Chapter Twenty-Three

MY HANDS ON her waistline and hers clutching at my forearms, Evelyn and I stand together on the edge of the Plains, staring out of the barrier into the Forest where we first locked eyes.

It is all about to burn.

Another series of earthquake-causing thuds erupts as the air in front of us shudders with a sickening yellow explosion. The barrier flickers.

“They can’t get in,” I tell Evelyn, trying to keep my voice steady and failing miserably. She nods, but her eyes aren’t on mine. She’s staring at the Commander of the Mach, just a flutter away from us. The barrier hasn’t been penetrated. He can’t see us yet. But he is so close to us. I can see the sweat gathering on his temples and the vicious gleam in his eyes. My stomach rolls over.

Reve.

I guide Evelyn away from the border, my hands still on her waist.

There is a reprieve, a moment where all I hear is our breath and Mom and Mama fighting with Aon, all but shoving him out into the Forest, away from the Mach, with Osley. Away from the attack zone. To tell the others what is happening, if they don’t already know. If they haven’t already been killed trying to stop the invasion.

Aon is screaming that he’s not a young one anymore, but he’s losing the fight. I tune out his screams because they sound too much like Blaze’s death. Mom and Mama will get him away, to safety.

Evelyn’s chest is rising and falling in time with mine, her nails digging into my forearms. Zaylam’s shadow over us comforts me. But not for long.

Because the next moment, the ground itself is rent open. I fly up instinctively, pulling Evelyn with me. We look down, and the earth itself is coming undone. Root after agonized root is breaking free of the ground, writhing like massive, solid worms. Zaylam, Gimla, and the rest of the dragons roar like their scaled throats are on fire. The sound makes it hard for my wings to keep holding Evelyn out of the way of the flailing roots.

I’ve never seen trees in pain so intense that they uproot themselves, but I can’t see what’s causing it. “What—” I start to shout at Kashat, who’s dodging roots and looking terrified a few flutterdrops from us.

In answer to my question, Evelyn points below quickly before grabbing hold of me again. I renew my grip on her and look in the direction she pointed to.

The Mach have abandoned their spell work. They’re split up now into two groups. One is several flutters back, in attack formation, swords and axes drawn. The other, farther group is shooting arrows into the barrier. When they hit, their tips burst into thick, pink droplets.

Faerie blood.

The barrier is flickering. They’ll be inside soon.

“Zay!” I shout. My body contracts with fear, and I can’t see what’s in front of me. But then she’s at my side. She, too, is shaking so violently she keeps knocking Evelyn and me almost out of the air. But when Zay sings, her voice is steady, rising so all the Plains can hear.

 

The Mach will break through

Swords in flesh soon

But dragonkind has friends with magic

Too

The Mach burn the Plains

The faye shoot water from their veins

Dragonkind must circle now

All in formation

How

The Mach will break through

Swords in flesh soon.

 

Gimla and the others take it up like a soothing battle cry, full of determined serenity instead of the ferocity that nons go to battle with. Harlenikal joins in with more verses, on and on until the Plains is full to the brink with dragon songs, most of the singers revolving in a circle above our heads, ready to dive when the Mach come through.

“They look like birds of prey,” Evelyn shouts over the din, flexing her fingers, preparing to unleash battle magic.

“They’re not,” Kashat yells back, though he looks equally mesmerized. “They won’t kill any of them on purpose. That’s what your people don’t understand about dragons. They’re more peaceful than we are, usually.”

We dodge more flailing roots. Kashat draws his labor axe, and there are tears mixed with the sweat on his face as he looks back down at the Mach.

He grabs my forearm. “If I die, tell your brother—”

But I can only imagine what message he wants me to send, because there is a throaty shout under us. The Mach have broken through.

Evelyn starts to speed down toward them, pulling me along, but I yank back against the wind current the passing dragons are creating.

“Please don’t,” I beg her, shouting to be heard amidst the clashes of metal on metal, metal on flesh. Amidst the screaming.

“Are you fighting?” she shouts impatiently, putting both hands in mine.

“This is my family,” I choke out, tears streaking my cheeks.

Her trembling hands move to frame my face as I clutch at her waist.

“Then we’ll protect each other, Sadie. We’ll get through this, you understand me?”

I can’t answer. I hear my moms shouting as they twist the Energies below us, and Zaylam’s battle song thuds in my ears.

Evelyn kisses my lips fiercely. I forget how to breathe. Her wet eyes meet mine.

