A
s the water pulled the sailboat away from Quentin’s dark, partly submerged form, Aryal nearly jumped overboard to swim after him.
It didn’t matter that everything he had said made sense, or that she had agreed with him. He was going to call all the attention to himself, and that meant he would take some damage. That also meant he was taking a serious risk, and she hated leaving him.
Hated
it.
The current ran deep and fast as it swung her around the end of the island. She looked down the length of that side. Holy gods and
fuck,
water broke in white swirls of foam against broken rocks along the coast. There was no place to land the boat.
Then, because she was who she was, she looked up. The broken rocks rose up to a sheer cliff face.
And none of it should matter in the slightest.
She should be able to change into the harpy and fly over every inch of that cursed shore. She screamed out her outrage and pain, silently, hands clapped over her mouth.
Then she pulled her souvenir out of her hair and tied her arrows securely into their quiver. With it slung on her back
along with her unstrung longbow, she flung herself out of the boat and tore through the water, swimming hard toward land.
The water helped by picking her up and flinging her against the rocks. She landed against one partially submerged boulder with a force that knocked the breath out of her, and she twisted and shapeshifted all in one desperate move, clawing at the granite to find some kind of hold before the treacherous, foaming maelstrom pulled her back out to sea.
Struggling to kneel on the slippery boulder, she lunged at the cliff face and clung to it, talons digging into the jagged, crumbling rock as she fought to catch her breath. Her entire right side had absorbed the impact. Bones were bruised, and they throbbed with a fiery pain. Tomorrow she would be black all over.
Face tilted up to her goal, she began to climb. If there wasn’t a fracture in the rock for her to slip her talons into, she made one, driving her hands and feet at the cliff to gouge out enough of a hollow to hold her weight. Climbing was grueling, exhausting work, and her aching wings hung heavily at her back like a ragged parachute, weighing her down.
She was halfway up the cliff when Power flared, and the witch screamed in the distance. Another time she might have savored the sound, but now fear gripped her. She wasn’t far enough up the cliff, wasn’t close enough to the battle. She redoubled her efforts, heart pounding when she felt Power flare again. She recognized Quentin’s signature.
Then Power flared with a different signature.
The witch had found him, and engaged.
Panic drove her through the rest of the climb, and she didn’t pause when she reached the top. Shapeshifting to be rid of her wings, she raced blindly along the edge of a massive, ancient stone building, around a corner and over what must have once been a manicured lawn but was now overgrown with weeds and neglect.
She found a path and took it, even as she reached over her shoulder for the unstrung longbow. A blast of light and Power flared ahead from the direction of the beach. It lit
the ground ahead of her as if hell’s light poured out from a crack in the earth.
Precious seconds flew away as she stopped to brace the bow on one foot and strained to bend the strong, seasoned wood so that she could attach the bowstring. Then she hurtled along the path to the edge of a bluff and looked over a scene that could have been birthed from her worst nightmares.
Quentin and Galya stood several feet away from each other. The witch appeared unscathed.
The light came from Quentin.
An area along his wide chest, one shoulder, his neck and the side of his face blazed with some kind of spell that shone like a beacon in the night. What she could see of his expression was agonized, and his Power flared spasmodically as he struggled to counteract the attack spell. Dark forms writhed along his legs and arms as the shadow wolves gripped him with black teeth.
Oh gods.
She looked at the witch, who stood with her hands on her hips and watched Quentin burn, and she had never hated anybody as much as she did this woman.
Even though the witch’s spell still worked on Quentin, his Power surged. The blast knocked all the shadow wolves away. He flung a hand toward the witch, piercing the air with a deadly missile of Power. The sleek, elegant spell shot toward the witch, who deflected it effortlessly with a twist of her wrist.
Aryal whipped out an arrow from the sodden quiver and notched it, and sighted down the longbow until she was sure she had the perfect shot. Then she loosed it. Despite its speed, her harpy sight could track the arrow’s flight.
Magic flared again, and the arrow curved away from the witch. Galya looked over her shoulder, up the cliff and straight at Aryal, her expression filled with surprise, then contempt.
