Quest Eyes in the Smoke

[Solstice]

The wind was changing. The air currents coming down off the top of the mountain hit the warm air rising from the lakes and made the atmosphere shudder. As one, the Wind Eagles tensed, their golden eyes scanning the shore and mountains surrounding the twin lakes. Wings fanned out, and wind filled feathers. By now, near everyone was packed up and ready to go, last minute stragglers and packers rushing to finish their tasks before the approaching flight began. The lingering anticipation and anxiety in the air was slowly being honed to something sharper and more deadly. The catalyst to the lingering air stared at the scattered group of Inarta below, face a mask of arrogance and barely concealed pride.

It will be enough, Hitten said. Trinto glanced upwards to see his eagle staring down at him from above, feathers splayed, and a growing urge for violence fluttering in his chest.

"Two chimes!" Trinto shouted at the group gathered, holding up two fingers to illustrate his point. Immediately, the flurry of activity intensified as everyone rushed to finish up their tasks and mount the eagles. Screeches rang out and wings flapped with anticipation. Narth, still speaking with Tythos, turned to look at the Wingleader as he made his announcement. The Flightleader heaved a sigh and glanced back at Tythos. We can take the Isur Evek said. The bird hung his head upside down and chirped at Narth, forcing a smile across the Endal's face. I will carry the dog very gently! No squeezing! Evek lowered his head so that he was facing Bogdi and chirped at the dog.

"You fly with me," Narth told Tythos with a smile. "Am Narth Evek. This Evek." The Endal pointed at his eagle with the introduction and Evek preened under the attention. "We lead White Owls Flight. Maybe not wrestle the Beast," and Narth chuckled at this. "But Javelin is good. We try not get too close. Long distance weapon better, not sure what find in fight." Narth gave Tythos the time to do whatever it was he needed to do to get the dog ready to be carried.

An internal ring went up through the minds of the gathered Endal. One more chime left. "Come, we leave soon," Narth said. Evek lowered his body onto the ground to make it easier for the Isur to mount, and Narth leapt into his seat. He offered a hand to help the Isur onboard behind him, then helped him get adjusted in place. "Hold on tight. First flight bumpy." Narth glanced down at Bogdi on the ground. Evek had brought his face up close to the dog and was patiently allowing the dog to sniff him. "We will pick up dog on the way up," Narth told him.

By the time the final chime was up, everyone was ready. All eagles had been mounted, all materials packed. Almost every eagle had a second or third rider aboard. Oresnya's poison had been distributed among the most skilled of archers, and Leo, along with several other Chiet who had helped pack but were not joining the hunt took several steps backwards to give the eagles room. Another gust blew down from the mountain, ruffling feathers and furs. Hitten dove from his perch and slammed into the ground beside Trinto. The Wingleader gave one last glance at the gathered group, and effortlessly swung himself onto the eagle's back. The moment he was aboard, Hitten screamed. That scream was soon echoed by every eagle, one by one. A moment later, Hitten had heaved himself into the air. Like Autumn leaves caught in a chill wind, one by one the eagles left the ground. Evek circled once, then grabbed Bogdi in his talons before racing back into the sky.

High above the world, the air is cold. It chills every bit of exposed skin and makes your teeth chatter. Even in the heat of the Summer, that did not change. Cold enveloped the riders, seeping into their bones. The Endals would be used to it, but the other riders might find it quite strange. High in the sky, towards the peak of Skyinarta, snow still remained. And that chill that kept the snow intact filled the air around them. The air was thinner here, and those unused to it might struggle to catch their breaths. But then the eagles were diving, towards the ground below them. The formation of eagles came naturally; a lifetime of practice for some. Trinto and Hitten lead, and behind the eagles formed into their flights, separate but in sync. Below the stretched Wind Reach, and the Unforgiving further beyond. Black and white snow spotted mountains, lush greens and browns of plantlife far below them, the cyan of the sky and the cerulean of the sea. Beyond Thunder Bay, the black dots of ships floated in Thunder Bay. A whale breached the surface, before disappearing below the waves, white foam crescendoing in its wake.

