Vengeance Throne (The Callistra Chronicles #2)

TWO

Chapter Two

Pasiphae hurtled toward the rocks, her eyes squeezed shut. The wind screamed into her ears as she spun, faster and faster through the air in a dizzying test of gravity.

I don't want to test gravity, she screamed inside her head. It clearly works fine!

Nausea swirled in her stomach. Pasiphae was sure she was going to collide head-first with the ocean and scatter all her brains. The roar of the waves were becoming louder and louder. She was so close that she could feel the spray of salt water on her neck.

Then she wasn't falling anymore.

Pasiphae risked opening one eye first, slowly. When it appeared that she had survived, she opened the other, blinking wildly.

"What'd I say?" Seth asked, amused. "Trust me, gem."

Pasiphae peered down, and almost screamed. She hurried to secure a grip around Seth's neck, as if he could drop her at any moment. They were airborne, but skimming the ocean, keeping close enough to the water that the sylphs wouldn't follow them.

Beings made of shadow and air probably dissolved on contact with salt water.

"Do not drop me," Pasiphae managed through her teeth.

Though the night was dark, Seth's golden wings provided a quaint glow. They were almost iridescent under the moonlight, and unlike the cold gleam of an Unseelie, each of Seth's individual strands appeared warm, like the last smouldering embers in a fireplace.

"Ye of little faith," Seth said. He had an arm looped around her back and another underneath her knees, distributing her weight evenly. It didn't look like he was struggling, but Pasiphae didn't like to make a habit out of depending on being carried around.

Amused by her tension, Seth swooped suddenly. Pasiphae bit back a scream, but a pitched sound still escaped through her gritted teeth. She clutched onto his shirt so tightly that her nails pierced holes through the collar fabric.

"Sesostris Basillerius," she hissed. "I will kill you."

"Hold on!"

He dived again, and though Pasiphae's heart jumped to her throat, it scared the smallest giggle out of her as well. It almost felt like magic—the adrenalin rush pumping in her blood and the cold, salty smell that invaded her lungs as she gasped for air.

Pasiphae could hardly remember what the rush of magic felt like, but this was close.

It almost made her miss Khotadi, which was a feeling she never thought she would experience. In Khotadi, the country of the Unseelie fae, there was no magic coming from the land itself, and Pasiphae's day to day life wasn't a reminder of the source she couldn't make her body tap into.

The fae took magic from each other in a constant competition for power. They didn't need to be in a prime location on Callistra. Witches, meanwhile, took from the source, and in Medeis, Pasiphae couldn't do anything without being followed by a swirling, untamed magic.

She would taste its bitter tang on her tongue, but it would choke her if she wasn't careful. She would hear its seductive whisper wake her every night, only to disappear when she made a grab for it. Her every move was underlined by magic—a magic that she couldn't touch.

It was only in moments like these that she could almost forget.

"Not so bad, is it?" Seth asked.

But they couldn't afford to forget—war was coming.

Pasiphae glared up at him. "Find land, Seth!"

Laughing, Seth took a sharp left, having already located another coast. As he manoeuvred easily through the air, Pasiphae peered over his shoulder, squinting to look past the brightness of his wings. The sylphs were long gone, but she felt their presence all the same.