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Truthfully, it reminds me of how the Phantom felt as we passed through it.
Which is why when we see the tips of the rocks straight ahead, I hold my breath. If this feels half as bad as it did when we passed into the Phantom, it’ll be enough to nearly knock me from Shadow’s back entirely.
Then, I’d felt suffocated, robbed of my ability to breathe as we pressed through the thick mist. What if the same thing happens up here?
My only hope is that Shadow won’t feel the effects just as the horse we’d ridden through the Phantom on didn’t.
We reach the tips, and my gaze drops to the needle-sharp edges as we pass over them. There’s no suffocating pressure, no pain.
In fact, it—a twisted scream has adrenaline surging through my system. It takes a sudden plunge to help me realize that it’s coming from Shadow as he begins to fall. My stomach lurches, and Fort tightens his grip around me.
“Hang on!” Fort roars.
Shadow’s terrified screams as he kicks with his legs and tries to use wings that have fallen limp at his sides fill my ears and shatter my heart.
This fall will not be survived—by any of us.
“Come on, Shadow, you can do it,” I urge, trying to focus on the imagery of him spreading his wings out and catching a breeze before soaring straight ahead, but seconds blur by, and the cold realization that we’re not going to make it sets in.
“Forgive me,” Fort whispers just before he rips me from Shadow’s back.
“No! Shadow!” I scream his name seconds before the screeching sound of metal against stone fills my ears and Fort and I are jerked to a slow stop.
Shadow writhes as he falls through the clouds, disappearing from view.
“Shadow!” I yell after him, hot tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Shit!” Fort groans, and we fall, sliding down the smooth surface as easily as one might a frozen lake. With one arm wrapped around me, Fort takes the brunt of the fall when we tumble to the ground.
I push up, my heart racing. A thick mist surrounds our feet, and large plants unlike any I’ve ever seen jut up to the sky, despite there being no actual sunshine through the clouds overhead. My throat constricts when I see a glassy pond straight ahead—a massive, white form lying still beside it.
“Shadow!” I sprint toward him, sliding to my knees at his side. He’s breathing, but it’s ragged, and his hair is slick from water. I run my hands over his legs, checking for breaks but finding none. His wings, though—they’re damaged. One is twisted to the side, the other missing nearly all its feathers.
Blood drips from his nostril, and I reach up to run my hand over his large cheek. He raises his head just enough to look at me then lays it back down again.
I can hardly see through my tears. “I’m sorry, Shadow.”
“The water saved his life.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him?” I demand, looking up at Fort. And then my heart drops yet again. He’s cradling the arm he’d used to stop us from falling, holding it against his body at an awkward angle. “What’s wrong?” I jump to my feet and reach him. But he pulls his arm away.
“I dislocated my shoulder,” he says then meets my gaze. “But that’s hardly the worst of it. I’ve lost my strength. And I’m not healing like I should. My senses feel dulled, and now I have no fucking sword.”
I look around, knowing all too well what that means.
Without Shadow, we have no way of running.
Without Fort’s blade or strength, we have no chance of surviving.
And we just landed in the most dangerous place in the entire realm.
A bird calls out—a horrific shriek that chills me. Ripping my sword out, I hold it in front of me, prepared to fight—but it, too, has lost all magic.
Even in my hands, it is nothing more than a blade made of clear ice-like glass.
“What are we going to do?” I ask Fort as I sheathe it once again.
He peers into the darkness. “I have no idea, but we’d better get out of the open—and fast.”