The eagles' altitude shifted at a slow clip, drawing them closer to the ground. A path that would take days or weeks on foot was less than a bell by air. The birds flew with purpose, their wings carrying them in the direction of Thunder Bay. A normal trip of this sort would often be longer than necessary, full of laughter, play, conversation and meandering. It was not unusual for a Flight to stop for a bell or two to take a dip in one of the lakes, or for an impromptu race to carry them far off course. Today, the Wing was all but silent. Only the occasional mental call of directions was shouted through the ranks. There was no laughter, no unnecessary conversation, not even among the eagles. Everyone was serious, tension thick enough to pierce with an arrow head.

Abruptly, Hitten changed course and the eagles in formation adjusted their path behind him. The area the bird aimed for was past the edge of the settled part of Thunder Bay. Ahead of them loomed a valley, tucked in between two mountain ranges. Even from above, and even to eyes as ineffective as a human's, the valley was strange. The usual splash of green and brown foliage dotting the landscape was tainted with black. The scent of charred wood met the airborne riders, though the sight of smoke and and the orange and red of fire was absent. Huge chunks of the verdant valley had been charred black, but whatever fire had scoured the land had long since gone cold.

Hitten pierced the air with an order, and slowly the eagles fanned out into a different formation. With Hitten and Trinto leading, the birds slowly circled the valley, eyes jeen for any sign of movement. All within the valley was still. Not even animals stirred. No deer, no rabbits, nothing. Quiet, still, lifeless. Hitten screamed. A challenge, a threat. Yet still nothing, not the slightest change, no movement. Another order filled the air, and one by one the eagles circled closer to the ground until their talons touched the ground.

The valley was not particularly large, and could easily be crossed from one end to the other on foot in a matter of ten minutes or so. Hitten's landing point was marked by a large cave, settled into the side of the mountain. A deep bed of red and orange leaves marked the entry, but the cave was too dark to see beyond a few feet of it's entryway. A brisk walk from the cave, a group of strange objects laid clustered on the ground. At first glance, they seemed to be overlarge, burned seed pods, but it was impossible to tell anything further at a glance. Scraped up against the rocks and trees nearby, was a thick, gummy, opaque substance. Beyond there, a large charred section of forest lay. It was difficult to tell how long ago it had burned, but even in its blackened and withered state, the collapsed trees and darkened limbs made it impossible to peer into its depths at a distance. However, from the air it had been noted that the center of the burned trees had been collapsed inwards, as if something very large had collided into it. All around the valley, in various places, marks had been scraped into the rocks dotting the surroundings. However, the most distracting and perhaps upsetting object in the valley lay situated a short distance from the cave. A pile of corpses in varying states of rot was propped against the side of the mountain. Eagle, Inarta, and animal all lay in a confusing pile of stripped parts and flayed flesh and bone. An intense scent of decay wafted from the corpses, making even the eagles flinch.

The same feeling echoed on the faces of every Inarta present, and shouted in the hearts of the Wind Eagles. Where was the Beast? Trinto chewed his lip, then barked out an order. One by one, the group either dismounted or flew to different parts of the valley. It was time to search.

OOC :

Before you lies a strange valley and it must be searched. Each of you must examine one of the places or objects on the list. Each item on the list may have valuable information, or it may be a red herring. You may pair up if you wish, or search separately, but note that separating will allow you to examine more things and the more information you have, the better. Once you have decided on your item, either DM or PM me, and I will give you information on what you find. It is first come, first serve. If someone has already selected the item you choose I will ask you to choose another. Use caution in what you choose, there is great danger here...somewhere. Sharing information might be prudent here. Thuma knows the most about the possible dangers.

1- Charred Pods

2- Darkened Cave

3- Burned Stretch of Forest

4- Hole in the canopy

5- Marks in the stone

7- Strange Residue

8- Flayed carcasses

[Oresnya Cacao]

That was something that Oresnya had not expected. The cold bite of the air. Up closer to the sun, the world didn’t warm. Instead, anything that cut the chill bite of the wind was gone, and the result was a cold that bit deep, almost deeper than any cold Oresnya had ever known. There were only two things that matched or bettered this. One was her climb up the Sanikas Pass in which she had ended up soaked. To the bone, some idiots would say. The other was a fiercer cold, one that no wind or wet had ever matched, and that was the cold of the ocean. She had learned to swim in its depths, coddled of course by the pair of Charodae that ran with the crew of The Bonnie Dot. Her first time dropping into the water, Oresnya thought she had died. That was a cold that chilled the soul.

