Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension #3)

All that he was as a warrior moved in him now, flooded his veins. The surface of his skin flushed hot. He was ready.

Leading the charge opposite him was a long, terrible row of death vampires. They began to break away in fours, some flying higher and higher, others lower. The ranks behind him would do the same, higher and lower to form a multiple-layered front line, offset so that if anyone fell into the canyon below, other battling pairs and groups would not be impacted.

But battle was chaotic and always the worst happened.

His peripherals closed down.

All he saw were eight death vampires in tight formation aimed at him. He would have expected no less.

On they flew, three hundred yards, two hundred, one hundred. He struck parachute-mount and hung in the air, his heart now hammering. Thirty feet. He did not wait but drew both daggers swiftly from his weapons harness and let each fly. The blades struck home. Two death vampires clutched necks, spun, and fell from the sky, tumbling down and down.

The remaining six were on him. He slashed, spun, levitated at lightning speed, whirled, cut, and the entire time kept his senses fixed on the location of each pretty-boy.

A battle haze consumed him now, the rage of serving for over two centuries, of facing an enemy that drank women to death. He became more animal than man, more flexing muscle and growling instinct.

He sent vampire after vampire into the abyss below, again, again, again.

Every few seconds, his peripherals registered the battle around him and down the line. Militia Warriors on both sides of the canyon fell in fading screams to the rocks and river below.

But when he heard his name called out, and recognized Luken’s voice, he flew high in the air and slaughtered within seconds the warriors who dared to follow. He stretched his preternatural vision and saw Luken tumbling to his death, one of his wings sliced through.

One glance at the battle showed Greaves’s numbers overwhelming the Militia Warriors.

He had a choice to make: to stay and support the Militia Warriors all around him, or to save Luken. But there was only one choice he could make.

He pulled his wings into close-mount, which made a rocket of his body. He headed to the bottom of the canyon. Within seconds he landed below Luken’s falling body. He sent a hand-blast upward beneath him, slowing the warrior’s fall.

Luken still hit the earth hard. He was stunned, shaking, and part of his left wing hung at a painful angle.

Jean-Pierre wanted to fold him to safety, but neither pair of wings would handle the trip.

Only at that moment did he see that Luken’s weapons harness had been sliced high in the abdomen as well and that blood poured from him.

He looked up. Greaves’s forces had pushed Endelle’s army a third of the way back to the North Rim. Yes, there were times when numbers mattered.

He took the warrior’s hand in a tight grip.

Luken’s face was pale. “Go, my brother. Save all that you can.”

It was a death sentence for Luken since his wounds made him open to attack. Yet Jean-Pierre had to return to the more vulnerable Militia Warriors.

Jean-Pierre nodded when a sudden breeze, very warm and strangely soothing, came from the east portion of the canyon.

“Do you feel that?” Luken cried. He blinked several times, a hand pressed to his stomach.

“Oui,” Jean-Pierre responded. “But what is it? I do not understand and it is getting much stronger.”

Luken cried, “Holy shit. Jean-Pierre, lengthen your vision. Do you see them? Do you see them flying? Together? Their wings are on fire.”

“Who?”

“Medichi and Parisa. Oh, my God. They did it.” His teeth chattered now and he was pale, so pale.

Jean-Pierre kept his hand around Luken’s. He engaged his vision and stretched. “Oui,” he cried. The breeze had strengthened to a strong wind, heavy pulses of great power. “I see them. Then it is true, not a myth.”

“Not a myth,” Luken said, his voice quieter.

Peace descended on Jean-Pierre, the likes of which he had never known. He watched above as every battle ceased, the opponents falling back and back toward each respective rim, divided now by what could only be called a benevolent wind—one that brought peace, great peace.

He kept his vision long and sharp as Medichi and Parisa passed overhead. They were but an enormous elongated shape of flames: brilliant gold, amethyst that leaped in rolling flares, an underbelly of blues and greens, and a tail perhaps half a mile long of deep purple and burnished gold.

So beautiful.

Parisa flew beside Antony, separated only by the span of each of their wings but bound by the breh-hedden and the phenomenon that was their royle wings.

The colors spun out in front of her, above her, beside her, and below her. She could not imagine what she and Antony looked like as they flew through the canyon and parted enemy from enemy, driving both sides back, Greaves’s forces to the South Rim and Endelle’s to the North.