“We’ll protect each other,” I agree.

She gives me a quick, small smile and touches her forehead to mine.

She looks down briefly, screws up her face like she’s calculating something, and wills me to let her free fall out of the sky.

I yell, but she lands, as she planned, on Zaylam’s back. Zay arches her tailfin around to swoop her off and safely deposits her onto the ground. I’m about to fly down to where Evelyn is, but then Zaylam, above her, screams.

She’s thrown herself in front of Jorbam as a wave of fire sparked by four soldiers working as one cascades toward Jorbam’s trunk. Her shrieks rent the air as her chest and underbelly blister open and burst into flames. Evelyn, Mama, and I send cooling water her way out of our own bodies, extinguishing the flames, but there are so few of us and so many of them, and there is only so much bending the Energies can take before they snap. Mama is yelling something I can’t understand, but I make out one word—Xamamlee. The name of her hatchling dragon. Who died the last time they attacked the Plains.

Gimla yanks Zaylam away, dragging her by her tailfin with his teeth, and I fly up to Mama and shake her by the shoulders. Her face is streaked with dirt, Zaylam’s blood, and tears. I don’t want to know what my face looks like.

She nods at me and kisses me briefly on the forehead. “You keep yourself safe, Sadie, you understand me?”

I nod and turn as Kashat shouts my name. He tosses me a fae glass sword.I don’t know where he got it from, and I can’t stop to ask. I don’t ask, either, when Aora got here, because she’s at Kashat’s side, the two of them fighting off three soldiers together. That must mean Aon’s flown with Osley to safety, spread the word. Relief pools in my stomach even as I catch the sword and swing my eyes around, desperately seeking Evelyn amidst the rising smoke. I vaguely register Ezrae, a deer elder who often brings us information from Lethe, who is dodging arrows to run for more help. I wrench the Energies into a shield around him as he gallops and I spend a satisfied moment as arrows deflect off of him and speed back to their shocked and scattered senders.

The moment I take is too much. I hear Evelyn’s scream and I speed toward the sound. On the way, I feel the pull of Energies caused by my growns fighting near me, above Aon.

Aon’s back. Mama is yelling something at him as she raises protective spells around him with her wiry arms. Aon. In battle. My baby brother.

He’s never looked so small.

But Mama’s protecting him. She has to. I keep flying, coughing in the smoke, toward the sound of Evelyn’s scream.

Armed only with magic against soldiers with both metal weapons and magic, Evelyn is holding her own well. But she’s surrounded.

I shout her name and tug the Energies into a gust of wind directed at the soldier nearest her, knocking him over. I keep speeding toward them, but they keep coming. They slash at her with spells and with sharp metal.

Nothing else exists.

I will be too late.

I yank the Energies into spells. They are not falling properly. Everyone is moving too fast, faster than our training prepared us for, faster than I can think. One of the soldiers is bringing down his sword, slashing toward Evelyn’s chest.

She doesn’t see him—she’s busy sending waves of water toward the tree nearest her, coughing in all the smoke. She doesn’t hear me shouting.

 

THE GRATING SQUEAK of non metal on faye glass slams into my ears, and the world speeds up to regular time again. The soldier’s sword is not buried in Evelyn’s flesh. It is swinging down, down. Unsuccessfully.

Because his sword is being held off by Lerian’s axe.

My heart soars, almost bursting out of my chest.

“Sadie, either get her another weapon or get her out of her,” Lerian shouts as she thrusts his sword away and launches her axe at him. He cowers; with her powerful centaur lower body, she is much, much bigger than he is.

Lerian whinnies and rears up on her hind legs, brandishing her front hooves at him. “More of us are on the way, horse-killer! Not so much fun when we’re not chained down, huh?” But more Mach are approaching, beginning to surround even Lerian, who is now reared back to back with Evelyn.

“Hey, faerie! Might wanna wipe that smirk off your face and come help us out here!” Ler yells as she swings her axe wildly at the jumpy non soldiers around her.

I realize with a jolt that I’m frozen, smiling on a battlefield that was home mere moments ago.

“On three!” I shout as I speed toward them. Evelyn nods and Lerian whoops. I shout the countdown, flying up and forward, and on three, Lerian rears up wildly. Evelyn and I take advantage of the Mach’s distraction to knock a few of them unconscious with an enchanted gust of noxious wind aimed at them from either side.

I laugh with our temporary triumph, and then I am doubled over, free-wheeling out of the sky.