But this cold was something new, something foreign. It was a lonely cold, empty and without substance. Here, there was nothing to surround her, no solid ground to put her feet on, nothing but the air and a drop that would give her far too long to think about what waited at the bottom. Nothing but the drop. And the cold. Oresnya sank deeper against her flying partner, pressing against Vosin and the warmth of his body. There was some warmth emanating from him, and Oresnya was unsure of how someone could be giving off any heat this far from Mother Semele and still too far from the light of Syna. As she began to shiver, Oresnya swore to herself that once this hunt was through with, she would never willingly suffer this cold again. How any of the Endal or Eagles could manage it she did not know.

Perhaps they had come to love it. Perhaps there was a part of the birds in them that made suffering this a little easier. Perhaps the Eagles were so alone, so cut off from the anything that could anchor them to the world, so alienated from the things that walked the earth, that this loneliness was more bearable than the one they always felt. Oresnya shivered. A few chimes into their journey, her teeth began to chatter.

It was cold, but not so cold it cut to the bone, not enough to reach to the soul. Her soul was what kept her focused on the task at hand, so she prayed to Viratas that she would feel solid ground beneath her feet soon, prayed to whoever had made her feather trinket that it worked as well as they said, if not better. She prayed to Viratas to warm that blood that coursed through her veins, and she cursed herself for not donning some sort of coat or cloak. She was certain she’d spend the rest of the day shivering, just to try to get herself back to normal.

Up here, where there was nothing, only emptiness existed. And sound. As the Wind Eagles cut through the sky, cutting travel time from days to chimes, the empty air rushed around them, shouting in their ears to tell them of the things that had come to pass up here where nothing ever came. It was so loud that Oresnya wouldn’t have been able to hear anything if Vosin had said it, but regardless of the wordless circumstances, the Flights flew in a perfected synchrony that only existed in nature’s wisdom. In the determined plunge toward their final destination, there was an odd solemnity and a loneliness, cold and unwelcoming yet driving them onward.

All journeys end, and theirs came to a conclusion as the Wind Eagles circled a valley, slowly descending upon it, their talons only striking ground when they knew it was safe. But the scene awaiting them on the ground was anything but safe. She had expected their return to ground to bring them solace from this sense of loneliness, the emptiness. That was not the case.

In a seemingly endless sea of green mountain valleys was their destination. It was anything but green. The trees had been scorched black and where there should have been life there was none. It was as if some colossal hand, maybe that of fate itself, had reached down and removed the thing that was and left behind an empty shell with empty promises of things that could be. There was an empty field, an empty forest, an empty cave. Only a framework remained, and it was filled with emptiness.

Oresnya wanted nothing more than to be back in the safety of the caves of Kalinor, far from this empty world, far from the empty hope of finding Yora’s family, but she was not. She was here. She had chosen this, and now, she had to live with that decision.

Only the very real, very potent scent of death and decay cut the emptiness, and it was heavy when they landed. Everyone began to disperse as soon as their feet hit the ground, most of them rushing away from the pile of carcasses. Oresnya didn’t want to be stuck on dead body duty either, so she slid down off Aren’s saddle as quickly as she could. One thing she wouldn’t miss out on though was the chance to touch one of the fabled Wind Eagles. As she scurried down, Oresnya et her hand slip over the edge of the saddle and glide across his magnificent plumage, feeling the individual fibers of feathers part beneath her touch. Aren’s face turned toward her, and she realized he knew what she had done. Dipping her head in apology, Oresnya turned away, and as she left, she could swear the big bird chuckled.

There were too many ways to go. The cave was the first thing that caught her attention. It made the most sense for her. Her eyes could see in its dark, and she was comfortable underground. But in its emptiness, it felt so different from home, and she found herself disturbed by it most. She turned away and found herself staring at a blackened forest.

Not wanting to get stuck sifting through rotten corpses and pieces of corpses, Oresnya fell in with the small group headed that way as several birds took back to the sky. There were several hunters, though most were not Endal. Matching strides with a dark-haired man who had dismounted from an Eagle carrying a pair of twins, Oresnya gave him a smile.

She pointed at his bow. “I hope you good with that. We need it. Soon.”

It was less than a chime before they reached the forest’s edge, leaving them little time for conversing. The nearer they came to its edge, the quieter they became until finally, on its brink, they were silent. There was a hesitance to enter, though Oresnya felt certain in the primal part of her soul that they would find nothing here. The fire had long ago burned out.

