Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
“And what happens when we reach this mountain?” I ask.
“There are caves to seek shelter within. The Azyr have seen them through the bird’s eye. No one dwells up there, though. It is too harsh.”
I frown. “Then how are we to survive there? Will these Azyr look upon our bones through the bird’s eye long after we’ve perished?”
“We do not have to survive there. We must only reach as far as the wroxlik lives and learn if it will carry us out of Udrel.”
My mouth gapes. “That is your plan?” That is what we’ve been riding toward? “We are to negotiate with a wyvern to carry us out? Is she still drunk, or has she gone mad?” I hiss into Tyree’s ear. “Have you ever seen a wyvern before?”
“Not up close. Have you?” she challenges.
“Well … no, but my brothers have. They are terrifying and large and can kill twenty soldiers with a single swoop. There is no negotiating with a beast like that.” I scoff. “You may as well invite a daaknar to tea.”
“I do not know of this daaknar.”
“It is a demon! One of Malachi’s pets.” I nudge Tyree’s thigh, goading him to echo my concerns about Destry’s brilliant scheme.
“Can you control a wyvern—or wroxlik—as you do the crows?” he asks instead.
“I have never tried it before. Birds are easy, but other creatures are not. Some are too wise and you cannot guide them at all, and others you must be close.”
“How close?”
“Usually, to be that close to a wroxlik means you are already dead. No conjurer has done it to my knowledge, but I will try. I have nothing left to lose.” She says this as if she’s trying out a new hobby.
“Fates, we are going to die,” I mutter, earning Tyree’s chuckle.
“Inez once told me a tale of wyverns carrying passengers within their claws. The seers painted the illustrations. No one believed them, but I always wished it to be true.”
“Maybe you will be the first,” Destry says.
“Maybe we will be the first,” he corrects.
“Can it even carry three people at a time?” I ask.
“I have seen one shred three people at a time.”
I let out a strangled sound.
“Inez also said that the wyverns are thought to be Vin’nyla’s pets, carrying out her misdeeds.”
“Such as?” I ask.
“She never said. I’m sure there are fascinating stories.”
The clearing ends, and we are forced back to single file as the trail is absorbed by a swath of trees and ground cover that allows for little light. Tyree takes the lead, guiding our horse through the thick bramble of thorny vines.
I pick off a burr that clings to my cloak, wincing at the pinch. “This path does not get much use, does it.”
“More than I would like,” he whispers, pointing to impressions in the forest floor, one where a boot sank into the moss, another where something else sank. Something large, with claws that gouge.
“How fresh are those tracks?”
“Too fresh.” He draws a dagger from its sheath.
Unease slips down my spine as I twist in the saddle. “Did you check this area—” A scream tears from my lungs as I lock eyes with the beast slinking up behind Destry, she and her horse oblivious to their impending doom.
The next few seconds happen almost too fast for me to process. Tyree is out of the saddle, launching his dagger. It strikes the creature in its chest. The beast’s resulting screech reminds me of the daaknar that night in the sanctum, after it bit Romeria, so shrill it scatters the birds roosting on branches.
Somehow in all of this, the reins landed in my hands. Tyree slaps my horse’s rump, sending it rushing forward, away from immediate danger.
I crane my neck to watch behind me, frightened for him.
Destry follows, trusting her horse, her eyes closed and her pendant in her fist.
Tyree draws two swords.
But the creature has vanished.
“Where is it?” He spins on his feet, searching the bushes desperately.
My pulse pounds in my ears, though I’m not sure I’m breathing anymore. “Destry, where is it?”
Movement in my peripheral snaps my head to the right. My scream sits in my throat, unable to escape as it steps out from behind a tree, a low growl creasing its snout.
Tyree dives forward to place himself between us, his blades up.
It stands several heads taller than him, tufts of gray hair sprouting over its gangly body. The claws at the end of its arms are shaped like hooked daggers, surely capable of carving open torsos with a single swipe. Broken chains hang from its wrists.
But it’s not attacking. It’s easing forward on its hind legs as if in a daze, Tyree’s dagger protruding from its chest.
Destry is controlling it, I realize.
“Kill it!” I hiss. “Before she loses her hold, and those claws leave you looking like Ezra.” Or worse.