Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3)(38)

The wyvern shifted, its body warm against her cold legs, and Manon tightened her gloved grip on the reins. Down the line, her sentinels mounted their beasts. Asterin was ready, of course, her cousin’s gold hair tightly braided back, her fur collar ruffling in the biting wind from the open drop ahead of them. She flashed Manon a grin, her dark, gold-­flecked eyes bright. Not a trace of fear—­just the thrill.

The beasts knew what to do, the handlers had said. They knew how to make the Crossing on instinct alone. That’s what they called the sheer plunge between the two mountain peaks, the final test for a rider and mount. If the wyverns ­couldn’t make it, they’d splatter on the rocks far below. With their riders.

There was movement on the viewing platforms on either side, and the Yellowlegs heir’s coven swaggered in, all of them smiling, none more broadly than Iskra.

“Bitch,” Asterin murmured. As if it ­weren’t bad enough that Mother Blackbeak stood on the opposite viewing platform, flanked by the other two High Witches. Manon lifted her chin and looked to the drop ahead.

“Just like we practiced,” the overseer said, climbing from the open-­faced pit to the viewing platform where the three Matrons stood. “Hard kick in the side sends ’em off. Let ’em navigate the Crossing. Best advice is to hold on like hell and enjoy the ­ride.” A few ner­vous laughs from the coven behind her, but the Thirteen remained silent. Waiting. Just as they would faced with any army, before any battle.

Manon blinked, the muscles behind her golden eyes pulling down the clear film that would shield her vision from the wind. Manon allowed herself a moment to adjust to the thickness of the extra lid. Without it, they’d fly like mortals, squinting and streaming tears all over the place.

“Ready at your command, lady,” the man called to her.

Manon studied the open gap ahead, the bridge barely visible above, the gray skies and mist. She looked down the line, into each of the six faces on either side. Then she turned ahead, to the drop and the world waiting beyond.

“We are the Thirteen, from now until the Darkness claims us.” She said it quietly, but knew all could hear her. “Let’s remind them why.”

Manon kicked her mount into action. Three galloping, thunderous steps beneath her, surging forward, forward, forward, a leap into freezing air, the clouds and the bridge and the snow all around, and then the drop.

Her stomach shot right into her throat as the wyvern arced and angled down, wings tucked in tight. As she’d been instructed, Manon ­rose into a crouch over the neck, keeping her face close to the leathery skin, the wind screaming in her face.

The air rippled behind her, her Thirteen mere feet away, falling as one, past rock and snow, shooting for the earth.

Manon gritted her teeth. The blur of stone, the kiss of mist, her hair ripping out of her braid, waving like a white banner above her.

The mist parted, and Darkness embrace her, there was the Gap floor, so close, and—

Manon held on to the saddle, to the reins, to conscious thought as massive wings spread and the world tilted, and the body beneath her flipped up, up, riding the wind’s current in a sheer climb along the side of the Northern Fang.

There ­were triumphant howls from below, from above, and the wyvern kept climbing, swifter than Manon had ever flown on her broom, past the bridge and up into the open sky.

That fast, Manon was back in the skies.

The cloudless, endless, eternal sky held them as Asterin and then Sorrel and Vesta flanked her, then the rest of the Thirteen, and Manon schooled her face into cool victory.

To her right, Asterin was beaming, her iron teeth shining like silver. To her left, red-­haired Vesta was just shaking her head, gaping at the mountains below. Sorrel was as stone-­faced as Manon, but her black eyes danced. The Thirteen ­were airborne again.

The world spread beneath them, and ahead, far to the West, was the home they would someday reclaim. But now, now . . .

The wind caressed and sang to her, telling her of its currents, more an instinct than a magical gift. An instinct that had made her the best flier in all three Clans.

“What now?” Asterin called. And though she’d never seen any of her Thirteen cry, Manon could have sworn there ­were tears shining in the corners of her cousin’s eyes.

“I say we test them out,” Manon said, keeping that wild exuberance locked up tight in her chest, and reined her mount toward where the first canyon run awaited them. The whoops and cackles of her Thirteen as they rode the current ­were finer than any mortal music.

•

Manon stood at attention in her grandmother’s small room, staring at the far stone wall until she was spoken to. Mother Blackbeak sat at the wooden desk, her back to Manon as she pored over some document or letter. “You did well today, Manon,” her grandmother said at last.

Manon touched two fingers to her brow, though her grandmother still studied the papers.

Manon hadn’t needed to be told by the overseer that it was the best Crossing he had witnessed to date. She’d taken one look at the empty platform where the Yellowlegs coven had been and known they’d left as soon as Manon didn’t splatter on the ground.

“Your Thirteen and all the Blackbeak covens did well,” her grandmother went on. “Your work in keeping them disciplined these years is commendable.”

Manon’s chest swelled, but she said, “It’s my honor to serve you, Grandmother.”