So with a deep breath to calm her nerves, Oresnya took her first step into the forest’s dead skeleton. Her first look was forward, but her eyes didn’t stay there. Years of living in a suspended city had conditioned her to expect a world that didn’t just exist as forward and backward and side to side. In Kalinor, there had always lurked the thought of what lay beneath. Here, above Kalea, above the ground, the same instinct that forced her to look down drew her gaze upward. If this thing could hunt Wind Eagles, getting to the tops of trees would be no issue for it.

If she thought the world above the world was haunting, if she thought the valley plucked away from the world it had inhabited felt lonely, then this was another thing altogether. Oresnya had been in forests before. This wasn’t one. Forests were places rich with life and sound. This had neither. Birds had long since abandoned this place for more verdant ground and had taken their song with them, but even the hardier creatures of the earth, the insects that buzzed and chirped, were absent. There was only the sound of the wind, and with it came the groaning protest of the trees that had forgotten they had died.

Usually forests were heavy with the scent of fresh plant life. They smelled green. Pine and its sap should have dominated the senses, but it too was absent. Instead, there was only smell of smoke, and even it lacked its regular luster. Though ash was all that remained, it was old and worn out.

There was no sound but the soft crumble of grass as it turned to ash, no life but the one each hunter brought with them. Guilt built somewhere deep inside of Oresnya as she came to the realization that some of those lives would end today. Though it would not be her doing, she felt she should have done more to stop them.

With her eyes shifting slowly about and always returning to trees above, Oresnya placed each foot deliberately, avoiding plots of ground that were heavy with burnt out plants and branches. It made her going slow, but it made their coming less easy to detect. She was by no means silent. Things lay hidden under the bed of ash that cracked and snapped even under her light Symenestra frame. Step by step, she pressed farther into the forest, always with several other hunters nearby until they came to a place of transition. The forest that had been affected by fire suddenly ended, giving way to a shadow of the forest that had been present before, but here, the bird and insect song was still absent.

A brief conversation was held between the hunters, consisting mostly of gestures and whispers when words were necessary. It was the common consensus that they should follow the edge of the burn until they came to the place where it began, and so once more, Oresnya crept through the blackened trunks bare of branches, keeping close to the trees in case she needed cover.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the fire’s origin. There was a crater blackened darker than anything the forest burn had managed. Something had struck the earth here and struck it hard. Trees had been cracked and uprooted, bits of them spread all about. Though the wind had swept the fire away, here was where it had burned hottest. With wary eyes still searching the surroundings, the hunters entered the crater. Those who truly were hunters began to look for signs of a creature, tracks to trace or scat or fur left behind to identify what it could be, but Oresnya, untrained in such things, just let her eyes wander.

There was one thing that caught her eye in this place where everything was out of place. Strewn about the scene were long black needles, most of them the length of a grown man’s forearm. One was nearby, so removing her backpack, she pulled her cloak out and wrapped it around her hand before reaching out to pick the strange object up. The moment she touched it though, it turned to ash.

Frustrated, Oresnya wandered over to the next one, this time gently curling two fingers under it and pinching it with her thumb as lightly as she could. This one didn’t crumble, so Oresnya lifted it up to inspect it. When it had reached about hip height, the fragile thing snapped in two and, when its pieces hit the ground, disintegrated into ash.

With a sigh and another scan of the forest around them, Oresnya found another needle, stood over it, and contemplated it. Several thoughts, all rudimentary plans and none of them good, went through her head. She began to try each one, moving on to a new needle each time an idea failed. First, she tried to pick it up from one end, then from both ends at the same time. After about a dozen needles, she sat down next to the next one and lay the cloak down next to it. Tapping the needle several times with one finger, Oresnya waited to see if anything bad would come of it. After several chimes and still having an intact finger, Oresnya set about the last idea her mind had managed to come up with.

As softly as she could, Oresnya rolled the flat of her palm and her fingers across the needle, rolling it up over the edge of the cloak. When that worked, she continued until the thing sat in the center of the cloak, then lifted the cloak by its edges, cradling the needle in its center. Repeating the process several times, she found herself with three intact needles. After a few modifications to the process, Oresnya held one of them in her hand. Looking at it, she could see nothing that told her it should be familiar, and the view from several different angles changed nothing.

Closing her eyes, Oresnya slid her fingertips over the thing several times. The feel of the thing had an odd familiarity to it, something she had encountered recently. She ran her fingers over it several more times, searching her memory for what it reminded her of. Her fingers froze, and a chill ran down her spine.

