Chapter 3

THREE DAYS LATER

The Northern Road

Sonara

Three days had passed since Sonara was captured, knocked out and bound, and had awoken here, a prisoner among twelve others, her back cramped against the rough wood of a prison wagon as it rocked its way across the northern road.

Three of the twelve were already corpses gone cold. Their eyes were open, staring past the iron bars on the windows as if they’d wanted to catch a glimpse of freedom as their spirits were called home.

It felt like a dream, waking here in the stink of sweat and piss and broken dreams.

Three days, and Jaxon was nowhere to be seen.

The crack of the whip sounded out.

Sonara bumped heads with the man next to her as the steeds hauling the caravan hastened their pace. Outside the barred window, she caught a distant glimpse of the armed guards that had been hired to escort the prisoners from Stonegrave to Deadwood. The wagons snaked along a curve in the makeshift desert road. The escorts, ten on each side of the caravan, rode beautiful beasts from Soreia, backs broad and necks strong, hooves kicking up sand that was picked up by the wind. Endless miles of it.

Sand, and sand and sand, spreading into the ghostly forms of the Bloodhorn Mountains, far beyond.

From here, the desert almost looked like the sea.

When Sonara closed her eyes, she could imagine it; the memory of the waves tugging at her bare toes. The sound of the gulls cawing overhead, the kiss of the salt air upon her lips.

The feeling of waking up from her own death on a distant shore, long ago, with a hazy memory of only spending a short time in the afterlife. She had her new curse as her companion.

And Duran.

Blessed, beautiful Duran.

They’d died together on the rocks, their bodies crushed during the Leaping. But somehow, the steed had come back to life alongside Sonara, unharmed and unmarred. It was like a sweet dream, that moment of waking, of blinking back the sun and seeing Duran step towards her on the shore. As if the goddesses—or whoever was in charge of the realm that held the living—couldn’t bear to see his soul leave the world so soon.

She had no idea why they’d both been brought back.

How they’d been brought back.

Only that they were here, now, and for the past ten years they’d stayed together, wild and free.

Sonara’s memory was broken by the sound of a scream. The mournful kind that ripped apart the soul.

“Goddesses be with them as they go,” a woman across from Sonara whispered.

The scream heightened, turning to muted sobs from the wagon in front of theirs.

Another prisoner had succumbed to death.

“The goddesses can’t hear your prayers,” Sonara said. “And even if they could, I doubt they’d be listening.”

The woman’s whispered prayers fell silent.

Two days more, and they’d reach Deadwood, the prison camp at the edge of the Deadlands, where the rocky Bloodhorn Mountains turned to solid ice. The frozen land dropped straight off into what seemed an endless abyss. There, the prisoners would live the rest of their days carving out a frozen bridge that would span across the miles-long gap that separated the Deadlands and the northern kingdom of the White Wastes.

Sonara would rather die.

She was not fond of the cold.

The whip cracked again. The wagon lurched over a bump in the sand, and a man to Sonara’s left leaned over and spilled his guts onto the wooden floorboards.

The smell of waste, of fear, hung heavy in the air.

Her manacles clinked as she shifted, her wrists red and raw. Each one of the links, shimmering beautifully, was made of diamond, and worth one hell of a prize.

It was also unbreakable.

Unless you had a wyvern that breathed emerald fire hot enough to melt the diamond.

Unfortunate, Sonara thought. For she did have access to such a beast, but Razor’s shadow had yet to darken the skies beyond the wagon.

She looked back at the manacles around her wrists and sighed. “I don’t suppose anyone has a key?”

“Enough,” said the man across from her. His eyes were sunken, his lips cracked and dry.

“It’s a pity, you know,” Sonara said, “if I ever get out of this blasted wagon, I’ll never be able to look at diamonds again.”

When, Sonara told herself. When Jaxon comes to free you.

Her blood brother, her comrade, would never leave her to rot. Markam, perhaps, for he was a different story. But three days? Her troupe had never taken so long before. Perhaps her plan, her last shred of hope as she took a stand on that mesa, had failed her.

