Faster and faster, Abraxos raced for the drop, and Manon held on tight. The cave mouth opened wide. Abraxos tucked in his wings, using the movement to give his body one last shove over the lip as he took Manon with him and plunged.
Fast as lightning arcing across the sky, he plummeted toward the Gap floor.
Manon rose up into the saddle, clinging as her braid ripped free from her cloak, then came loose from its bonds, pulling painfully behind her, making her eyes water despite the lids. Down and down he fell, wings tucked in tight, tail straight and balanced.
Down into hell, into eternity, into that world where, for a moment, she could have sworn that something tightened in her chest.
She did not shut her eyes, not as the moon-illuminated stones of the Gap became closer, clearer. She did not need to.
Like the sails of a mighty ship, Abraxos’s wings unfurled, snapping tight. He tilted them upward, pulling against the death trying to drag them down.
And it was those wings, covered in glimmering patches of Spidersilk, that stayed strong and sturdy, sending them soaring clean up the side of the Omega and into the starry sky beyond.
45
To their credit, the sentries didn’t jump when Rowan shifted beside them atop the battlement wall. They had eyes keen enough to have detected his arrival as he swooped in. A slight tang of fear leaked from them, but that was to be expected, even if it troubled him more than it had in the past. But they did stir slightly when he spoke. “How long has she been down there?”
“An hour, Prince,” one said, watching the flashing flames below.
“For how many mornings in a row?”
“This is the fourth, Prince,” the same sentry replied.
The first three days she’d slipped from bed before dawn, he’d assumed she’d been helping in the kitchens. But when they’d trained yesterday she’d . . . improved at a rate she shouldn’t have, as if overnight. He had to give her credit for resourcefulness.
The girl stood outside the ward-stones, fighting with herself.
A dagger of flame flew from her hand toward the invisible barrier between two stones, then another, as if racing for the head of an opponent. It hit the magic wall with a flash of light and bounced back, reflected off the protective spell encircling the fortress. And when it reached her, she shielded—swift, strong, sure. A warrior on a battlefield.
“I’ve never seen anyone . . . fight like that,” the sentry said.
It was a question, but Rowan didn’t bother to answer. It wasn’t their business, and he wasn’t entirely certain if his queen would be pleased with the demi-Fae learning to use their powers in such a way. Though he fully planned to tell Lorcan, his commander and the only male who outranked him in Doranelle, just to see whether they could use it in their training.
The girl moved from throwing weapons to hand-to-hand combat: a punch of power, a sweeping kick of flame. Her flames had become gloriously varied—golds and reds and oranges. And her technique—not the magic, but the way she moved . . . Her master had been a monster, there was no doubt of that. But he had trained her thoroughly. She ducked and flipped and twisted, relentless, raging, and—
She swore with her usual color as the wall sent the punch of ruby flame back at her. She managed to shield, but still got knocked on her ass. Yet none of the sentries laughed. Rowan didn’t know if it was because of his presence or because of her.
He got his answer a heartbeat later, as he waited for her to shout or shriek or walk away. But the princess just slowly got to her feet, not bothering to brush off the dirt and leaves, and kept practicing.