Her stomach fell when she realized exactly what it was she was holding in her hands. In her rush to leave, she spat her first sentence out in Symenos. “We should go back.”

Realizing no one understood her, she tried again, this time in Common. “We should go back. Now.”

No one seemed to catch the drift, so she stumbled her way through the words in Nari. “We… go back… now.”

Some of the hunters nodded as if they understood, but Oresnya knew they thought she was saying there was nothing here and that they should rejoin the others. She meant back. Back to Wind Reach. Back to Kalinor. Back to anywhere where this thing wasn’t.

The things in her hands were feathers, or at least all that remained of them. There was no denying the similarity between them and the feathers she had felt as she slid off the back of Aren. And they were large, large enough to belong to a Wind Eagle. They should never have come here.

[Oresnya Cacao]

The trip back to the clearing was fast. No one wanted to be stuck alone, far away from help if and when the Beast decided to strike. While everyone wanted their own piece of the glory, none of them wanted to face this thing alone. In their hearts, even the proudest could admit that alone they were no match for whatever this creature was.

As Oresnya ran back into the clearing, she spotted Trinto talking to several of the Endal who had been circling the skies above and made her way over to him. She was slightly out of breath when she got to his side, her body not used to the labor she was putting it through. A slight look of disgust filled his eyes at her approach, but he waited for her to tell him what she would.

Holding out one of the needles so he could see it, she stated in her best Nari. “Feather. Left over.”

Trinto was not a man to shun useful information, and he looked at the feather in interest. One of the twins she had seen from earlier was standing nearby, having just relayed some other information to him, and Oresnya could see the wheels turning, trying to fit the many pieces of information he had gathered together in some way that all made sense.

Oresnya followed the brief conversation that followed as best as she could, but her Nari was still slow and stumbling at best.

“The eggs, Thuma? How large did you say they were?”

“I’ve seen Wind Eagle eggs before, Trinto. I know what they look like.”

“These were the same size?”

“That’s what I said.”

He nodded. “Wind Eagle eggs and shafts of feathers that are the right size? A predator that can attack a Wind Eagle in the air and be on equal grounds with it?” Trinto eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “It can’t be good.”

Another of his flight spoke up. “What’s it mean?”

“Nothing good. We have an airborne predator that can keep up with our Eagles.” He picked up the feather shaft from Oresnya’s outstretched hand, only to have it crumble away at his touch. “And apparently it can turn an Eagle to ash.”

He called out loudly to everyone who was still present. “Fan out. See if we can’t find this thing. Everyone be sure to pair up. That way, if you find it and die, someone will be able to warn us.”

Several riders chuckled at this. It was a serious statement, but it was also Trinto’s way of keeping everyone present calm. Everyone needed a more light-hearted mood, especially since a few dozen feet away, a half dozen or so Inarta lay rotting in the sunlight.

Vosin was returning from his medic-assigned duty of examining corpses and caught Oresnya’s eye. As much as the Symenestra enjoyed the company of someone who didn’t mind her presence, she could smell the stench coming off of him from a few dozen feet away and would have rather been in anyone else’s company, but he nodded for her to join him. He was Endal, and she was not, and that meant she had no choice. Resigning herself to the fate of his stench and company, Oresnya threw a smile his direction and started toward him.

It was in the moment when everything seemed fine that it was not. Everyone was busy catching the eyes of friends and trusted hunting partners and falling into groups, so busy that they forgot to keep their eyes about them. Only the most seasoned had their wits about them, and even they were unable to catch the shift in the edges of the forest, the shadow in the trees that moved against the sway of the wind. For a moment, everything was fine. The world was calm.

And then, in a crack like the lightning splitting the air in two, like the tear of rock as the earth quakes, it was not.

With a gust of wind so hot it chapped her lips as soon as it hit her, the forest’s edge exploded. A moment behind the heat came slivers of wood from trees shredded to nothing in an instant, slivers and needle-sized bits of wood that littered everyone’s skin. Oresnya had been facing the other way and had got a back full of wooden slivers, but several Inarta around her fell to the ground, wiping at their eyes, blinded by the bits of wood there.

The Widow was about to turn to see what had happened when a second concussive gust of struck her and knocked her off her feet. Scrambling around, she stared in horror at the thing that stood where the explosion had come from, at the creature that began to stalk its way toward the stunned group of hunters.