Sweat trickled down her skin, pooling at the small of her back. Each breath felt heavier, more labored than the next. But come nightfall, her teeth would set to chattering. Her very bones would quiver inside of her skin.

She sighed and looked back to the prisoner across from her. “Tell us, friend. What did you do to get a one-way ticket to the north?”

As she spoke, a tendril of deep blue-and-brown hair slipped from her braid and tickled her nose.

The man looked her over as if he were searching for a secret.

He would find nothing but scars, for Sonara shared no secrets, and gave no tells. That was how one survived in the Deadlands. And you couldn’t simply see a Shadowblood. There was a reason they were told only as tall tales around campfires.

Sonara had tried to find others.

She’d never discovered any but the ones in her troupe.

“I killed a girl for asking too many questions,” the man said. His smile was dark and toothless. “She was small like you.”

Sonara raised a brow. “I have nothing to fear from a man in chains.”

He barked out a dry, humorless laugh. “I like you, Blue.”

A veiled threat, and one she’d have to watch out for, should the wagon make it to Deadwood with her aboard. Many of the people here were criminals. Killers. The worst the Deadlands had to offer. They didn’t feel fear, for they themselves bred it and carried it like a torch.

Deep inside, Sonara’s curse wriggled, begging to come out. Only a tiny taste, it whispered.

Every emotion and feeling had one, something that Sonara could breathe in and savor as plainly as if it were placed right on her tongue. She hated to use her curse; her sense, this strange trait that marked her second life. She hated the way it overcame her, caused her pain each time she used it, as if it were a tiny beastie that burrowed deeper into her body the more she lengthened its leash. Long ago, she’d learned how to control her curse, to press it deep inside a mental cage.

But that didn’t stop it from reaching its little shadow-claws through the bars to swipe at her when it hungered most. It eased out towards the man, wanting to savor his aura.

A sharp, iron tang, like blood, as if his soul was soaked with it.

A murderer’s aura.

“I work alone,” Sonara said, holding his gaze without backing down.

“We’ll see about that, Blue.” He smiled a cold, unfeeling smile. “Go on, then. Share your tale. What brings a little lady like you to the north?”

He was goading her now. Perhaps she would let him have the truth.

“I stole Jira’s golden sword,” Sonara said with a yawn.

The man chuckled, light reaching his eyes. “You tell an interesting tale, Blue.”

Sonara felt the eyes of the others sliding to her. As if they were coming back to life for the first time in days.

She’d last seen Gutrender on Jaxon’s side, before she’d been taken.

She hoped, hell, even she was almost ready to pray, that nothing had gone wrong. And if something had happened to her steed along the way, she’d turn Jaxon and Markam inside out.

Soon.

They would come soon.

“She lies,” the woman on the far side of the wagon scoffed. “The Devil wouldn’t be caught alive, and forced into a prison wagon.”

“The Devil?” another asked.

The woman nodded. “Heard tell of it just before they picked me up in Rothollow. The Devil stole the king’s sword!” A few nods of approval followed. The woman coughed and glanced at Sonara with hollow eyes. “But this girl is just a stray sea urchin from the south. Nothing more.”

Sonara barked out a laugh at the insult. If she wasn’t chained, she would show the woman exactly what a sea urchin’s sting felt like. But she was weaponless. She may as well have been naked without her sword.

The Devil of the Deadlands, Sonara thought. Doomed to die.

If her troupe really had forgotten her, she’d haunt them from the afterlife.

She wasn’t truly afraid. And yet, she couldn’t help the image that slid into her mind at the thought of a final death. A quest unfinished.

A face that materialized, long removed from her life, but never forgotten.

The face looked like hers, but it was older. Male, and handsome, with a square jaw and perfect Soreian blue eyes and hair to match.

If she died in the north, she’d lose all chance of finding her brother again. Though sometimes, she wondered if Soahm was already dead.

“What if she’s not lying?” the other prisoner asked. Sonara blinked, and Soahm’s face faded from existence, replaced by the man before her that continued smiling in the shadows. “You say you are the Devil?”

