too.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said, turning to Namirah and Evander. “You two stay here and recuperate. We’re going to track down Sylvain and Satchel and drag their dehydrated bodies back here somehow. So we rendezvous, check that everyone’s alive and functioning, and we can continue tracking down our water guardians. Got it?”
Namirah pursed her lips and nodded in approval. “Well, look at you, taking charge of the situation. I like this version of Locke. Very assertive. Gets shit done.”
“Fine, fine,” Evander said with a sigh. “Just leave us some more of that chocolate. I suppose you’ll be going for a ride now.” He leaned his hand against the rock, cocking his hip to one side, curving his lip in a grin to the other. “Maybe next time I can get a harpy ride myself.”
The harpy gulped. I took him by the shoulder, pivoting him away from the evil twink’s line of sight before Evander could say something especially filthy about riding the harpy’s face. He so would, too.
“I think they went that way,” I told the harpy, pointing with one hand, stroking my chin with the other. “At least that’s what I remember. Or was it slightly to the — oh, oh no, whoa!”
Unprompted, perhaps bored by my indecisiveness, the harpy hooked his hands under my armpits and lifted me clear off the ground. A single powerful beat of his wings, and we were off.
The harpy shrieked. I whooped in delight.
11
I laughed.I nearly cried. I’d never, ever felt so free. The closest I’d ever come to true flight was sort of but not really hovering with the power of my doves, or that leaf-shaped hang glider that Sylvain had used to save our bacon back in the Oriel of Air.
But this? This was majestic. The wind in my hair, the gust from every beat of the harpy’s great wings? I might never learn to fly like Belladonna Praxis, but this felt just as awesome. Grand Summoners Dorian and Celestina? Eat your hearts out.
We couldn’t have been flying for more than twenty minutes before we spotted the greenish speck in the water, the harpy’s speed and prowess slicing us efficiently through the sky. He’d flown us just high enough to avoid killing me through oxygen starvation while also affording a broad view of the ocean. A bird’s eye view, one might say. Hah.
“There,” I said, my heart skipping a beat as we grew close enough to see the shape of Sylvain’s body against the boat. “Right there.”
“Understood,” the harpy declared. “We begin our descent.”
Our altitude dropped, and my stomach dropped with it. I was grateful that my pilot had given me a heads-up, but an earlier warning might have helped. I held on to my backpack straps, lips pressed tightly together, wishing I had the presence of mind to bring a barf bag.
