Normally I’d start a flight with dropping like a bullet, wings pressed tightly into my chest, unfurling them at the last second to soar just above certain death. But today isn’t normal, and so I straighten myself once we’re hidden in the clouds, speeding off according to Sofia’s instructions.
This high up it’s eternal twilight, stars above and sky below. I magic the air around us willing, sailing under my wings but softening on my back, allowing Izaak and Sofia to breathe despite the air pressure. Just when they start to complain about my lacking accommodations, the Molosia Isles drift into view. They’re small for islands, the biggest the size of a park, the smallest just enough to land on. Trees and plants explode from the soil, growing fierce from the turbulent sea storms that pass frequently. The sea below is wild and untamed, whirlpools and waves disturbing the vast patches of shadow the islands shape below them.
“You okay?” Izaak asks for the millionth time. It’s almost like he senses the strength it takes to fly, but I don’t have the heart to tell him just getting here took about five years of power.
“Stop asking him,” Sofia says.
“I’m fine.” What is five years to the two hundred Kiera left for me? To the mere days Halley still has to spend? I won’t hold back today, not until Kiera’s free.
I veer towards the biggest island, central to the plan we hatched during the flight. I’ll drop off Halley and Sofia to prepare, leaving Izaak mounted to fend off Zhran and Comet from my vulnerable back. None of us spotted them yet, but this place is big enough for two dragons—and Sable Thomas—to disappear.
“Remember, it has to be big enough for Comet. We’ll only have one shot at this,” I say, gliding towards the Isle.
Sofia squeezes the scales on my back. “Trust me, I got this.”
Halley jumps from my back and opens her wings to glide next to my head. “Don’t let them trap you in a freefall. Once you lose sight of what’s up or down, experience wins. Let Izaak shoot them from a distance until we give the signal.”
“Got it.”
I spot movement from one of the small islands we pass, perhaps a flock of birds we upset. Then claws rake against my face, Zhran plunging both of us toward the waves. Sofia and Izaak scream as they lose their grip on my back. I lose sight of them immediately, Zhran and I tumbling towards the water as we claw at each other. The wind slams into my wings, pushing them closed without Zhran having to touch them. “If you can’t stop meddling,” he says, “I’ll kill you myself.”
The sea and air seesaw, my vision impaired by the blood leaking from the stinging gashes Zhran clipped into my face. His claws fight to find grip on my shoulders and back, tearing scale after scale, cutting into the flesh underneath. He bites down on my neck as I thrash, a sparrow caught by a hawk. Except we’re not predator and prey. I’m only a third of his size, but saying I’m weaker would be an insult to Kiera. I just have to stop playing his game.
I close my eyes and stop struggling, finding up and down by smell alone, the sharp scent of seawater and earth alternating like the sides of a coin. The moment I’m facing up I shrink into a sparrow, catching myself on the wind easily. Zhran flails as I seemingly disappear, confusion on his face. He spots me just before he crashes into the sea, his maw opened in a roar.
I don’t wait for him to emerge, turning true to find Izaak and Sofia, still free falling in another part of the sky. They won’t survive an impact from this height, not even with water. Fear takes a hold when I don’t spot them. I force myself to smell and listen instead of watch.
There. Still lengths above me, clutching onto the paws of a struggling Halley, her pint-sized wings flapping like a hummingbird’s. “River!” she yells when she sees me, her voice strained. Then her wings falter. The three of them start to fall once more, yelling and screaming. I dive for them.
A shadow blocks the sun, and I look up to see Comet crashing down towards us. “Murderer!” she booms, stretching her skeletal claws out in front of her, her wings tight against her side. I finally catch Sofia and Izaak, but instead of holding them close I push them away, out of Comet’s path. I flap my wings backwards, but it’s too late. Comet’s claws dig into my side, tearing away huge swatches of the membrane of my left wing. I scream as the pain hits, every movement of my wing burning through my dwindling reserves. Comet catches herself clumsily, spreading her wings all at once to rocket upwards. She soars up, far above, getting ready for another attack. Meanwhile Izaak and Sofia continue to fall, a desperate Halley trying to slow them down. I dive after them, frantic to catch them before the water swallows them, but my wings barely obey, the left one stumbling with every stride.
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Halfway there, I realize I won’t make it. Izaak and Sofia hold on to each other, looking up instead of down. My eyes are wet with blood or tears. “Izaak!” I yell, “Sofia!”
“River!” Izaak yells back, stretching his hand towards me. Our eyes lock, fear feeding fear. I get closer and see the stark realization on their faces, that everything’s ending before it begins.
My body betrays me. I fight against my wing, pushing it to beat again and again as it travels through broken glass instead of air. “I love you!” I scream.
Then Halley, still circling Izaak and Sofia, starts to laugh. She smiles up at me, backing away from my struggling friends.
