Page 47 of The War of Wings
I leaned forward, pressing my hands into the side of Adorex’s neck. “Think you can make it through?” She tilted her head up. “You want to fly over it?” An affirmative chuff, and we were sailing higher into the sky, Obitus and Gehenna following suit. “Everybody hang on!”
There was a definitive beginning to the storm — one second we could see the ocean’s midnight-blue waves beneath us, and the next all we could see were the tops of the charcoal clouds. They roiled and stirred, thunder rumbling over the sound of wind in my ears. Lightning crackled beneath us, illuminating the clouds from within.
“Holy shit!” Cal yelled, his voice full of joy from where he and Obitus flew at my left. “We’re flying on drivas over a damn thunderstorm! This is fucking amazing!”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Even Miles let out a laugh, a noise that settled something within me.
Cal tentatively pulled one hand from Obitus’ back, then the other, holding his arms out at his sides, just like I’d done the first time atop Adorex. He howled into the wind. “Come on, Miles!” he shouted to his brother. “Fly!”
I didn’t think Miles was going to listen, but I was mistaken, because he slowly, carefully lifted one hand, then the other. He let his head fall back, the wind pulling strands of his hair loose from its tie. For perhaps the first time since I’d met him, his face looked truly peaceful.
For a moment, I closed my eyes, too. A slow smile spread across my face as I breathed in the smell of rain. We weren’t at war against evil. We weren’t traveling across the sea to scare leaders into helping us. We were simply existing, experiencing joy in its truest form.
The moment was almost perfect.
Until something broke through the clouds below us and shot straight for Gehenna.
I opened my mouth to scream, to warn Miles, but it was too late. Gehenna fought furiously to right herself as she was pushed higher in the air by whatever hit her. It was…
Another driva.
Fire, Adorex thought, and I could feel her frenzied energy as she flew toward Gehenna and the intruder.
Could it be Rixa or Ventus? Could Nell or Whit have followed us for some reason? But those questions were put to bed when I saw the way its scales seemed to swallow the light, not reflect it the way Katia’s drivas did.
What the fuck?
The other driva’s talon tore into Gehenna’s side, and I watched in horror as the strap loosened around Miles’ thighs, just enough for him to slip from his seat.
Cal shouted, loosening his feet from Obitus’ scales. “I’m going after him! He can’t swim!” he called, unfastening the straps over his own legs.
“Neither can you! And the fall from this height will kill you! You take care of this!” I pointed to the unfamiliar driva as I frantically tore at my own strap. “Adorex, do what you have to!”
Petra. Idros. Wind.
Before I could decipher Adorex’s thoughts, I threw myself from her back.
“Petra!” Cal bellowed, his eyes wide with terror as he watched me fall.
The last thing I saw before the clouds swallowed me was a line of fire headed straight from Adorex’s throat into the intruding driva’s side.
Lightning flashed from every direction, the thunder rattling my brain as I fell through the storm. I closed my eyes, frantically flipping through my mind like a stack of parchment. An idea had to be here somewhere.
“Come on, Idros!” I shouted, summoning the Saint of Storms. “Help me out!”
The clouds spit me out. A black ocean roiled beneath me as I sailed through the air, the raindrops pelting against my skin like a thousand tiny cannonballs. And there he was, about forty feet behind me and a hundred below me. Miles’ arms and legs flailed wildly as he careened toward an unforgiving sea.
An errant gust of wind rushed by me, pushing me backwards, and it hit me.The wind.
I stilled my limbs as much as I could, tapping into my well of power. I separated the fire from the storm within me, isolating the thread that connected me to the wind, and I pulled. An upcurrent of wind shot up from beneath me, and holy shit, I was slowing down.
With one palm facing beneath me and another facing Miles, I willed the wind to slow him, too. I wasn’t able to summon much, but it was enough to give us a chance to survive the impact. The sound of a driva’s roar reverberated through the air, so loud that it drowned out the thunder of the storm. What the fuck had happened?
Miles was within a hundred feet of the water, and I prayed to every fucking Saint that I’d get there in time. I pushed harder, trying to cast out more power in his direction, anything to stop the fall, but I felt my power bottom out.Please be enough, I chanted to myself before I yelled out to Miles. “Keep your head above water!” I wasn’t sure if he heard me over the crackling thunder, the roar of rain pelting the seawater, and the screech of the drivas above us.
Miles plunged into the sea, a massive splash quickly swallowed by the undulating waves. I braced myself as I hit the water next, the force so great it sent saltwater into my nose and mouth. Terror coursed through me, my throat burning as I kicked wildly, emerging from the waves. “Miles!” I shouted, spitting water from my mouth. Which direction had he been? Where was he?
And like a beacon, I saw a hand reaching from the waves for only a split second before it was swallowed again, and I took off in his direction. I wasn’t the strongest swimmer, and the massive waves and punishing rain did everything they could to slow me down. I saw the side of his face as he broke the surface, taking in a gulp of air before a wave crested over his head.
