The screamed warning shattered down the battlements, and Aedion and Lysandra ducked as they whirled toward the attack coming at their backs. Thirteen wyverns raced from the Staghorns, plunging toward the city walls. And as they shot toward Orynth, people and soldiers screaming and fleeing before them, the sun hit the smaller wyvern leading the attack. Lighting up wings like living silver. Aedion knew that wyvern. Knew the white-haired rider atop it. “HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed down the lines. His commanders echoed the order, and all the arrows that had been pointed upward now halted. “It’s …,”
The screamed warning shattered down the battlements, and Aedion and Lysandra ducked as they whirled toward the attack coming at their backs. Thirteen wyverns raced from the Staghorns, plunging toward the city walls. And as they shot toward Orynth, people and soldiers screaming and fleeing before them, the sun hit the smaller wyvern leading the attack. Lighting up wings like living silver. Aedion knew that wyvern. Knew the white-haired rider atop it. “HOLD FIRE,” he bellowed down the lines. His commanders echoed the order, and all the arrows that had been pointed upward now halted. “It’s …,” Lysandra breathed, her hand dropping from his while she walked forward a step, as if in a daze. “It …” Soldiers still fell back from the city walls as Manon Blackbeak and her Thirteen landed along them, right before Aedion and Lysandra. It was not the witch he had last seen on a beach in Eyllwe. No, there was nothing of that cold, strange creature in the face that smiled grimly at him. Nothing of her in that remarkable crown of stars atop her brow. A crown of stars. For the last Crochan Queen. Panting, rasping breaths neared, and Aedion glanced away from Manon Blackbeak to see Darrow hurry onto the city walls, gaping at the witch and her wyvern, at Aedion for not firing at her—her, whom Darrow believed to be an enemy come to parley before their slaughter. “We will not surrender,” Darrow spat. Asterin Blackbeak, her blue wyvern beside Manon’s, let out a low laugh. Indeed, Manon’s lips cu...
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