Her heart was unbearably full, full to overflowing, of heat, of exhilaration, of peace. Yes, so much peace.

The moment they had launched off the North Rim, the process had begun. With each few seconds the sensation grew, so that she was fulfilling the myth as she flew beside Antony. Even she could sense the power that forged a wedge between the armies.

By the time they completed the run, the entire distance through the ranks, which had to be at least five miles in length, she was breathing hard. She wasn’t certain how to stop the flames and the wind, but when Antony dipped his wing once in her direction, she met his gaze and slowed as he did. The flames diminished more with each gradual cessation of forward speed.

After less than a minute, she hung in parachute position in front of him, her wings cupped at the apex. She was jostled back and forth in gentle motions by the early-evening breezes.

He nodded to her and sent, Let’s find Endelle.

He launched the opposite direction—but at a much slower pace, so that eventually her breathing calmed down. All along the banks, Militia Warriors from Endelle’s ranks cheered them with loud shouts and fists thrust through the air one after the other, thousands of grateful voices rising to the stars above.

Parisa had seen so many warriors fall as they flew through the midair front lines, down into the now black abyss of the canyon below. The memory would haunt her for years to come, softened by the knowledge that many warriors had lived because of what she and Antony had done today.

As she plowed air beside Antony in search of Endelle, Marcus took up a wing position on her left flank; Thorne took up Antony’s opposing wing flank. By the time they reached Endelle, other Warriors of the Blood had met them in the air, all shouting their victory—Zacharius, Kerrick, and Santiago. They, too, fell in formation behind Thorne and Marcus. Luken, however, was nowhere to be seen, nor Jean-Pierre.

Antony called out in a strong voice, “Banking left?”

Parisa followed suit, dipping her left wing slightly then straightening to fly forward.

Within a few flaps she was drawing her wings in, slowing then popping her parachute configuration right beside Antony, to land six feet from Her Supremeness.

But Endelle merely nodded to her then to each of the warriors. Colonel Seriffe was on her left and Thorne, now landed, moved to stand at her right.

She was somber as she said, “Luken’s been hurt. He’s in the canyon below. Jean-Pierre is with him and apparently saved his life. I’ve already sent Horace to him.”

And with those simple words, whatever peace and exhilaration had defined the last fifteen minutes of Parisa’s life dissipated. An evening breeze carried moans from every quarter, and a terrible hush had settled over the Militia Warriors who were alive and uninjured.

“The losses have been unacceptable,” she said. “But we thank Warrior Medichi and ascender Lovejoy for having the courage to work together this evening and create something I have not seen since Luchianne flew the air currents of Second Earth. May you be blessed by the use of your gifts in service to our great society.” She paused and swallowed hard. “And now, let us tend to the wounded and to those we lost today.”

I have only one regret in my life—that I turned my only son over to the system of fostering prevalent among the ancient tribes of Europe, Mortal Earth, so long ago, for nothing but destruction has followed that decision. Will I ever be forgiven for bowing to the custom of the day against my every proper maternal instinct?

Perhaps. But I will never forgive myself.

God help me. Effetne!

—Memoirs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 25

Five days after the battle, Endelle stood on the North Rim where so many of her Militia Warriors had died, where Luken had once again almost died. She was sobered and alone.

She had been in memorial services for four days now.

The loss of over a thousand men and women had pared something away from her, some laxity in her attitude toward Darian Greaves.

The enemy had suddenly become her enemy, despised of old, yes, but now she felt something more, something deeper, something she had never known in all these millennia. She wanted revenge, deep, abiding, permanent revenge.

And she had the power to set anything in motion she wanted to.

She felt the air stir beside her, but she already knew the signature.

“Hello, Shorty.”

“Good morning, Endelle.”

She was both surprised and not when he slipped his hand into hers. She felt his Sixth power flow through her, and her chin came up. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. A moment later, she felt … comforted.

In any other circumstance, she would have made a joke, teased him about his height, how his hand was actually smaller than hers—that sort of absurd hilarity.

But it would take some time for her sense of humor to return.

Instead, she spoke of recent events. “Greaves has been running his extremely well-edited footage of the battle, calling it an enormous victory for the ALA. Of course none of those clips shows Medichi and Parisa’s affect on the battle.”

“Did you expect something different?”

“I never believed it would come to this. I thought I had time to keep building and working. I never thought he would attack.”