The Aeriel frowned, tilting his head to one side in that painfully familiar gesture. Dark hair fell over silver eyes, his braid having come undone at some point during the fight. The sight almost gave Ruban backlash, the combination of the alien and the familiar too much for his already disoriented mind to handle.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Ashwin said, voice tinged with mild annoyance as he shifted his weight slightly to lean further into his tree. “And stop flattering yourself. Who do you think you are, anyway? You wouldn’t have lasted more than a fraction of a second if I’d actually intended to kill you.” He leaned down, pulling Ruban up by his collar as flames danced in the Hunter’s peripheral vision, inching ever closer. “Hold on to Hiya. Don’t let go, no matter what happens. We’re going flying!” He wrapped one hand around the Hunter’s back while the other strained against the tree, presumably to help him take the extra weight.

Ruban didn’t quite know what was going on, but he reached out to wrap his arms securely around Hiya, holding her close to himself. There was no way he was leaving her here; and besides, whatever Ashwin might have been planning to do with them, it couldn’t be significantly worse than being burnt alive.

With a few strained flaps of his gigantic wings – his face twisting into an agonised grimace – the Aeriel finally lifted them off the ground. As the reassuring touch of the leafy forest floor vanished from under his feet, Ruban tightened his grip around Hiya, who seemed more exhilarated than scared at being carried off into the air by an Aeriel. For the first time that day, he saw her grinning, eyes shining with unconcealed wonder as she looked down at the blazing forest below them. The fire had spread farther than Ruban had originally estimated. A large chunk of Zikyang lay engulfed in a red-and-gold haze. Smoke billowed into the air, creating the impression of a dense fog.

They flew higher – albeit rather shakily – gaining altitude by the second as the flaming forest receded below them. Ashwin’s wings flapped rhythmically above Ruban like a silver, feathery canopy, obscuring the sky, the moon. It wasn’t so much unpleasant as surreal, or at least it would have been, if they weren’t headed for almost certain death.

Suddenly, Ashwin surged to his left, causing Ruban to clutch at Hiya, who squealed excitedly. An energy-shell whizzed past the spot they had just vacated, crashing down into the blazing inferno that was the landscape below them. Ruban looked up to see the three Aeriels who had attacked them earlier appear through the smog, wings beating the air as little pinpricks of light danced around their outstretched hands. They were preparing to attack.

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“Not right now,” Ashwin snapped, whipping around to face the Aeriels. “I’m kinda busy here.”

Another shell came flying at them, forcing Ashwin to swoop sideways to avoid being hit. “Fine. Have it your way,” the Aeriel said, irritation evident in his tone as he adjusted his hold on Ruban to free his right hand, holding it out in front of him in a practised gesture. “I mean, working for my mother would make anyone suicidal, I understand that. But this is taking it too far, even for Reivaa’s half-witted lackeys.”

Energy gathered around Ashwin like a rising storm, a whirlwind of which he was the centre and the origin. This close to the source, Ruban could actually feel the power cackling around him in an electric gale as an orb of light formed before Ashwin’s outstretched fingers. He didn’t know if it was the proximity that was distorting his perception, but the Hunter didn’t think he had felt an energy-attack this strong since Tauheen blew part of the SifCo building out of existence to steal the formula. The orb grew, glowing alternatively silver and white, before Ashwin gave a deceptively casual flick of his wrist, setting the shell free. It shot forward, hitting the nearest Aeriel, and detonated into a blast of prismatic light that made Ruban think of a miniature sunrise.

Then the light was gone, and all that remained was the fire, coursing through the air like a blazing whip, engulfing the remaining Aeriels into its crimson fold. A flare-blast – Ruban realised belatedly – though he had never seen anything quite like it. The energy seemed to burn the very air around it, flames rising out of nothing and dissolving into ether. Technically, there shouldn’t have been anything to burn up here in the sky.

Then, as fast as it had appeared, the flame was gone, the Aeriels falling out of the air like birds hit by stones thrown by a child; and darkness descended over them once again. With a final glance at the three Aeriels – hurtling through the air towards their fiery grave – Ashwin turned, beating his wings a couple of times before flipping into a horizontal position and coursing through the air at a speed that made Ruban’s breath catch in his throat. The wind stung his face like myriad little pins attacking every inch of exposed skin even as Ruban wrapped numb fingers around Hiya as tightly as he could and tried to focus on staying conscious.