I have fire wings now. Intrusive, persistent, but not unwelcome, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I might be able to fly now. While we trundled along in our appropriated wagon with its scavenged wheel, I thought about soaring through the skies and probably scaring the living heck out of anyone who saw me. Seyari and the others were tucked safely in the covered back along with all our belongings and a few new supplies, courtesy of those demonic assholes who’d nearly killed us all.

“Hey Boss!” Taava said, interrupting my thoughts. “I thought up a new nickname for ya!”

“Please don’t,” I groaned, gripping the reins a little tighter. I wasn’t the best wagon driver, but I’d learned more about it than I ever though I would these past months.

“It’s a real good one though!” The kazzel insisted from her bedroll in the back of the wagon. My bedroll actually. Despite all the claw holes, it was fluffy and nice and sized for two people.

She, Nelys and Seyari were still resting, and Nelys in particular was in a deep sleep. Joisse and I had managed to get the wagon going again after we got lucky and found their horses tied to a tree not far away from the battle. The animals had been absolutely terrified of us until we donned our glamours, and even still the battle had spooked them good.

Thankfully, Joisse had spent a lot of time growing up around animals, and she was able to get them to calm with some effort. The two of us, clothed and human-looking were up front, driving the horses away from the scene of the battle and toward Linthel with as much speed as we dared.

“Aren’t you supposed to still be nearly dead?” I asked back, when Taava decided not to elaborate.

“Nearly dead is partially alive. ‘Sides, I’m like the only one here ‘cept maybe Nelys who hasn’t died, yeah? Sey counts!”

I groaned. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”

“Not at all! I still need your extra-comfy bedroll, and you’re gonna have ta do all my chores.”

“Taava…” I growled.

Next to me, Joisse giggled. It was as effective at melting my anger as my own concentration.

“So I thought the least I could do was sing ya a song ta make up for it.”

“Taava, the others are trying to sleep.”

“Not now a course! Later. When everyone can enjoy it.”

“Oh!” Joisse said. “That sounds nice, actually.”

Traitor!

I glared down at her, but she smiled back up and me and whispered. “She’s a good singer, and I think we all need a little positivity.”

“You… have a point, I guess,” I was forced to concede. I was barely holding my human form together, nervous about another attack or that Seyari or Nelys might suffer permanent harm. Or never wake up.

“Great!” Taava chirped. “It’s called Miss-Goody-Four-Arms, and it’s got the new nickname right in the title!”

“I hate it already…”

“You’ll learn ta love it!”

I groaned, but I also caught myself smiling. Damn if Taava wasn’t magical when it came to lifting my mood. I wasn’t sure how being an eternal, buzzing nuisance could manage that, but she did and I was grateful. “Thanks, Taava.”

Inside the wagon, Taava sputtered.

And I have my own weapons back, you know.

“I think that’s a cute nickname, Zarenna,” Joisse whispered. “It’s very ‘you’.’”

“Oh.. sure.” Crap. Now I can’t hate it.

***

At camp that night, I fielded questions about my new wings of fire, mostly from Nelys who hadn’t seen them. They and Seyari were up and about, albeit exhausted. I was still thanking Dhias and whoever else might be listening over and over again in my head as I cherished just how alive we all were.

“So you can fly?” Nelys asked, wonder in their voice.

I nodded. “I think so—maybe. I’ve not tried since the fight, and even then, what I did was more or less a series of long leaps.”

“Why don’t you try now?” Seyari asked, a wistful smile on her face. “We’re not next to a village, and I’d bet the view is great in these hills.”

Immediately, I thought about her own wings, lost to time. What I wouldn’t give…

I rolled my shoulders. “Well, I’ll need to get another shirt first.”

Seyari hummed, and I noticed her eyes drifted skyward.

I changed quickly and returned with my mostly-ruined, but still modest company outfit from the fight. After taking a deep breath, I walked over past the center of our camp’s clearing to where Seyari sat by the fire.

I bent down and offered her a hand. “Want to come with me?”

Seyari closed her eyes, then scrunched them up, letting her breath out slowly. She ran her fingers through her silver hair—the side that was long, anyway. “Don’t drop me.”

“I won’t.”

Once Seyari stood up with me, I faced the awkward reality of how exactly we were going to do this.

“You have four arms, so it should be easy. I’ve had to do this a few times in the past, but I was never the one being carried.” The half-angel spoke quickly, anxiously. “Hold my waist with two of your arms, and hold my shoulders with the others.”

I did as she asked.