Sonara nodded. “I very well could be.”

“Alright then, Blue. Prove it.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her.

For outside the wagon, something had changed.

Sonara cocked her head to listen. Beyond the wind, beyond the breathing of her companions… the powerful beat of widespread wings cutting through the sky. A sharp screech echoed from afar.

The steeds hauling the caravan whinnied, and everything shifted. Indeed, beyond the barred window, the escorts turned in their saddles, then began to shout as they saw something in the sky.

The word echoed across the caravan, from one escort’s mouth to another’s, until it reached the front driver.

“Wyvern!”

The whip sounded. The wagons began to speed up. Sonara’s head smacked against the person next to her, so hard she sucked in a painful breath. And as she did, her curse snapped loose.

Come back, she begged, but she already knew it would refuse.

Out the wagon window it went, spiraling into the desert as it preyed on everything in sight. She sensed the steeds hauling the whole caravan, their fear sticky and dark as tar on the tongue as the screech in the sky grew louder.

She sensed the corpses in the other wagons, bloated and decaying in the heat.

She sensed the salty tears on someone’s face. The sweat on tightly pressed together bodies, on ruined wrists beneath thick diamond manacles.

Her head throbbed like someone had taken a hammer to it. Her throat burned like she’d contracted a sudden illness.

Still, the steeds tore across the sand, desperately trying to outrun the source of the wingbeats. Dust rose from the wheels, clouding the barred windows, the view of the escorts and their mounts.

“What’s out there?” a prisoner asked. “Why are we speeding up?”

“You want me to prove I’m the Devil?” Sonara asked the others. “First, I suggest you all duck your heads.”

They only had time to scream as a massive set of razor-sharp claws pierced through the roof of the wagon, just over their heads. A mighty roar followed, and the roof of the wagon was ripped away.

Fear.

It was all around her, so thick Sonara couldn’t force the aura back.

But her troupe had come. They’d come for her, just as she’d hoped they would.

The twin suns were like daggers in her eyes, the sudden absence of shadows utterly jarring. Sonara blinked, a triumphant cry building in her.

For there overhead, soaring across the endless desert sky, was Razor, Markam’s mighty wyvern as black as the night. The roof of the wagon still clutched in her jagged talons. She released it, sent it tumbling down from the skies.

The escorts, galloping across the sand, had drawn their swords and shields. But they would be useless against Razor.

Sonara had never been so happy to see the hideous beast. For there on her back was Jaxon and Markam, alive and well. Together, the brothers and the beast were a force of fire and flight, working in synchronized glory as they fought to free the prisoners below.

Sonara could sense the wyvern’s fire before she released it: a spark, building to a flame, the thickness of smoke spilling from mighty lungs before Razor opened her massive jaws and sent a pillar of green flame down towards the wagon at the front of the caravan.

The wagon exploded. The steeds’ harness melted at its touch, and they tore off across the desert, free at last, the very ground shaking under their feet.

Sonara cheered, her heart racing in her chest, blood roaring in her ears as the rest of the caravan finally came to a rolling stop. The chains around her wrists bit at her skin as she tried in vain to free herself. She wanted out. She wanted to fight.

Razor banked again, screeching so loud Sonara felt it in her bones. The wyvern stretched out her talons, tucked her wings in tight, and dove straight for the escorts, who hefted their swords and readied for a fight they could not win.

One lifted a crossbow and shot.

The arrow spiraled towards Razor, who dipped sideways with ease, then continued her chase.

The steeds below skittered sideways, bleating in fear. Two of the guards were thrown overboard, their steeds abandoning them to tear off into the desert.

Razor roared again, jaws wide and smoke pluming from her nostrils. She landed effortlessly upon the sand and spread her wings high above her, barbed tail spraying the grains like droplets of a crashing wave.

There atop her sat Jaxon, with his wide-brimmed leather hat pulled low over his eyes. Markam was just behind him, a shade taller, both wearing brown leather dusters that settled behind them like capes. They dismounted, boots softly scraping up the sand as they approached the guards.

