Page 120 of Fires of the Forsaken
I jerked my head up to find Cheriour’s shoulders shaking as he chuckled at something Kaelan had said. Kaelan flushed and flailed his arms, as though trying to justify his statement. Cheriour kept laughing.
A few nights ago, I’d wondered what that laugh would sound like.
It was deeper and raspier than his voice. Almost a little breathy. Not what I expected. But so undeniably his.
My stomach did a tinglyswoop-swoop.
Crap, crap,crap!I wasnotfalling head over heels for a stanky warrior from Viking Land. Right?
Right???
“Addie…” Garvin said.
“Hmm,” I mumbled, still giving Cheriour a creeper stare.
“Addie! Watch out!” The high-pitched tone in Garvin’s voice pulled me out of my slightly-stalkerish thoughts.
“What’s—Jesus Christ!” I screamed when something heavy (and fleshy) bounced off the back of my head. “What thehell—”
The sky was suddenly full of birds—squawking, shrieking, flapping birds. One by one, they plummeted to the ground.
The laughter surrounding me morphed into panicked cries.
I yelled as birds pinged off my back and the top of Sacrifice’s head. She snorted and danced sideways.
The birds kept falling.
Their bodies were deformed. Most were missing feathers, their skin covered in blisters and boils. Some had almost no flesh left. It was like a scene out of a horror movie
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“It looks like Elion’s disease, don’t it?” Garvin grunted, struggling to keep his horse still.
“How the hell would I know?” I clutched at Sacrifice’s mane as she made a warbled noise and did a sideways cat leap.
“Go!” Belanna and Braxton yelled, almost in unison. “For feck’s sake, GO!”
People hurtled in every direction.
“Addie,” Garvin called before he wheeled a sharp right, “come with me!” He nudged his horse into the woods.
I tried to follow, but Sacrifice had turned into a wriggle worm; the more I tried to straighten her, the more she zig-zagged. I kicked her to go forward, she flew backward. “Go!” I drove my heels into her side.
She rose instead, teetering on her hind legs. “Oh, fuck,” I whimpered. A bird plopped off the top of my head. Another caught Sacrifice on the tip of her nose. And that was her final straw. When her front feet hit the ground, her back feet came up in a massive buck that pitched me straight over her neck. Down I went, face-planting into a pile of dead birds.
Yep.
Got a mouthful of feathers too. Tasted like fucking battery acid.
I gagged. Sacrifice bolted.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
The rest of the army abandoned ship. And I was horseless, unable to follow anyone.
“Addie!”
I glanced up, still choking on feathers, as Cheriour pulled his horse to a halt beside me.