Sey reached up and pecked a kiss on my chin. “Face me the other way, love. I want to see the ground, not you.”

“Not me?”

“I see plenty of you, Renna.”

Smiling, I spun Seyari around. Her feet rested just above mine, off the ground. Willing my magic to act, and focusing on the spell I felt earlier that same day, a heat started to glow around my lower shoulder blades.

With an eruption of heat and light, twin crimson wings of flame burst from my back. I flexed them as though they were real limbs. Dimly, I knew it was the spell moving, but they felt so real in the moment. They were also draining my barely-recovered mana quickly.

“Can I touch them?” Seyari asked in a whisper.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The last thing to touch them was a tree, and I think my wing cut through it.”

“That’s a shame.” Seyari clenched her hands into fists. “Although I guess they don’t have feathers, so it’s not too much of a shame.”

Not knowing how to respond, I changed the subject. “Are you ready?”

“I am.”

I ran a few steps forward, bent my legs and kicked off the ground. As a wrath demon, I didn’t spend a lot of time jumping. As such, I was surprised when my jump alone cleared more than my own height into the air.

With only a few powerful flaps, hot air thrust downward and I lifted skyward, spell working even harder. Really, the spell did most of the work—small movements and techniques I couldn’t possibly have grasped so quickly. Neither of us spoke as I climbed, my focus entirely on staying aloft and steady. Seyari’s focus, meanwhile, was on the ground below.

When I reached the height of the nearest hill, I stopped and leveled out, turning to face the road we were headed down.

I sucked in a gasp of air.

Spread out below me, quiet in the evening twilight, were the rolling, forested hills of the Edathan countryside. Smoke curled up from the chimneys of a nearby hamlet, and snow painted the landscape around the gray curls and dark roofs white. Above us, stars shone bright and big through a gap in the clouds.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

Only then did I hear the soft sound of Seyari crying.

“Sey…” I trailed off, unsure what to say.

“I’m sorry, Renna,” the half angel choked. “I shouldn’t have—can… can we go down now? I can’t do this.”

“Sey, I—”

“Please.”

I’ll get you your wings back, I wanted to say. Next time we’ll go flying together, my heart ached to tell her.

Empty promises, both of them. Words that would only cause more hurt. I shouldn’t have done this.

I descended as fast as I dared, and came to a landing so suddenly that the others asked if we were alright. Seyari spun herself back to facing me, her head buried in my chest.

“It was cold up there,” I lied unconvincingly. “That’s all.”

My wings sputtered out and with the renewed darkness, Seyari pulled away and left for our tent, her head down. I tried my best to pretend nothing was wrong and walked back over to the others. Moments later, Seyari returned, wrapped in a blanket.

My heart surged when she sat next to me and leaned against my side. I put my tail around both of us.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.

“I’m still sorry,” I replied.

***

We waited until the next morning to talk again, and even then, we didn’t go deeper than the road conditions, the weather, and food.

Aside from a somber mood and an awkward trade for new horses, the last of our journey to Linthel was almost anticlimactically uneventful. The few days passed with little more than a single morning of moderate snow to disturb our trip. Even then, the look of the landscape wearing its white winter blanket brought back the nostalgia of days by the fire, and Tania beating Abby and me at board games.

After that first night and flight, I filled everyone in on what happened during the fight, getting confirmation on a few things from Nelys and Seyari. The assassins were indeed hidden in the wagon, and the demon I’d thought was an avarice demon was indeed an avarice demon. In hindsight, it was also pretty obvious that the other demon was of envy.

Which meant Astrodach, one of Third Prince Malich’s bound demons, was an envy demon. They’d escaped, and were now somewhere in Navanea, probably in Baetnal rubbing shoulders with royals. A direct line to the Navanaean throne, and the power of a nation. A pit formed in my stomach when we worked that out.

Aretan, please be safe.

From the three-tailed demon’s memories and Taava’s own anecdotes, I had a good idea that Envy had a hand in the civil war in Raavia. And they more than likely had a hand in the current war in Navanaea. And they were also working to create the rising unrest and demon problems in Ordia.

Something big is coming. And I have only just enough information to be truly afraid of it.

When we rounded a bend and saw Linthel, however, my thoughts all shifted to a single word: home.

The city looked different, like a new painting in an old frame; some elements matched my memory, but I could hardly be sure which. The walls around the old town were in the same place, at least. Lord—King, now—Carvalon’s castle loomed as it always had above the city. Somewhere in Linthel I’d find answers, and hopefully closure too.