Razor growled, but Markam held up a gloved hand. She fell silent, smoke pluming from her nostrils. If she released too much of her fire too soon, she’d burn out like a candle, and be useless when they needed her most.

The guards dismounted and formed a circle around the brothers as they stopped fifty paces away.

Back to back, they stood. Two sentries ready to strike fear in the hearts of those who dared cross them.

“Stand down!”

The largest guard, a man with a red braid hanging down his back, hefted a sword that was made of black Deadlands iron. Supple material, though not as strong as Soreian steel.

It was so quiet, Sonara had forgotten she sat in a wagon full of other prisoners, who watched with breaths held; a wagon full of murderers and thieves and madmen, too fearful to utter a single noise as they watched.

“Stand down?” Jaxon’s chuckle danced across the desert sand, carried towards Sonara on a gust of dry wind. She breathed in his aura, the fearlessness, strong as a freshly brewed cup of hauva in the morning. “You have something of ours. And we never leave without getting what we want.”

“These prisoners are the property of the King of the Deadlands,” the guard growled.

Markam smiled, a cruel thing that had Sonara’s insides twisting. “Brainless beasts, the king’s guards,” he said in his casual drawl. “This fight is dull, Jaxon. Show him the way the bones call to your blood.”

Jaxon lifted his hands, then. And all around him, the desert began to quake.

The sands shifted softly as his curse called upon the bones of the dead, begging them to uncover themselves; to shake off the dust, and answer the silent cry.

The bones of an ancient, long-dead fowl appeared, hobbling towards him as it emerged from the sand, wings bent and broken. A desert rat crawled forth from its unmarked grave. The body of a snake, no longer held together by muscle or skin, shaped together and slithered towards him, alive beneath the power coursing in Jaxon’s blood.

“By… by the order of King Jira of the Deadlands,” the head guard stuttered, fear lancing his words now. “Stand… down.”

Jaxon tilted his head sideways. The bones stopped at his feet in shapeless piles. “Free the Devil of the Deadlands, and you’ll walk away from this fight unharmed.”

His eyes flitted past the guards, towards the caravan, where Sonara herself sat waiting, still held by her insufferable diamond chains. The other prisoners watched her with widened eyes, as if they could scarcely believe what they were seeing was true.

“Sonara?” Jaxon cried out. “Now would be a good time to let me know you’re alive in there!”

A smile spread across Sonara’s dry lips. “Alive!” she called back. “And growing impatient!”

With a smile, Jaxon removed his hat and placed it beside him on the sand. It was that act alone, more than the risen bones, that confirmed no one would leave this place alive today.

Jaxon didn’t like to get blood on the old leather. And blood was most certainly about to be spilled.

“Free the Devil,” Jaxon said softly, his scarred face clearly visible now.

The guards did not lower their swords. “Stand down,” the leader said. “In the name of His Majesty King Jira.”

“You had a chance,” Markam told them, with a shrug.

The guard growled and lunged, swinging his blade.

A ripple of the air… and Markam disappeared.

One moment there, gone the next. The guards gasped, the one lunging towards him stumbling as his blade hit only air where Markam had just been.

“Shadowblood,” he growled as he turned his attention on Jaxon instead. “Kill them both!”

Jaxon only lifted his hands.

Like little white missiles, the bones shot forward across the sky, propelled by his power. They sank into the guard’s body like a hundred tiny swords; small femurs and knuckle bones and kneecaps that turned on their sides, the better to slice.

The guard staggered sideways, eyes wide, jaw hanging open in shock as he registered what Jaxon had just done.

Then he fell: a lifeless lump, face first in the sand, useless sword still clutched in his fist.

“Well done, brother!”

Markam reappeared on the edge of the crowd, behind the guards.

They spun, stumbling backwards in fear as his cloak settled around his ankles, like he was a ghost stepping out of an invisible realm.

“KILL THE DEMONS!” a guard shouted.

Sand sprayed as they dove into the fight, half towards Markam, the other half towards Jaxon.

