Wings of Deceit

Chapter Seventeen

After everything I had imagined could happen on our mission to find the Lyre, to save humanity from the clutches of the Dragon-borns, watching my sister fall to her death off the side of a mountain had not been one of the outcomes I had pictured. Her panic-stricken face tore through my chest and aimed straight for my heart, gripping it in its claws, as I watched Haera attempt to hold onto something to stop her fall.

It was no use. Every rock she reached out for crumbled underneath the pressure of her descent. There was nothing she, Larc or me could do, but watch as she fell.

My mind was so filled with my screaming cries of my sister's name and the tears clouding my eyes that when I saw a clear, shimmering beam, I thought death had reached out to claim her. When the glimmering rope wrapped around her torso and halted her fall, I had to blink to banish my tears.

Larc extended the transparent magic from his hand, the tendrils of power dancing in the early morning sun, and gritted his teeth as he hauled Haera back up to where we were stuck on the mountainside. The magic rope flickered in and out of existence, its hold lessening on my sister by the second.

"Grab onto the rocks and climb!" The Dragon-born yelled as the weight of Haera began to tug him down the mountainside too.

I pressed a hand into his back, forgetting about his shredded wings, and pushed him back to where he had been, keeping him steady. When my sister was as safe as she could be, the clear strands retracted back into his palm.

"Are you okay?" Larc asked between fits of coughs. When he pulled his face away from the crook of his arm, blood was noticeably splattered on the fabric of his shirt and the corners of his lips.

I reached out with my magic to heal what was causing the blood, but I found nothing. Whatever it was, it wasn't an injury I could heal.

"No, I'm not okay." Haera's voice and hands trembled as she forced herself to take deep breaths, curses leaving her mouth between each breath. "What the fuck was that?"

"Something that just saved your life," Larc replied as he began to climb again. He tested each piece of rock he moved his limbs to in case it were to fall before using it to hold his weight. "We need to get moving. I shouldn't have used my power, the royal guards will be able to track me to our current location now."

The clear strands had been magic of some kind? I had never heard about Dragon-borns having magic before. Did every soldier have that power? If so, Silverwood Village and all of the other human villages and kingdoms had no hope of survival unless we got out hands on the Lyre.

"Are you even okay to climb after using that?" I questioned as I still held tightly to Haera. If I let her go, I feared she would fall down the mountainside again and I doubted Larc would be able to conjure another burst of his magic after it cost him so much. "It looks like it drained you a lot."

"I better be, otherwise, we'll get snatched off the rocks by Dragon-borns." Panic coated his words — something thick and unmissable. "Now, get moving before they arrive."

Implementing the method that Larc used to test if the rocks were safe, I began to climb up too, keeping an eye on Haera who took a much slower pace than before. "Didn't you say that the Dragon-borns were more interested in the Lyre than you right now? Why are you panicking so much?"

"Yes, I did say that. However, once they sense that my power is in the general direction of where the Lyre should be, it's over for all of us."

"So, we're just ignoring the fact that Larc summoned a rope of wind out of nowhere?" Haera gritted her teeth as she continued up.

"Would you like to stop to have a civilised discussion about my power and the intricacies of how it works while soldiers track us down to kill us?" When he didn't receive a response in the second he paused, he continued, "I didn't think so."