Page 104 of Court of Talons

Then a familiar enormous foot plants itself not twenty paces from my head. I know that ebony claw, that swath of thick green hide. I look up—and up still further, unable to stop the tears now coursing down my face.

Oh no… Oh no, no, no.

“Gent,no,” I scream, half-sobbing. “You can’t be here!”

A rush of wind rips across my face, my body, driving dirt into my mouth and eyes. Then Caleb is howling again, and an enormous claw scrapes the ground out from beneath me, toppling me into Gent’s palm.

A palm he curls to his heart as he roars.

Not death,his mind pounds against me, his enormous heart beating as one with mine.Not death, not death. Life.

I can’t see anything then for a few minutes, but we are running forward, running and stomping and howling, only it’s not just Gent but anarmyof Divhs, more than I’ve ever thoughtpossible could be in one place. They burst into the group of battling men and monsters and separate them, scattering and even trampling the banded soldiers and warrior knights, and knocking the exhausted Divhs end over end. The soldiers still left fighting immediately break ranks in the face of this newest threat. The battle seems on the edge of finally, blessedly ending—no more dead and dying warriors, no more thrashing bodies of Divhs littering the open plain.

Then Rihad’s winged scorpion surges up into the air, freezing all the Divhs with its piercing scream.

I crawl up in Gent’s paw, realizing distantly that the worst of my wounds are no longer bleeding, that my breath is coming more easily. And I know: somehow, Gent did this. My Divh. His protection is not only shielding me…buthealingme as well. How is it we know so little of the wonder of these creatures, after all their centuries of service? I dash the blood from my eyes to see more clearly as my Divh swings around.

Rihad kneels over Fortiss, one hand on his shoulder holding him to the ground as his other is raised high. As I watch, however, Fortiss surges up and claps his hand over Rihad’s left bicep, then wrenches something away. High above them both, the scorpion bellows again, but there’s another screeching roar that follows hard upon that scream.

A howl of rage that comes from deep within the mountain.

Gent swings around. The side of the cliff well behind the First House suddenly shatters, and the percussiveboom!of exploding rock knocks us backward. The knot of Divhs lurches to the side, and the Divhs of the Eighth and First Houses scream in fury, adding their cry to that of Rihad’s creature.

Before I can see anything more, Gent’s paw contracts again, cradling me to his chest. He pounds over to the high walls of the coliseum and drops me on to its tallest wooden tier of seating. I land on the sun-blasted surface with a bone-rattling crunch.

Then Gent turns, roaring, and dives back into the fight.

I struggle to my feet, dizzy with pain, and stare at the new creature rising above the mountain.

A dragon nearly two-thirds Gent’s size arrows through the sky, one glorious wing outstretched, and one horribly bent. Her speed is astonishing, however, and she plows into the side of the winged scorpion, sending it cartwheeling. I turn, watching the aerial attack continue over the far end of the coliseum. Szonja can’t win this battle—she can’t. Her talons can rip and tear, she may even summon fire, but the moment the winged scorpion realizes she can’t truly fly…

Suddenly, another Divh bounds toward me on my coliseum perch, an ungainly giant with the hard-beaked head of a falcon, the muscled torso and arms of a man, and legs as thick and hairy as an ape’s. It seems like it’ll charge straight through the wall of rock, but it stops at the last moment, hurling something down. I try to duck but am unable to escape the heap of body that crashes into me.

Caleb. Apparently dead.

“Caleb.” I have no voice left, my throat is filled with rocks, but I wrap my arms around his shattered form. I pull the squire into my body, as he’s so recently done to me, and realize he still breathes. He shakes, in fact, convulsing. I hold him, not knowing what else to do as I search the skies for the dragon and the winged scorpion that have soared beyond the clouds.

“Szonja,” I whisper.

In the far distant reaches of my mind, I feel her return touch. Hers and someone else’s…Fortiss, bold and valiant Fortiss, her new warrior knight. Fortiss, whose wildly beating heart now gallops in frantic rhythm with my own.

Keeping Caleb with me, I pull myself over to the walls of this highest rampart of the coliseum and gaze down.

I fumble for the glass around Caleb’s neck, yanking it free to place it against my eye.

In the midst of the battlefield carnage, Fortiss and Rihad are frozen in fierce combat, for all that they aren’t touching each other. Ringed round them are two layers of guards, clearly at a loss for how to proceed. They cannot break the connection between the two men, but it’s as if they’re as locked as much in place as the warrior knights are. Blood runs down Rihad’s face and Fortiss’s arm. Fortiss’s tunic has burned clean away at the shoulder too, revealing a bicep which now bears the unmistakable cuff of a warrior band.

He has finally chosen to fight. To rip off the band Rihad had stolen from his father and claim it as his own. Szonja has answered his call. And the battle of their respective beasts is so strong, the two men are caught in their thrall.

The screeching rage of the flying beasts above catches me again. As I look up, they cartwheel through the sky, slashing and ripping. Szonja’s poorly healed wing makes her flight awkward and seems to require her constant correction. However, the uneven angle of her attack is precisely what’s causing the winged scorpion the most trouble.

They snarl and fight in the sky. I sense the touch of Fortiss in the distant part of my mind, the part that holds the fragile connection with Szonja.

And I realize with horror…he’slosingthat connection. Fortiss isn’t yet strong enough. He hasn’t fought with his Divh at all, and he’s not truly connected with her—or maybe he’s just reeling from the act of being banded. Either way, he’s not yet strong enough to fight this fight—he’s not enough!

But I am, I know with absolute, unshakable certainty.

I am enough.