Sonara watched as Jaxon dropped to one knee and spun in a circle, hands held before him as he called upon the bones of the dead. They shot from the sand, arced and twisted through the sky as he himself spun, sending them in a full whirlwind of death.

They sliced through arms and jammed into kneecaps and weakened muscles as the guards fell, practically bleating with fear.

Behind him, Markam fought on; standing in the sand, his arms crossed as he hefted his trademark red dagger and spun it in his hand, jamming it into the thigh of a guard before disappearing in a blink.

Two heartbeats later, he zapped back into existence behind another guard, sliding that crimson dagger across the man’s throat. Blood sprayed, and Markam was gone again. Only the mark of his footsteps shifting the sand revealed his presence as he sprinted across the desert, unseen, to fully form again at Jaxon’s side.

One by one, the brothers of Wildeweb took the guards down until there were only four left.

Two for each brother; the desert around them, littered with bodies that were once proud to be called King’s Men.

But Jaxon was beginning to stagger. Too long, too much of his power used, and he would lose his strength. Sonara saw it in the way his steps began to lose fluidity. The way the sweat was clearly beading on his scarred brow.

He earned a slice to his collarbone.

Sonara cried out as she saw his black blood soar to the sky.

“Come on, Jax!” she growled. “Focus.”

Markam was too busy, preoccupied with taking out the other two, who hefted their broadswords against Markam’s single dagger. He was quick, but he wasn’t as large as them, wasn’t as strong.

“Come on!” Sonara shouted, wishing she could tear herself from her diamond chains, wishing she could run from the wagon and lift her sword and…

She screamed as a guard struck Jaxon in the back.

He stumbled, his face warped in pain even as he sent a bird’s beak flying home into the man’s jugular.

Jaxon fell to a knee, gasping, face twisted in agony. He was burning out. The other guard took the moment to close in on him, had nearly leveled his sword over Jaxon’s neck as the bones around him began to fall from the sky. Markam shouted and tried in vain to get to him, but…

A blast.

A crackle that shook the very sky.

The hair at the end of Sonara’s braid stood on end as a massive burst of blue light, of sparkling electricity, soared across the sand and blasted a hole in the ground. The guards before the brothers soared backwards like falling stars, smoking and charred and utterly, utterly dead.

Sonara gasped as silence spread across the desert.

She turned, slowly, to look towards the left.

As the smoke cleared, two steeds emerged, like specters stepping into the sunlight.

The first was a pale steed, ridden by a woman who looked to be wearing a mask made of a wolf’s skull.

The second was Duran, Sonara’s loyal steed, who’d died with her and came back to life again, ten years ago. On his back sat a woman adorned in a deep red cloak, black hair hanging to her waist, her palms held open before her.

Sonara had to blink a few times to confirm what she was seeing was true.

For the woman’s skin was smoking and charred. Tendrils of still-glowing blue lightning snaked up her wrists—as if she held the power of a storm within her veins.

It didn’t take long for the desert to clear of prisoners.

One by one, Jaxon, wounded but well, went to the wagons and freed them, Razor’s fire melting the massive lock that bound each wagon’s set of chains.

Sonara waited, eyes closed as she leaned her head back and ignored the watching eyes of her fellow prisoners. Finally, finally, there was the clink of chains, a muted curse, and her wagon door fell to the ground.

Sonara coughed as the dust settled, and the prisoner across from her screamed.

Razor’s massive, dripping maw was just inches away. The wyvern released a heavy breath, the smell of death enough to make plants wilt.

But Sonara only smiled. “You do know how to make an entrance, Razor.” The knots in her chest fell free for the first time in three days as the wyvern growled. “It’s good to see you, too, vile beast.” The caravan driver’s dismembered head was held between Razor’s teeth. Sonara grimaced. “Enjoying a treat?”

Razor chomped down on the skull.

There was plenty of merit to choosing Razor. But Sonara preferred the swift gentle soul of her steed.

She felt for that little burning flame inside of her. It was always there, sometimes hotter than others. The most frightening of times, the loneliest of times, it was merely an ember close to cold. It had been so for these three days.