“No!” I yell.
Izaak and Sofia disappear between the waves. My roar breaks down in my throat, shattering and heartbroken. I reach Halley’s height and grab for her, my vision clouded with blood and tears, my wings struggling to stop myself from meeting the same fate within the water. “Why?” I ask, determined to tear off her wings regardless of her answer.
“Look!” she says, her eyes locked on the water. “Look down!”
A black shape shears through the waves, rising up to reveal Izaak and Sofia clasped in his paws. Poppy howls as Sable urges him upward on his raven wings. He saved them, this runt of a familiar, now winged and nearly my size. It wasn’t just Sable who was undercover. She sits in the saddle, hunched over her familiars’ neck to scold her son. He and Sofia look unhurt, if scared shitless, Izaak’s warm skin ashen and Sofia’s deep tan deathly pale. They both wave and yell when they spot me, but I can’t hear them through numbness soaking through my limbs. They point towards the big Isle and I nod, following them clumsily.
In the distance, the white noise of wing beats disappears. I struggle to find the significance in this until Comet’s roar shakes the earth. She’s going in for another dive.
“Go,” I say to Halley, “help them set up. The plan hasn’t changed.”
The griffin doesn’t move. Thick lines of worry paint her eyes, and in that moment I sense the deep regret she feels for Comet, the duty she believes she holds to end this. “I can’t do this to Kiera,” they whisper. “If you die, they won’t ever forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m here of my own choice, all of us are. And besides,”—I smile at her—“nobody is dying today.”
“I… thank you. Thank you. I’ll go do my part.” She speeds off to help set up the trap for Comet. This time the dragon adjusts her attack, coming down a long distance away, then whipping her wings open to bolt horizontal with the speed of a bullet. I don’t have the strength to dash up, so I let myself fall out of her range, folding my wings downwards to stop her from tearing them any further. Changing shape won’t do any good anymore—my left wings would still be a mess and my strength won’t hold if I focus on anything but staying aflight. Already my magic seeps from my wings like a waterfall. I shake my head to clear the blood out of my eyes, ignoring the stinging wind as it cuts into the deep wounds Zhran tore into my back. At least my wings are numb now, a small mercy.
Comet roars when she misses. “Make them stop!” she yells, “just stop!” She veers left until she’s back on course, opening her maw to bite me in half.
I drop down again, my wings now skimming the water when they beat. “I can make it stop!” I yell back, “I can make Kiera stop if you come with me!”
Her wings cut through the water when she turns again. “Zhran,” she says, “you killed him.”
“No,” I say. “He fell. If that killed him, it was his own fault.”
“Zhran is not weak.”
“No.” I force myself up slowly, winning ground against the waves. Comet halted completely, hovering her frame close to the water to peer into the depths.
I play my triumph card. “Halley’s here, you know.”
Her attention snaps back to me. “Halley?”
“You know, your unicorn.”
“She’s here?”
“Do you want to see her? She’s going to die soon.”
“Die?”
“Yes.”
Our wings beat in silence, the waves a calming murmur and the wind a soothing hymn. Then Comet speaks. “Yes, I wish to see Halley.”
The relief aching from my scales almost turns visible, hope a frail faith beating through my veins. Then, like a trumpet heralding victory, Sofia gives the signal. She throws a potion that explodes in fireworks. I toil myself up towards the Isle, Comet following dutifully. Only Zhran still gnaws in my mind—I don’t believe for a second he drowned after surviving over five hundred years.
“Halley is here?” Comet asks.
“Yes.”
“She is?”
“Yes.”
“I miss her.”
I swallow. “I miss Kiera too.”
We make it to solid ground. I collapse into the brush, not even feeling pain as I tumble a few times before stopping. Comet sets herself down right in the middle of the Isle, the only place where trees and vines haven’t taken over the grass. Her wings hang high over the trees, her tail swaying past the edge of the island. Everyone but Halley runs towards me, Izaak sprinting ahead of even Poppy. He grabs my narrow snout in between his arms and says something. I blink at him, and he slowly repeats himself, mouthing the words so I can follow them.
“I—love—you—too.”
Time stops as I struggle to comprehend his words. He hugs my head and then Sofia’s there, dumping every green potion she brought over my wings and back. Sable snaps her fingers in front of my eyes, holding out a big needle once she gets my attention. “Adrenaline?”
“I love you,” I croak, which Sable interprets as permission. She stabs the needle in between my scales and I gasp awake, the pain returning as the worst of the wounds heal themselves under Sofia’s potions. “You have five minutes before you crash again,” Sable says.
“Thank you,” I whisper as Izaak hugs me tighter.
Sofia joins him, burying her face into my neck. “Stupid asshole. I love you so goddamn much.”