Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(80)

In answer, Fallon swung onto Laoch’s back, stroked a hand down his neck.

His horn slid out silver. His wings spread.

“Holy shit!” Eddie took one careful step back. “A flying unicorn. Kick my ass and call me Sally.”

“An alicorn.” Eyes bright, Tonia nudged her brother aside, and looking into Laoch’s eyes, stroked him. “I’ve never seen one. Didn’t know they really existed. He’s so cool.”

“They won’t be looking up,” Fallon pointed out. “And I’ll”—she flipped open a hand, held a ball of fire—“hit the fuel tanks with a couple of these.” She closed her hand, extinguished it. “You can trust my aim, too.”

“Kid, you’re all of that and a bag of chips.” Eddie grinned at her. “Wait until I tell Fred.”

“Queen Fred! My mother calls her that sometimes. She loves her.”

“So do I.”

“We have to move quickly. I only have an hour here.”

“Wait. Can you get low enough to drop me by the prison?”

“Tonia.”

Tonia waved Duncan back. “Prisoners are priority. She blows the tanks, swoops over, drops me? Everybody’s running around. Any guards, I deal with. Get the prisoners out the west gate to the medics and transports. Can you get low enough to work it?”

Fallon nodded. “We’ll get you there.”

“Will?”

“Do you know how many guards are in the prison?”

Fallon closed her eyes. “I see two outside, one inside. A man and a woman outside, a man inside.”

“Don’t make the drop unless that goes down to two.” Will nodded at Tonia. “You can handle two.”

“Yeah, I can. I’m with her.” She clasped her hand on Fallon’s forearm for the boost up.

They both felt it, an instant connection, deep and strong in the blood.

Tonia swung on behind her. “Nice meeting you and all that.”

“Same here.”

“Let’s do this. First teams, go.” Will looked up at Tonia. “You fall off, your mother’ll have my head on a platter.”

“I’ve got this.”

Now at Fallon. “Good luck. We’ll move in when we hear the boom.”

“Then get ready. This won’t take long.”

With that, Laoch bunched his powerful legs and rose up on a spread of silver wings.

“You think you’ve seen it all,” Eddie murmured, “then you go and see something else.”

“We’re putting a hell of a lot of faith into that girl,” Will mumbled.

“She is The One.”

Will glanced over at Flynn, nodded. “Positions.”

Duncan got back on his bike, but his gaze stayed glued to the horse and riders. He could feel his twin’s joy—it shined as bold as those wings. And he felt something else, something he couldn’t quite identify, from Fallon.

He’d think about it later, he told himself. Right now, he had work to do.

“This is amazing!” Tonia lifted her face to the wind. “We studied alicorns at the academy, but nobody’d ever actually seen one. Now I’m on one.”

“He’s wonderful. You’re brave to think of the prisoners first.”

“Do you know what the PWs do to them?”

“I’ve heard.” And seen, Fallon thought, through the crystal. “You’ll want to brace yourself. We’re going to move fast now.”

“I love fast.”

Fast, Tonia discovered, was an understatement. She had to hold back the war whoop that rang inside her, and wondered as the wind battered, as the ground below sped by, if they blurred like an elf on full run.

“I see the ambush. I see them stationed just where you said. They’d have torn through us.”

“Can you conjure fireballs?” Fallon asked.

“It takes me longer than it takes you, and I haven’t managed one as big as the one you did. But my aim’s awesome.”

“We could hit the armory, after the fuel tanks, on the way to the prison. Not to destroy, but to block them from getting more weapons. Then your people can take what weapons you can, destroy the rest.”

“That’s good. Let’s do that.”

“Fuel first.”

They skimmed over the wall, above the heads of guards and troops at the ready. She saw the prison, the armory, the houses. The scaffold.

And three tanker trucks of fuel.

“I hate blowing it. We could use the gas.”

“It’s a waste,” Fallon agreed. “But the best way. Maybe the only way. Hold on.”

Though she wasn’t easily impressed with magicks, Tonia admired Fallon’s speed—one, two, three fireballs the size of basketballs were hurled. And admired the accuracy as each hit the tanks.

They blew, bombs of fire and, hurtling shrapnel from the destroyed trucks, became an inferno. She saw flaming metal fly as the hot smell of gas smeared the air.

Fallon turned Laoch in a tight circle, then dived for the armory.

“We circle it with fire,” she shouted as people scrambled, scattered in panic below. “All the way around so they can’t get through. You can open your mind to the elf, Flynn?”