That little flame was Duran’s soul, and it was tangled up with hers. A bond that could not be broken.

Sonara’s blood was replaced with living shadows, the side effects being her curse and a soul connection with Duran. She wished only the latter had remained.

That soul-ember flared bright, signifying his closeness and safety.

“Alright, Sonara?” Jaxon appeared beside Razor as she spewed a breath of green fire. The diamond melted like liquid starlight, pooling and hissing into the sand.

So fast, the prisoners rushed to freedom, shaking off their chains, not caring that their manacles still held. No one uttered a thanks. They were gone before Jaxon could offer to set them free of those, too.

Typical, even for prisoners heading to Deadwood. Nobody wanted to be near a Shadowblood. Not even one that had just saved them from certain death.

The wound on his back wasn’t as bad as she’d originally suspected. It was open, and bleeding, but he’d endured worse before. It was the use of his power that drained him far more.

“Next time, Jax,” Sonara said, relief flooding through her as he smiled and crawled into the wagon, “try not to get yourself killed when you’re saving me. You scared the hell out of me.”

“I don’t fear a second death,” he said with a wink. “I have a pretty close relationship with the Devil herself.”

Sonara cursed under her breath as he worked at her manacles, whistling softly to send tiny bones soaring into the locks of her cuffs. A twist, a sigh from Jaxon as he let the last dregs of his power loose, and the manacles fell free. He smiled up at her, exhaustion darkening his eyes. “If I remember correctly, you’re the one who knocked me out and left me buried in a pile of corpses outside Jira’s castle, leaving my fate to Markam, of all people.”

Sonara winced. That was true. “What did it take, to get him to fly you here to save me?”

Jaxon closed his eyes. “I agreed to another job.”

“Of course,” Sonara said with a groan. Markam never did any good deeds, even for family, without demanding a prize of his own. “No rest for the weary. Did you ask him for details of this job, before you signed the deal in blood?”

Jaxon’s sudden silence, and the way his posture went rigid, was all the answer she needed.

He was helplessly, hopelessly loyal. “Blast, Jax. What have you done?”

“I’ve saved you, for starters,” Jaxon said. “He wouldn’t tell me the details until you were present and accounted for. But whatever it is, Markam has promised a fine prize. The Lady is wealthy beyond measure.”

He glanced behind his shoulder, where the two strange new arrivals sat. The lady in crimson, who still had her hood pulled low over her eyes, stood in the sand beside Duran, staring down at the corpses.

Only the wind pulling at her cloak revealed that she was not made of stone.

Perhaps she’d never killed before. It changed a person; placed a coldness inside of their hearts that no other deed on the continent ever could.

“Come on,” Jaxon said. “One can see that smoke for miles and miles. Jira’s guards will be swift on their way.”

He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in days. And perhaps he hadn’t… but Sonara knew a large part of that exhaustion came from using his curse.

Jaxon’s only worked with the bones of the dead. Beasts were far more common, for the bones of dead Dohrsarans were often buried far, far beneath the earth. To summon the bones of a person would be to call upon every ounce of power inside Jaxon, pushing him too close to a second death.

Every curse had its own twists, its own walls that couldn’t be broken. Sonara’s curse was the same. She could only sense emotions—never manipulate them. She’d only ended up with a massive headache when she’d tried.

The rest of the time, there was pain, a constant ache that just wouldn’t quit. The longer she held her curse within its cage, the more it plagued her. But once she released it, the world was hers to breathe in… until the after-effects kicked in, a dull throb that reminded her she was not entirely normal in this second life.

There was a cost to every curse.

“Well. You’ve a story to tell,” Sonara said. Blast, it would take days to rid herself of the soreness. Jaxon helped haul her to her feet, despite his own exhaustion. His heavy breaths were warm on her cheeks. His aura, comforting as always. A hard, heavy drink after a long day’s ride.

