Page 137 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
Angry voices, shouting now: “Cheaters! Traitors!”
Saraid tenses, her eyes flying to mine.
Just as a massive, swooping shadow drops low over the courtyard.
THIRTY-THREE
A horrible, bone-rattling screech splits the air into shards of glass.
The shadow soaring above us sweeps down over the castle gate, and the gasps from everyone gathered around the sodden garden turn to screams.
Enormous claws crunch into the ledges of the impenetrable castle walls, plucking gardai from watchtowers and tossing them into the crowd. A smell like the undersides of the quays fills my nose, damp and tingling and cold. My heart hammers—flaps.
No.
A wave of fear crashes over me.
That sound isn’t my heart.
It’s wings.
Saraid ducks beside me, yanking me down with her just as black claws, long and thick as the spikes on the Black Quay, sweep down just feet above our heads. “Get your fucking weapons!” she snarls, and I grasp for the hilts Oona took from me, scattered in the mud in the feet around us. Each one slides into my sheaths as the thrum of dozens of wings drowns out the thunder of my pulse. Scales the color of the deepest, darkest pools glint in the rain, shimmering like…
Likemagic.
Did I fall? I fell, and smashed my head open, and this is my brain playing tricks before I die. It’s the only possible explanation, because the fangs snatching nobles out of the crowd, the talons ripping gardai up and flinging their weapons across the yard—none of this can be real.
“Staydown!” Saraid screams over the howl of the storm, and a burst of lightning splits the skies, cracking the air and striking the tallest turret of the castle. Huge chunks of rock burst along the top, and trembling fingers fly to my mouth.
That’s where I was. Just… just heartbeats ago, that’s where I was.
She grabs my wrist, yanking me after her, ducking and swerving.
“Where are we going?” I yell back at her, searching the dispersing crowd.
Talon. I have to find Talon. But the yard is full of strewn and broken bodies down over the ruins of the rosebushes, lying at sickening angles in the mud.
“Out of their fucking way!”
Saraid dodges falling debris, massive chunks smashing into the earth all around us. All I can taste is salt and iron. I’mcoveredin it. The gown Wolf gave me is in ruins, ripped off at the knees where I’ve stepped on it and shredded the hem.
Then fresh thunderexplodes, and the tang of metal and sharp static flood my lungs, every hair up the back of my neck crackling.
Saraid whirls for me, eyes flying wide. Conflict rips across her face, then resolve, and she roars at me as a shadow sweeps overhead.“Down!”She hits the ground, flat on the drenched grass at the top of the hill.
My skin sizzles and I drop—just as lightning incinerates the space right where I stood.
It hits a running figure right behind me, their outstretched arm now frozen as their charred and smoking husk disintegrates in the relentless hammer of the rain, flaking as they fall to the mud.
Saraid wrenches her narrowing gaze up, up, up…
I follow the track of her stare—
And whatever’s left of my nerve crumbles.
The storm-blackened sky unleashes a torrent of furious wind and low clouds the color of ashes. But they aren’t dark enough to hide the creatures diving through the twisting mist into the crowd, plucking bodies and heaving them into the walls.
Long, serpentine shapes writhe through the churning mist on wings so ragged and spindly they can’t possibly be enough to keep the creatures airborne—but they are. Figures in navy cloaks straddle their scaled backs, legs gripping the grooves in front of the wings and their arms outstretched to the skies.
