A Shield of Faith (BOOK 4)

Chapter 2

ADARA

The citadel stretched outwards and upwards into the firmament; every nook, cranny, and odd corner left unexplored to her when she walked through them with only a faint idea of what was placed where. Thin, mosaic windows filled the outer carapace of halls and corridors. Her heart swelled at the naturalistic activity in the air. Skies above glowed with the rise of dawn, the clouds fluffed their way over the horizon and sprouted into towering anvils on the horizon. Wind coursed through open vents, allowing the sound of hippogryph calls to echo throughout the heart of the Order. Inside one of the lifts, she hung back when it burst into her silver might, and raised her to one of the launching grounds for Riders, as directed by Yuven much earlier when he and Fenrer gave her a longer, better tour of their home. It rattled to a stone stop, where the doors swung open with a gleam in the runelocks. Out onto the perfect marble tiles, she shivered at the rising intensity of the mountain breeze, where several large gates remained closed, enough for a hippogryph to trot through. Architecture spiraled high into the rafters as she went around a corner, where a strip of stone loomed over the drop below.

Near the edge, Yuven stood beside Tix'snuv, whose horse-tail flicked with a shake of their neck feathers and Adara flinched when they cracked the bone of their meal with intelligent ferocity, digging into the marrow with sharp gray claws. "Here I thought you'd try and get out of it," he said and headed up to her. Thick straps tucked around his legs, with small hooks lining every hand's length along the material, where a tough cord of rope hung off his belt. "Where is Fenrer?"

"He said he'd catch up soon..." Adara took a step back from him when he grinned at her, showing fangs. "What are you planning?"

"I've become all too aware that I've essentially trapped you in your room for your study." He rolled his shoulders and went around her. "I think you need a fresh perspective, so to speak." He unfurled his fingers over the edge, and Adara leaned over it.

Far below, the training fields nothing more than a distant blur of emerald waves, where the caldera cradled the citadel in its stone arms. It swirled with the low-hanging clouds and bounced between her temples when she tried to shake it out, then gasped when Yuven prodded her in the ribs. Her hands swung around his arm when he stepped back with a cruel smile. "Don't do that!" She shoved her palms into his chest, shoving him to the side with a shudder. "Look, if you intend to quite literally throw me off the edge might I remind you I'm not the one descended from wyverns?" An icy chill raised the skin of her arms into gooseflesh, and she took a far more generous step away from the edge he stood beside without a care in the world. "What does this have to do with me learning magick?"

"Everything." Yuven flicked his gaze when Fenrer walked through, leading a black hippogryph speckled with whites forward through the large gate, patting its beak when it shook it. "There you are." He tugged out another piece of meat from a small bag on the other side of his belt, throwing it in its direction and causing it to trample forward to bite at it. "Alright, Adara. Get on." He threw his hand in the direction of the black hippogryph as it swallowed its motivational meal.

Twilight flames against a starry mirror.

"Excuse me?" Adara gaped at him. "I've never ridden a horse before let alone a hippogryph — the latter of which can fly and I might fall out of the saddle!" Feet pressed against the comfort of the ground, she sank closer to it when Yuven whistled something at his own, where it bounded forward and leaped off the edge before disappearing out of sight.

"Hippogryphs have magick of their own, Sazaka," he explained as Fenrer brushed the neck feathers of the one still planted on the launchpad. "You won't fall unless you intend to."

"Right..." Adara hauled herself against the hippogryphs legs, hooking her fingers against the straps of its saddle, which molded around its feathers and chest without disruption of its movement.