Page 88 of The Eye of the Fifth
Hold on tight, princeling.
Tucking her wings in toward her body, Tanwen twisted, rolling suspended in the air. The swift movement dislodged Sekun from her back, sending him careening back to ground, but Gedeon watched as he salired in mid-air, leaping to safety before his body could splatter the barren plains beneath them.
Will he salir back?Tanwen asked him as her wings flew out again.
Gedeon managed to lodge himself safely in between two spikes, letting his head fall back against the one behind as the wind rushed past him.No. His power was already depleting. It was a miracle he even got up here. Is Sunsi…?
Your woman is unconscious but alive.
Relief swept through his body like a rush of adrenalin.Good. Get us to high ground.
The highest ground in Zarynth is the Apex. You know I cannot go there.
Gedeon’s irritation rose.Vrethian, then! Anywhere, Tanwen! Just anywhere away from here.
Tanwen was quiet for a moment.I understand you are in the midst of a breakdown.She paused.But if you snap at me like that again, I may have to do the same to you as I did to your brother.
Gedeon, despite feeling like his entire life had been thrown in the Emor and was smouldering before his very eyes, almost laughed.Noted.
He did not look nostalgically back at the home they soared away from. The moment he had withdrawn his flames from Phaenon city, his fate had been sealed.
Dracyg was home no longer. There was no going back now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tea
???
Blythtrie Bay, Capital of Loros.
Kyra.
The sheer crystalline brightness of Blythtie’s coastal waters did not seem real to Kyra. TheThileneglided through turquoise silk surrounding Loros’ capital, and her eyes were glued to the depths below, an aquatic world of magnificence where fish of every kind darted as one in their varying shoals. She’d even spotted a mushroom-like creature made of jelly with long arms of string, just bobbing along and minding its own business.
Oh, to be that fish of jelly. To just exist with no worries. No responsibilities.
The coast of Avaldale was like a mud pool in comparison to these waters and there was a very dominating part of her that wanted to jump off the ship and feel that saltiness hold her.
Damar might burst a blood vessel if she did. She swallowed down the impulse.
They weren’t heading for Blythrie’s main harbour. Damar had made his conditions for this voyage very clear: he would pull the ship in off the west coast of the city into a hidden cave, save the Lorish authorities spotting the deviants and raising an alarm.
Even from this distance however, the great city sitting on the shore was clearly visible.
But it was not a pretty sight.
The fine, white sand beach had been ruined, in Kyra’s opinion, by the monstrosity that stood off the back of it. A metal giant slumbered on the sand, dull and grey and completely annihilating the naturalbeauty around it. A faint clanging sound carried across the water’s surface all the way from the shore from cogs that consistently moved, a clashing harmony against the rush of white horses on the water’s surface, or the cawing of seabirds that glided above them.
Avaldale was far from a perfect city… but at least her former home didn’tlooklike a glorified prison.
‘What an eyesore,’ Kyra murmured aloud.
Naal, who was standing beside her, nodded solemnly. ‘In my lifetime I have seen this island change quite drastically. I resent what the King of Blythtrie has made of this land. The Lorish have always been an innovative people… the city itself is powered by great mills that use the power of the tides to its advantage. I will admit, it is an extremely efficient method but-’
‘It looks like shit,’ Kyra finished for her.
Naal’s mouth twitched. ‘Your language is colourful as ever. That was not the word I would have used, but I suppose it works just as well.’
