Lord's Fall (Elder Races #5)(79)
The wind was vicious, like a living creature. It tore at her hold on Graydon and raked at the skin of her face. Between her legs, she felt the gryphon’s powerful body straining against a force that literally shoved him sideways. The ground tilted and raced up to meet them.
As Linwe had said, the most Powerful among the Elves could take an affinity to air and create a storm the size of Hurricane Rita.
And those ancients who were especially gifted had an affinity to more than one element that tended to be compatible with each other.
Like fire and air. That sort of thing.
Ancient and adept, Gaeleval was nothing if not gifted.
At the last moment, Graydon managed to yank up straight enough so that he took the brunt of the impact with the ground. He plowed into the rocky path, and as he struck, the landing knocked both Eva and Pia off his back.
It could be worse, it could be worse, it could be worse, Pia chanted in her head, even as she tumbled head over heels. She struck the trunk of a tree bruisingly along her left shoulder. It knocked the breath out of her, and her arm went numb. Cursing, Eva skidded on the ground beside her.
It could be worse.
Graydon had been cautious. He had flown low over the path. They hadn’t been that high off the ground.
Not like Dragos and Calondir.
Pia dragged air back into her aching lungs and screamed again as she scrambled onto her hands and knees. She raked the sky with a frantic gaze.
A rotation of air had formed around the dragon, a visible dark funnel cloud constructed with hurricane force winds. Dragos’s long body stretched, tail lashing as he fought to gain purchase.
Elsewhere, the gale had flattened everyone else. The bluff was cleared of any climbing Numenlaurians. Elven and Wyr fighters at the top of the bluff were crawling away from the edge. Sharp cracks of sound, like the percussion of modern artillery, sounded as trees snapped at the trunk.
Graydon lunged for Pia and covered her with his massive lion’s body.
Are you all right? he asked telepathically.
Yes. She grabbed for Eva’s arm and dragged the other woman underneath the gryphon’s protection. Are you? Can you fly?
Not in this, cupcake. None of us can get off the ground and hope to stay aloft.
She could feel Graydon’s lungs working like bellows and the tension in his muscles as the gale threatened to send him crashing into the trees. On the high ground of the path, they were exposed to the worst of the wind that howled with an eerie sound like a thousand banshees. He crouched lower over the two women, his huge claws digging into the rocky ground for purchase.
Eyes streaming with tears, her terrified gaze went back to Dragos. This gods-damned gale threatened to flatten Graydon while he was on the ground. She couldn’t imagine how Dragos had managed to stay in the air.
Even as she wondered, the funnel cloud took hold of the dragon and spun him in a circle.
A gleaming sliver of silver fell from his back. The dragon lunged to grab at it and missed. The bright silver streaked toward the earth like the fall of a god’s tear.
Calondir.
She saw the very moment Dragos lost control. It looked as if an invisible hand lifted him up and flipped him over so that he turned completely upside down. He twisted in midair, like a gigantic cat trying to land on its feet.
One of his massive, powerful wings snapped like a twig. Suddenly he plunged downward in an escalating spiral.
Then the sound of the dragon’s body as it struck the valley floor rolled through the air like thunder.
SEVENTEEN
No, nothing did shine forever.
Everything, even the universe itself, would end eventually.
The wind died down as suddenly as it had sprung up. It was no longer needed.
Dragos sprawled on the valley floor. Calondir lay nearby. The Elf Lord’s head angled toward him, one arm flung out. The fingers of his hand curled over his palm as if he cupped something immeasurably precious. His face appeared young and peaceful, wiped clean of grief and stress. He looked like he had fallen asleep.
Dragos tried to move, and jagged pain tore through him. He felt as if someone had embedded shards of glass throughout his body. Mentally he assessed the damage. Broken neck and back, shattered ribs, and one broken wing.
It would take a lot more than a fall like that to kill him.
It would probably take all of the enthralled Elves who gathered around to gaze at him with empty eyes. He flexed the talons of one paw, but he lacked the ability to lift his front leg. His ribs had punctured one of his lungs, and he couldn’t draw in a deep enough breath to spit fire. He needed time to recover, time to whisper a beguilement to combat Gaeleval’s control over the Elves that drew close. Time that he didn’t have.
Beluviel walked into his line of sight. She was filthy and wore a torn, silken nightgown, and she carried a sword encrusted with dried blood. Barefoot, she left tracks of bright red in the snow, and long, tangled dark hair fell about her blank face like a shroud.
She knelt on one knee beside his head. “You should have listened to me when I warned you, Beast,” she said. “I really am the Bringer of the End of Days.” She stroked his snout gently, then braced one hand on him while she raised the sword over her head, angling the sharp tip toward one of his eyes.
A mountain fell out of the sky, and agony exploded as pieces of it landed on him. A second later, his mind processed what he had actually seen and spat out the information.
Graydon had plummeted with killing speed, shapeshifting into his human form even as he slammed into Beluviel and knocked her away from Dragos’s head. The tip of her sword sliced the corner of Dragos’s eyelid as it flew out of her hand. Pia and Eva, who had been riding on the gryphon’s back, tumbled onto Dragos in an uncontrolled tangle of arms and legs.
Thea Harrison's Books
- Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)
- Thea Harrison
- Liam Takes Manhattan (Elder Races #9.5)
- Kinked (Elder Races, #6)
- Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)
- Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)
- Dragos Goes to Washington (Elder Races #8.5)
- Midnight's Kiss (Elder Races #8)
- Night's Honor (Elder Races #7)
- Peanut Goes to School (Elder Races #6.7)