I stop as soon as I hear loud, labored breathing coming from inside the plane. Shadow. It sounds like she's hyperventilating.
"Stay out here and keep the ramp clear," Daryn says. She breaks into a sprint and plunges into the darkness of the cargo hold.
Seconds pass. A full minute.
Against the glare of the playa the hold is dark and I can't see anything.
"Should we go after her?" I ask Jode.
But then finally I hear Daryn's voice. "It's okay, girl. It's all right. It's just us. The guys are here to see you. Gideon and Marcus and Jode. They're right outside."
Shadow's long black legs emerge from the pitch dark. Shaking legs, moving one at a time. Then her powerful chest and long neck move into the sunlight.
I've missed her. But this isn't the horse I remember.
She looks broken. Eyes wild and unsettled. Ears laid back like she's ready to fight. Foam dripping from her mouth. Hardly any wisps of smoke curling off her legs.
She stops halfway down the ramp when she sees us and lets out a loud whinny.
Daryn is right beside her, human shoulder to horse shoulder.
"Is she looking for Bas?" I ask.
"No," she says. "She knows he's not here. I think she's looking for your horses."
I summon Riot without thinking. He torches up, rising from the ground ten feet in front of me, the only thing out here brighter than the desert. Until Jode calls Lucent. The white stallion manifests like a lightning bolt bursting up from the ground. Heavily built like Riot, but more flash and less trouble. Marcus calls his mare, Ruin, immediately after. She swirls up like gold dust and bronze ash, the most perfect of the four, built for speed and strength. Entirely beautiful.
For a long while we stand by our horses. Marcus's mare nickers softly. Lucent stamps twice. Riot looks at me like, Just hold your horses. We got this.
Then Shadow continues down the ramp, still terrified, one shaky step at a time, Daryn right beside her, until they're standing with us.
"She was like this the first two months, after Bas," Daryn says, stroking Shadow's neck. "Worse, in the very beginning. But she got better over time. With me, anyway."
"Can you ride her?" Jode asks.
"Yes. But she can't fold. We both lost something that day. Besides Bas."
I know Daryn means her Sight. Jode told me earlier that she stopped having visions-that it's the reason she waited all this time to go after Bas. I can understand it now. All these months of waiting make sense.
Last year, when my dad died, I was seventeen. Already making my own plans, paving my own path. But when big decisions come up, I miss having him to talk to. Having that sounding board. Someone who I know would steer me right. Daryn didn't lose her father's voice-what she lost is divine, so it's different. Way different. On a whole other level. But it's a loss I can relate to.
My radio chirps. "Blake, what's with the horse show?" Suarez asks. "Cordero's blazing mad, man. She's starting to look like Riot. You weren't authorized to-"
I click the button. "Suarez … static … don't … over." I turn the volume all the way down and drop it back in my pocket. "What do you want to do, Daryn?"
"I think we can ride to the stable if we take a wide berth around camp."
"Okay. Let's horse up."
We mount up and leave the plane gaping behind us.
Shadow's skittish the entire way, tossing her head and shying like a racehorse approaching the starting gate. The other horses become anxious, too. Riot keeps wanting us to fold, to fly, and I have to keep shutting him down.
At the stable Daryn walks Shadow into the structure, taking her time. I notice dozens of people watching from a distance.
When Shadow and Daryn are inside and finally out of sight, Riot lunges beneath me and takes off. I barely hold on, almost flipping over his back. Ruin and Lucent are on the same page; both horses tear after us across the playa, straight out into a whole lot of flat nothing.
Jode and Lucent fold first, becoming a blaze of light shooting across the blue sky. Then Marcus and Ruin blur into a stream of bronze ash. Riot and I are last. An eruption of flames sweeps me out of my physical body, to fire. Then we're shooting over white earth.
The desert and our base camp and the mountains grow smaller, farther away, as we eat up more of the sky. I catch Jode and Marcus and we accelerate to top speed, defying sound and gravity. Pushing beyond feeling.
Soaring.
When I'm with Riot this way I'm invincible, unstoppable. I know in my soul that God gave him to me-an ally, mentor, and friend. Riot is what I got for carrying the burden of being War. For having a red temper that I constantly have to manage. With Riot, I feel grace. I feel whole in a way that only Jode, Bas, and Marcus can ever really understand.