Lorelei’s plan was for Bothymus to take a stand on the large island above them and draw the two brasses in. Rylan, meanwhile, would fly to the cloud of rocks above and have Vedron spit her acid over the stones. The umbral acid would work against the aura trapped in the stone and cause them to lose their buoyancy, turning them into deadly weapons.
It could work, but it felt rushed. They’d have only seconds to make the plan work. But they’d both agreed it would be just as mad to fight the brass dragons bearing down on them. And fleeing would merely delay the conflict and put Bothymus and Vedron at a disadvantage. They hadn’t even discussed surrender. For Rylan, it was no choice at all—Lorelei might survive incarceration; he likely wouldn’t.
Rylan squeezed the saddle restraints with his legs, grasped the saddle horn with both hands, and bid Vedron fly straight up through the floating islands. Below and to his left, Lorelei pointed to a large island up ahead, and Bothymus swerved toward it.
“There!” she called. “Fly hard!”
Hanging above the island was another, smaller isle with a field of sharp rocks and boulders floating directly underneath it. “You heard her,” Rylan said to Vedron, “let’s show them how fast you can fly.”
Viridians were wickedly fast in short bursts, and Vedron was no exception. She outstripped Bothymus, but Rylan still felt they weren’t moving fast enough. If Lorelei’s plan was going to work, Vedron had to be over the lip of that island and out of sight before the brasses approached.
As Vedron swung higher, the view before Rylan began to change. The dark rocks, the bulbous clouds, and the blue sky grew brighter. Soon his entire field of vision was almost perfectly white and painful to look upon. A glance back showed the shepherds on their brasses closing the distance. One of them, his mace raised high, had glowing eyes.
Below him, Lorelei cried out, “Rylan?” She sounded worried. “I can’t see!”
“Focus on your crop,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Trust Bothymus.” Whether she’d be able to do what was needed or not, Rylan wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t worry about it. He had to concentrate on his part and hope for the best.
Moving carefully but quickly, Rylan reached in the pouch at his belt, retrieved the lucerta he’d used in the library, and placed it on his tongue. By then the shepherd’s spell made it feel like needles were being driven through his eyes. The lucerta’s familiar, pine-and-copper taste assaulted him as he pressed the scale against the roof of his mouth. The pain slowly ebbed and his vision returned to normal, but it was like fighting for air in a raging river. It was a constant struggle. Any small slip in concentration saw his world turning white once more.
Behind him, the shepherds were close on their gleaming brass dragons. He urged Vedron to fly over the edge if the big island. She did so and, when she was out of sight of the shepherds, burst upward. Below, Bothymus plunged over the same ledge. The brasses were only seconds behind, leaving Rylan very little time to reach the cloud of rocks floating beneath the smaller island above him.
Bothymus landed on a snow-covered stretch of ground. He spun about, reared, and spread his wings. Then he screeched and lit his wings, beautiful and fearsome, blazing blues, purples, and yellows expanding in bright, hypnotic swirls.
Vedron turned her head toward the big indurium and stopped beating her wings. She began falling away from the rock cluster toward the big island below.
Rylan bid her, Don’t look at him!
Vedron whirled back up toward the floating cluster of rocks.
Exhalo, Vedron! Exhalo!
She breathed a spray of acid at the rocks. The acid splattered on the rocks, hissing and bubbling, and white smoke rose in a plume.
Again, girl. Keep going.
Vedron breathed another spray over dozens of rocks.
Below, the brasses landed on the edge of the big island. The shepherds averted their gaze from Bothymus and yanked their dragons’ reins to the side.
“Verseo!” bellowed the shepherd closest to Bothymus.
His brass darted at Bothymus, spun, and lashed its tail across Bothymus’s neck, leaving a bloody gash across the big indurium’s silvery blue scales. Bothymus swept his flashing, flickering wings, propelling himself backward, and the attacking brass froze, tilted its head, and just stared at Bothymus’s wings. The other brass spun around and faced away from Bothymus.
Vedron sprayed another stream of green acid, eating through half the cluster of floating rocks. Rylan held his breath against the noxious fumes and urged her to keep going.
The second brass spun toward Bothymus, eyes closed, opened its mouth, and blasted a bolt of lightning at Bothymus. Bothymus roared. His wings ceased flashing and swirling and he dropped to his forelimbs and convulsed.
Once more, girl!