Beyond the witch, blazing in light and blackness, Quentin fell to his knees.
The spongy finger in Aryal’s head pointed to a new placard.
Lose-lose.
She went to a place inside of herself where she had never been before, a place that even she recognized was insane.
That’s okay.
She nodded. Shook her head. Nodded. She turned and jogged away.
When she reached the tree line, she pulled her short sword, turned around again and ran at the bluff, pushing as hard as she could to hit her maximum speed. As she reached the edge of land, she lunged into the air, shapeshifted and spread out her maimed, half-healed wings.
Searing pain ripped through her.
She couldn’t fly, and she couldn’t glide, but she could work on directing her descent. So that’s what she did.
That’s okay, bitch.
Repel this.
Galya had turned back to Quentin for one critical moment. The harpy smiled as she plummeted down, her body listing crookedly. When all was said and done, her life might come down to this: she was just broken enough to fall in exactly the right way.
When the witch caught sight of her, Galya had no time to cast another spell. There was one bittersweet moment when Galya’s expression flared with astonishment and the beginning of fear. She opened her mouth to scream.
Aryal slammed into Galya, driving her into the sand. They landed badly in a tangle.
Things snapped inside of her, explosions of more searing pain in the ruins of her internal landscape. Her breath came in on a high thin whine.
Blackness surrounded her as shadow wolves attacked. Even more pain flared as the first one sank its teeth into her shoulder. She shrieked and convulsed into a shapeshift, reverting to her human form that wore the Elven armor just in time before the others arrived. Some hung by their teeth off the Elven armor. A few burrowed in between the plates, looking to chew through the armor’s fastenings.
None of it mattered as her attention narrowed to accomplishing
one thing. The only way to stop her now would be to kill her.
Galya moaned as she tried weakly to pull herself out from underneath Aryal’s body. Clearly the witch was hurt, but she wasn’t hurt badly enough, as she gathered her Power to throw another spell.
Aryal punched her in the face. The witch’s gathering Power splintered. Bone crunched as the witch’s head rocked back, and blood spurted from her mouth and nose. It felt so
necessary,
Aryal punched her again. Vaguely she realized that crazypants had taken charge of the fight.
The two blows alone might have killed the human, but the shadow wolves still swirled around her, and crazypants was determined to be thorough. She saw her short sword lying tilted in the sand a few feet away, along with her abandoned bow. She crawled to the sword and grabbed it. Something was wrong with her hand. It wouldn’t close around the hilt properly. It was almost too difficult to crawl back to the witch’s sprawled body, but she managed it.
The largest shadow wolf lunged desperately at her arm as she raised the sword, but the Elven armor held against his gnashing teeth.
She plunged her sword into Galya’s chest.
Multiple screams echoed in her head. All the shadow wolves
snapped
out of existence.
Crazypants pulled out the sword and stabbed the witch again. She said hoarsely, “That’s for what’s-her-name who died in prison because you put her there.”
And again. “That’s for Quentin, who better not be dead.”
And again and again and again, driving the sword into the body as her breath sawed raggedly. She raised and angled the sword, and in one wide sweep that set her overstrained back ablaze with agony, she cut off Galya’s head. Then she picked the head up by the hair and flung it into the water. “That’s for me and each one of my wings, you fucked-up, perforated bitch.”
Somewhere nearby, someone coughed, a deep hacking sound.
Quentin said in a hoarse, unrecognizable voice, “Remind me to never piss you off so badly.”
He seemed to pause to think about that. Or maybe he was just gathering his strength so that he could utter another word.
“Again.”
Q
uentin lay on his back. He had no idea his body was capable of producing so much pain.
He felt like he was still on fire, all across his chest and shoulder and up one side of his face. Even his lungs felt burned, and he couldn’t see out of one eye.
All told, he was pretty happy. He hadn’t thought he was going to survive.
Movement drew his attention. He rolled his head to one side and squinted as Aryal crawled lopsidedly toward him. One of her legs dragged uselessly behind her, and she was drenched in blood. She collapsed in a huddle beside him.
