Two dark spirit Ravens had her in their grasp as Victore rode on their shoulders – one foot on each back. Beside him, Wing Ivo rode Harpy, his eyes bright and desperate.
“Climb higher!” he roared. “Higher, Victore.”
“Trouble. Misery. Hold on,” Victore growled.
“You have the strength,” Ivo called to him. “In the records, it says you carried four men out of battle when they were surrounded.”
“Four,” Victore muttered. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t have to remember,” Ivo assured them as they soared upward. “You just need to let them remember.”
I blinked and I was back in my body, struggling to my feet. The fire roared toward the city as the air from the sea rushed past to feed the flame. I tried to move and stumbled again to my knees. I felt a buzzing in my hand and opened my fist, twisting my head behind me to look. The bee who had been with Raquella lay crumpled in my hand.
I concentrated and absorbed it back inside. It had done well, but my heart was plummeting. I felt blind without my bees watching for me. Blind and deaf and frozen in terror.
Juste made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, leaned over, and cut the bonds around my hands. “Stay close to me, Empress.”
Claws formed up around us as if they could defend us from the madness of the flames. All I saw were blue backs as they hurried us to the carriage. Above us, Spirit birds flew frantically back and forth over the city.
Everything happened in a flurry of activity and just as I was tossed into the carriage I was rocked by another vision from my last bee.
He flew so erratically that it was hard to see clearly. The gusts of smoke and flame didn’t help. And then I saw him. Osprey.
He was running through the Forbidding, the flames chasing after him. And he was on foot because in front of him Os flew low and grim, bigger than I’d ever seen him before. On his back and on his wings were balanced all my nieces and nephews, clutching each other with terror in their eyes.
I couldn’t see my sisters or my in-laws. Fear clutched my heart and with it, a stabbing sense of pain and certainty. They would have gladly sent the children with Osprey if there was any chance of saving them. They would have gladly offered their own lives.
I was sobbing now, and hiccupping as the flames grew closer and closer, so close that they were licking the back of Osprey’s clothes. Os couldn’t hold him, too, and yet if he died in the flames, his magic would fade and the children would fall.
I gripped something – I didn’t know what – with all my might and sobbed.
And for the first time, it wasn’t fear or anger that welled up in me with the buzzing of the bees, it was pure, powerful love, soaring out from me and pouring through the bee that was tasked to watch Osprey.
“Please, please, please,” I begged my bees. “If I could have anything it would be this. Please, this one last thing.”
I concentrated on that one bee and focused all my longing, all my hope through his small frame and suddenly he was multiplying as my bees poured from him – rather than from me. They roared outward in a cloud, soaring toward Osprey and snatching him up from the flames in a swarm of coordinated bodies. They lifted him and carried him forward, toward Os, and then beside Os and together, the bird and the bees – one glowing purplish-white and the other a bright gold – lifted into the sky above the Forbidding, speeding over it.
There was a patch of green ahead and a town with a river. I could just make it out from here. Could they make it that far?
Flight of wind protect us, mercy of the skies fly over us, give us peace and protection, let us soar from this terror on the wings of eagles.
I gritted my teeth and forced every last ounce of energy I had into that prayer, into this magic, into all of it. Please, please hold on!
It was as if the folding of the undertrails was back, only instead of being folded inward, I was taking all that compression and spreading it outward, unraveling myself, my energy, my heart and my very soul for my little nieces and nephews and for Osprey. I was the swarm and the swarm was me – one in heart. One in spirit.
I could feel my bees fading as the town grew nearer. They dropped lower and lower over the waving tentacles of the Forbidding.
When, at last, Os passed us and set down in the town square, my heart squeezed with relief. My bees almost had Osprey there. Almost. They were growing weaker. He was just past the last reaching tentacle of Forbidding and dropping in height toward the town.
“Set me down,” he commanded. “I can go on foot from here.”
We hurried to lower him to the field and once he was on his own feet, he snatched one of my bees from the air and cupped it in his hand.
“I’m so sorry, House Apidae,” he said with agonized eyes. “I could save only the children. I swear to you, I will protect them with my life. Not one will be lost.”
Pain tore me from my vision, and I screamed as I lost hold of my bees and they vanished.
I looked up to see Juste with a red hand, looking down on me. He’d slapped me again. We were still surrounded by guards but in some kind of stable. Horses were being saddled and there was bustle all around us.
“Let’s hope that was a Hissan memory and that you have something to share with me.” The crown on his forehead slithered and moved as if it was alive. How was that even possible? I found my gaze riveted to it as he spoke. “No? What a shame. But either way, we cannot delay, Empress. You need to mount up. Don’t worry about the dress. We’ll bring things to change into.”
“We’re going somewhere?” I asked stupidly.
“To the Heart of the Forbidding,” Juste said with blazing eyes. “I’m emperor now. Son of the gods. I will not allow an enemy like that to have purchase on my land.”
“But it’s on fire,” I said, following him out of the coach to the horse a Claw walked over to me. The Claw grabbed my waist and boosted me into the saddle without so much as asking. My hand went up self-consciously to touch the crown on my head. Were we truly going to ride into those flames with crowns on our heads in fancy dress clothing? This was madness.
“You’re the empress, darling,” Juste said with a nasty smile. “You can’t afford to let a little fire stop you now.”
There was nothing to say to that. Because it was complete insanity.
I sat the mare, bit my lip, and prayed for my family. I did not know which of them lived and which of them had died, so I prayed for them all and hoped beyond hope that I would see them again.
My bees were worn out from saving Osprey and my family’s little ones. I was surrounded by enemies. I had no plan for what was to come. But I was Aella and I was House Shrike and no matter what came next, I would be relentless.
READ THE REST OF AELLA’S story in Queen Magic, book five of Empire of War and Wings.
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