“I need to know everything,” Sonara said. “Starting with her.” She glanced outside the wagon, where the woman wearing a bone mask had pulled the lady in crimson aside, speaking to her in hushed tones. “Shadowbloods don’t come out of hiding. And here out of nowhere, one of the strongest we’ve ever seen just rides into the sunlight to save the day?”

“That would be a side effect of knowing my brother,” he said, eyeing Markam, who was busy digging through the suits of the uncharred King’s Men, likely for any extra coin or bits of gold. Heartless as ever, Markam broke rules that Sonara never would.

She always let the dead lie still.

She still wondered what the afterlife would have been like, if whatever sent her barreling back to live a second life would have just left her alone.

“The sword?” she asked suddenly, still swaying a little on her feet.

Jaxon swallowed. “It’s safe. Stashed in the cache at Sandbank. But I do have this, to tide you over.” Jaxon lifted his duster, revealing a glimpse of a sword tucked carefully into a black scabbard.

Sonara’s heart practically sang at the sight of it. “Hello, gorgeous.”

Lazaris, the menacing black blade with a single stripe of blue running down its center.

Forget diamonds. Blades were a girl’s true best friend.

Sonara strapped Lazaris to her waist, the aura of the sword—that had once belonged to her brother—like a healing balm to her soul.

Blood and metal and bone.

Sonara smiled, and whistled twice, high and loud.

Duran’s ears pricked up, and in an instant, he was trotting towards her, head held high.

Dirt and grime, the after-scent of hard work and summer heat and wheat sprouts, crushed beneath layers of solid teeth.

Beside his aura, Sonara could feel the ember of Duran’s soul heating in her chest, feel his excitement as he tore across the sand. His coat was a blur of red-brown like cavern rocks, his body all muscle on large feathered legs and hooves. In his first life, his eyes were red as hot coals. But now they were dark as a starless night.

The steed was her family, the only family she needed other than Jaxon.

Duran reached her, dark eyes boring into hers, nostrils blowing hot air into her face. Their connection brightened, a certain feeling of rightness sliding into place as she patted him on the small white star in the center of his forehead. Sonara dug her fingers into his dark mane and flung herself onto his back. He snorted as if to say hello, and she was home again in an instant.

“To Sandbank, then?” Sonara said. “Where we’ll receive the terms of this little deal you’ve made with Markam and his strange new companions.”

Jaxon bit his lip. “I did it to save you. I hope you remember that, when we discover whatever it is that I’ve signed us up to do.”

“Markam saved us both,” Sonara said, as she watched Markam climb atop Razor’s back. He whistled, waving for Jaxon to join him so they could fly south. “I’m grateful… however damned we might be, in his debt again.”

Markam was a Trickster. A liar. A true Shadowblood, who cared not for the lives of anyone other than himself. He hadn’t saved them out of the goodness of his heart. No, there was always a second layer to his actions; a driving force that made his heart beat so cold.

“Onwards, then,” Jaxon said.

“Do me a favor?” Sonara asked, as Jaxon walked away, heaviness treading with him across the sand. “When you’re up there, high above the clouds… push your brother off. Then we’ll have no debts to pay.”

Jaxon only chuckled, and went to join Markam and Razor. He climbed slowly atop her, just barely settling himself before Razor leapt into the skies. With each mighty beat of her wings, the wyvern rose until she was a mere speck in the distance.

Sonara watched the brothers go, chewing on her lip. Frustration threatened to build within her, but she forced it down. She trusted Jaxon. He was her counterpart, nearly as much as Duran. He’d earned that trust through fire and blood, over the course of ten years traveling together. Never once had he betrayed her. Markam, on the other hand…

Sonara sighed, her attention turning to the pale steed as both ladies galloped away. “Whatever you’ve gotten us into with them Jax, whoever they are… it had better be worth the fight.”

She looked back at the wrecked caravan, the roofless wagons with smoke still snaking into the sky, the bodies of the fallen guards scattered around it.

Then she clicked her teeth and urged Duran forward.

She rode, on and on into the blazing suns, with the distant shadow of Razor’s wings above them, the sharp kiss of her sword at her side, and the taste of sweet freedom on her tongue.