He coughed again. Red stars bloomed at the back of his eyes with every excruciating hack. “Any of that blood yours?”
“No,” she said. “Not much, anyway. But I’m broken up six ways to Sunday.”
“All you still got is bitching and moaning?” he said. “You’ll live, sunshine.”
And thank all the gods for that. When he had seen her throw herself off the bluff, he felt as if his brain might rupture and leak out his ears. He dragged his hand across the sand toward her. Her fingers closed over his.
“And you?” she asked urgently. “You look really bad, but you’re no longer glowing in the dark. That’s good, right? Tell me that’s good.”
Galya had thrown a corrosive spell. At first he had been able to block it, but it had eaten through both the armor and his defenses before he could neutralize it. Dizzy and lightheaded, he tried to cough again and whispered, “There’s something wrong with my lungs.”
Fear strangled her voice. “I had to jump overboard and
swim too, and I forgot to grab my bag with the food and the healing potion. Where’s yours?”
“End boat, first pier.”
His pain was receding, along with consciousness. He wondered if he was going to wake up again. Whatever the reality would be, he was glad it had held off so he could party a little bit.
Although he would have preferred something booked at Sardi’s, with Aryal on his arm—okay, at his side—and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Maybe if he lived, he could talk her into wearing a miniskirt if she paired it with a switchblade and combat boots. One corner of his mouth tried to lift up. Be worth that fight to look at her killer legs and anarchistic smile. Damn, she was a hell of a ride.
He squeezed her fingers and fell into darkness.
Liquid gold trickled down his raw, burned throat. He swallowed reflexively once, twice, then erupted into coughing, and that hurt so bad it brought him back awake.
“Goddammit,” somebody said miserably. “It’s all about you again, isn’t it? Wake up and drink this right now, do you hear me? I hurt so bad, and I’m so tired, and all I want is another hug from you,
AND YOU CAN
’
T DIE ON ME, QUENTIN, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE THE FINAL FUCKING STRAW! I SCREWED UP MY WINGS EVEN MORE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE, YOU ROTTEN SON OF A BITCH. PARAGLIDING IS A STUPID IDEA, AND I
’
M
DONE,
I
’
LL BE SO
DONE
IF YOU DIE
! DONE
!”
It was definitely something, to have a harpy throw a screaming shit fit in your face. Just about enough to wake the dead. Her powerful lungs drove each word like a railroad spike into his head. It was like the worst hangover ever times a thousand.
He whispered, “I know I’ve already bought you, but do you by any chance come with a snooze button?”
“Shut up,” she sniveled. “You suck. Drink the rest of this.” Her ragged breathing sounded in his ear as she lifted his head with one trembling hand and nudged his lips with the rim of a small bottle.
Half-conscious as he was, he still remembered how
precious that bottle was, and he closed his lips firmly around it so that none of the liquid could escape. She tilted the bottle, and he drank the contents down.
Power glided into his body and started to supernova. She held another bottle to his mouth, and he drank that too, then a third, as quickly as he could just before an upsurge of pain hit.
It ran over him like a steamroller, the Power of the healing potions working through his body to repair extensive damage. It might save his life if it didn’t kill him first. His lungs felt like they had been pumped full of napalm, and he arched his back as he struggled to breathe. For years afterward, he would wake up from nightmares of drowning and suffocation.
Aryal bent over him, supporting him as best she could with one arm as she laid her cheek against his good one, whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t fight so hard, it’ll pass in a moment. It’s going to be okay.”
Shuddering, he concentrated on the sound of her voice until finally the pain began to recede, and he sagged against her. His lungs still felt raw and tender, but he no longer felt like he was smothering.
Vision began to return to his healing eye, and as he looked up at her, she came halfway in focus. At some point she had ditched her breastplate, and he rested against her torso. Her gaze was hollowed out again, and she looked beyond exhausted. Her sleeveless tunic was torn, and she was filthy, sandy and still covered in blood. Underneath the blood at her shoulder, her skin looked purple with a gigantic bruise.