Vedron sent another green spray of umbral acid, noticeably weaker this time, at the stones. The stones began to fall. Stones the size of grapes and plums plummeted down. Rylan had to jerk Vedron’s head away to avoid it being hit. Then bigger stones, the size of wine kegs, began dropping down.
The rocks pounded the ground around the brass dragons and their shepherds, sending halos of earth and snow flying up in their faces. The shepherd who’d cast the blinding spell swung his arm to signal the other shepherd, and a rock the size of a mastiff fell on him. He tumbled from his saddle, limp, bloodied, and the pressure of fighting the spell of blinding vanished. The dead shepherd’s brass skittered away, and another stone, as big as a horse, crunched down on its back, splattering blood out both sides and crushing the creature.
The other brass flapped backward. A falling stone pierced its left wing as it reached the outer edge of the rain of rocks. Then it dropped off the edge of the island, spread its wings, and disappeared below it.
Lorelei and Bothymus stood on the other edge of the island, well away from the rock storm. Bothymus’s chest was still bleeding, but only a trickle. Rylan flew Vedron down to her and bid her follow them. They flew southeast, vaguely toward Ancris. One final look back showed the wounded brass gliding toward a distant isle.
“We should land once we’re sure we’re not being followed,” Lorelei said. “I need to tend to Bothymus’s wound.”
Rylan nodded, and they flew on until Bothymus bellowed and the beat of his wings became erratic; then they glided down to their right and landed in a steep defile—several hours northwest of Ancris, Rylan guessed. Before Rylan and Lorelei had even dropped from their saddles, Vedron approached Bothymus and began licking his wound. Much to Rylan’s surprise, Bothymus stretched his neck and gurgled. When Rylan and Lorelei had dismounted, both dragons lumbered to a stream nestled in the long grass, drank their fill, and curled up to rest.
Rylan gathered branches, built a fire in a clearing between some pine trees, sat beside it, and rested. Lorelei sat across from him and shared some walnuts and dried berries she’d brought in Bothymus’s saddlebags. They sat in silence and ate.
When they were done, Rylan threw more branches onto the fire. “Where do we go from here?”
Lorelei stared into the fire. “We need help, Rylan.”
“I take it you have an idea?”
She glanced at him, then back at the fire. “I do, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I got that impression.”
“We need help,” she repeated, “from Kellen.”
“Ah.”
“He studied the Ruining and the breaking of the Heartstone for years.”
“So go!” Rylan was angry she’d even think of asking him to meet with Kellen. “No one’s stopping you . . .”
“I need you there, Rylan. He needs to hear everything about the chalice and the shrine.”
“There must be someone else who can help.”
“There isn’t.” The firelight played over Lorelei’s face. “I know what Kellen did to you and your family. You have every right to be angry. But we’ve stumbled onto something that’s bigger than either of us. Yeriel figures into this somehow. Maybe the other paragons, too. Alra herself may be involved.”
“Lorelei, I—”
“Your uncle was executed unjustly. I know that. But your aunt . . . her very way of life is threatened by the Hissing Man, Llorn, the Red Knives. I feel it in my bones, and I think you do too. We have to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late, and right now, that means we need Kellen.”
Rylan was too angry to speak. The fire crackled and popped, and he stared at the nub on his left hand. He didn’t want to see Kellen, much less speak to him, but to refuse Lorelei’s request would be to abandon his own people—Aunt Merida, Hollis, Blythe, even the Lyndenfells. He had to go with her, he decided, no matter how he felt about Kellen.
“Fine,” he said.
Lorelei smiled a tentative smile. “You’ll come with me?”
“Yes.”
“Alra’s bright light, thank you, Rylan.” Her smile deepened, crinkling her dimples. “It means a lot to me.”
They laid out blankets, and Lorelei threw a thick branch onto the fire. Bothymus groaned, long and rumbling, and Rylan sang a song of calming for him. He reckoned Vedron needed it as well, and Rylan himself did, too. The very thought of standing in the same room with Kellen was making his scalp tingle and sweat.
A short while later, Bothymus lowered his head to the ground and closed his eyes. Vedron followed, then Lorelei. As Rylan lay on his side, watching the firelight play off Lorelei’s sleeping face and her red hair, he wondered at all they’d been through in such a short time. He wished they’d met under different circumstances. They might have become friends. It was impossible now. Lorelei took betrayals seriously, and the lies Rylan had told her were both numerous and of great import.
He’d go with her to Ancris, do what he could to help her, and then go back to life in the Holt, he decided. Then he rolled away from the fire, pulled his blanket tighter over his shoulders, and went to sleep.