It was an eagle, a Wind Eagle, or at least, it once had been. This thing was twisted. Eagle eyes were different from human ones, but even they displayed emotion. These eyes were empty, as if the soul of the thing had been stripped away and all that remained was hunger. Bits of its skin had been burned away, leaving only molten and scarred flesh beneath. But this was not the most frightening thing of all.

At each step, a few small feathers would fall free, floating downward for a moment before suddenly glowing with res and catching fire. It was a creature of nightmares, and for a moment, no one moved. An arrow ripped over a stunned Inarta’s shoulder and buried itself in the once-Wind-Eagle’s shoulder. Its scream was met with the scream of all the Wind Eagle’s who had come on this quest.

Everyone leapt into action. Everyone was a hunter. Everyone was hunted. All of them knew it, Symenestra, Inarta, Wind Eagle, and Beast alike.

Catching Vosin’s hand, Oresnya dragged him toward Aren who had flared his white wings wide, screeching defiantly at the Beast, drawing its rage and attention from the helpless Inarta who were still earthbound. The Beast had only managed a step or two toward Aren before Vosin and Oresnya were saddled and the Eagle was taking to the air.

[Oresnya Cacao]

Once more, Oresnya was rising into the air, into the cold away from the earth, but this time, she didn’t feel its bite. Air rushed in her ears, but the sound of her own heart beating in them drowned it out. Adrenaline, hot and fierce, coursed through her veins, and her body responded in perfect harmony to things it should have known nothing about. They were flying, and though Oresnya had never flown before today, her body knew what to do. Though she was pressed against Vosin to keep herself from falling off, she added no weight to him, letting him remain as free as possible to command Aren, to work with Aren in perfect synchronicity. When he twisted, so did she, letting their balance shift and the subtle changes in their weight cue Aren into which direction to turn. If anything, the invisible barbs in Oresnya’s skin afforded them more traction, more adherence to the saddle, and Aren, seeming to sense this, pushed the envelope, daring aerial maneuvers that would have dislodged the most seasoned of riders.

Aren sensed something, something the human part of Oresnya and Vosin had both missed, and banked to the left. A feather hissed past them, glowed bright orange with res, and then detonated into a cloud of heat and fire and ash. The explosion threatened to dislodge them, but Oresnya’s grip held firm, her bodyweight against Vosin pinning him to his Wind Eagle. A flick of his wings shifted his weight beneath them, and they were secure once more.

Heavy and choking, the scent of burning feathers reached Oresnya though the speed of their flight tried to pull it away. Several of Aren’s beautiful white feathers were scorched black, and one still smoldered with the heat of the fire they had flown through. It was beyond the reach of any of them, so all three ignored it, pressing themselves to their limits as the chase continued. All three knew that already other Wind Eagles were airborne or taking to the air and that help would arrive soon.

Another explosion rent the air to their right, and Aren, desperate to put distance between them and the Beast, beat his wings furiously, feathers that knew the currents of the air magnifying the lift of the thermal the explosion created. Rapidly, they rose higher and higher and higher, all the while feeling the air grow thin around them. More feathers reached them though, and explosions seemed to fill the air.

There was a moment when Oresnya saw a pattern in them. The Beast was not haphazardly flinging these projectiles their way. It was using them to force Aren to follow a certain path. There was a moment when she saw the pattern and tried to warn Vosin, but the moment came to late. A blur of feathers came from their side, fierce claws reaching to strike Aren’s throat.

What happened next came too fast for Oresnya to understand what occurred. Aren twisted. A rush of feathers blocked Oresnya’s vision completely, and a colossal force knocked her and Vosin from the saddle.

And then came the sickening moment when she felt gravity pull at her, and she began to tumble toward the ground, spinning in a dizzying back and forth of sky and treetops, sky and treetops, sky and treetops. She could do nothing but clutch what she held closer to her, the unconscious body of Vosin.

Death was imminent. Nothing survived a fall from this height. Nothing. And no one would catch them. In each skyward glance, she caught snippets of the aerial battle, Aren battling the Beast singly while other Eagles and Endal streaked upward to meet them. A sudden snap of a branch and the blotting out of the sky spelled their end before their twist showed the ground a moment away from smashing into them.

Then, there was a flash of light, and Oresnya found herself floating above the ground, drifting slowly toward it with Vosin in her arms.