For a while they clung to each other, then, pulling him by the hand, Evelyn pulled the youth toward the Chasm and into the shadowed declivity they favored.
Scorio waited.
Not out of any respect or desire to afford Evelyn a final moment of bliss, but out of pure cold calculation that she’d be less alert when she emerged from their time together.
True night fell.
Scorio sensed the fiends circling the base of his tree. Looking down, he realized he’d not see their like before. They were hard to make out, ambulatory masses of pale mussel shells embedded in dark pitch, roughly cuboid in shape and with burning singular eyes dug deep in their center.
They were aware of him. A dozen? Twenty? The clearing below was filled with their number. Scorio grimaced. They opened their shells and thin, tongue-like filaments wavered forth, causing the mana around them to grow greasy and fey.
Scorio glanced back across the settlement. Should he cancel his attack? Flee across the canopy?
The first of the fiends began to climb the tree, engulfing the trunk and rising with great rippling undulations.
Scorio sighted along the Chasm’s rim. He had to time it precisely. It would take him twenty or so seconds to reach Evelyn. If he left too soon, he’d fly out fruitlessly over the Void. Too late and they’d be gone.
As before, Evelyn’s hair rose into sight, a great weaving web that tensed, extending out like a great halo, and then slowly sank back out of view.
Now.
Scorio rose, extruded his wings to their greatest extent and leaped.
The fiend rising up the tree shrieked in frustration.
Wings spread, Scorio glided through the night air. Over the treetops, gradually losing height, as silent as the wind.
Reflexively he thought of pumping out Iron to give himself lift, but then he smiled darkly; he was no aerite craft.
Out over the camp. Over the heads of a passing patrol, out just wide enough to not cross the central square with its great wheel and shaft. Over the roof of the hall, dropping still, and out over the raw rocks.
The river glimmered to his far right, an ebon rush with silver highlights.
Evelyn never lingered after her own climax; right on cue she and the youth climbed out of their depression, hand in hand, Evelyn laughing throatily and caressing his arm.
Scorio banked slightly so that he rose a few yards, then narrowed his wingspan so that he fell into a faster drop, knifing down out of the darkness and right into Evelyn.
Who sensed him at the last second.
She whipped her head about, eyes wide, but then his clawed feet grasped her by the shoulders and tore her from her lover, off the ground.
She screamed in rage and her hair instantly lashed about him, enveloping him like vines.
But it was too late. With a cry of exultation he flew out over the Chasm. The darkness below was eerie, the depths illuminated in subtle hues.
“You bastard,” Evelyn cried, “I’ll crush you, I’ll—”
Scorio beat his wings powerfully and rose higher, shifted into a glide as he hit thermals and began to arc out widely around the inner perimeter of the Chasm.
Evelyn’s hair was woven all over him, around his limbs, his neck, the base of his wings.
“Go on,” he laughed. “Squeeze me shut. We’ll both fall.”
Evelyn’s hands gripped his ankles as she swung beneath him. He saw her stare down in horror. If they fell, they’d plummet deep, deep into the Chasm.
“Who…?” She stared up frantically. She’d no doubt already hit him with her immunity power, but what good did it do her out here? Her voice rose in shock. “Scorio?”
“Hello, Evelyn.” Oh, his pleasure was savage, his desire to hurt her, terrify her, beyond anything he’d ever felt. “It’s been awhile.”
“But…” She bit down on her shock and he could sense her mind rapidly working to adapt, to calculate, to figure out how to turn this to her advantage. “I had nothing to do with it,” she blurted out. “Dameon didn’t consult with me. He knew I was too attached to you all.”
“Did you fight to protect my friends once I was gone? Did you quit Manticore in disgust?” Scorio laughed. “Do you think I’ll believe anything you say?”
She cursed and her hair tightened about him, cutting into scales. “You can’t drop me. I’ll never release you. Take me to the edge. We’ll work something out.”
“Can’t I?” He reached down with one hand and slashed his talons through her hair, severing half of it in one go.
She shrieked as she swung about, her hair immediately regrew, redoubled its grip on him, cocooning his arms to his sides. His wings she left free, but everything from his feet to his shoulders was soon wrapped in her gleaming, luxurious mane.
“There,” she said, voice shaky. “Now we can talk.”
“There’s just one thing I want to know.” He’d considered interrogating her, learning why Manticore had done it, how they’d been able to be so cruel. But in truth none of it mattered. Just one question remained, one matter he’d not had the presence of mind to raise with Moira. “Where’s Jova? Juniper? Zala?”
“Jova?” Evelyn’s voice thickened with delight. “Oh, she’s still with us. She was upset when it all went down, but Jova’s cold, the most pragmatic Great Soul I’ve yet met. Zala followed her lead. Juniper? It was too much for her. I think she was close to—what was her name? The girl?”
She was provoking him on purpose.
“That’s all I needed to know.” Scorio poured Iron into his body and began straining against her hair.
“Give it up, Scorio. I’m a Dread Blaze, you’ll never—”
LET GO, he commanded.
Evelyn went quiet as his elbows pushed away from his side, his talons scoring the air wrapped around his abdomen. He revolved his arms so that they could slash the hairs binding his wrists to his body, then worked his way up even as more hair slithered around him.
But it was hard. Despite his heavy aura Evelyn’s hair replaced every cut strand almost immediately. Scorio had thought his talons would prove its match, but though he could slash through it instantly, he couldn’t ever build enough space with which to swing down at her.
He released his grip on her shoulders. Her immunity prevented direct attacks on her being; allowing her to fall had been a gamble, but a smart one: it proved sufficiently indirect that he could do it.
Pity her grip on his ankles was crushing, her hair guaranteeing her safety.
Scorio folded one wing and whipped into a wicked turn, Evelyn rising up and flinging around as he thrashed.
Her laughter was interrupted by curses. He slashed, cut, got one arm free, reached down only for a thousand strands to bind it back to his side.
“I don’t know what you did while you were gone,” she panted, “but I’m impressed. You’ve grown strong, Scorio. Stop a moment and let’s talk! We can figure something out, we can find a way to apologize—”
Scorio cursed. He’d overestimated his ability to sever her hair. No matter. He had a backup plan.
Scorio furled his wings and dove down into the Chasm.
“What are you doing?” Evelyn rose up behind him.
Scorio narrowed his eyes against the wind. Down he flew, faster and faster like a plunging hawk, into the gloom and toward the eerie depths below.
The mana around him grew rich in Copper. The waterfalls billowed before their caves, then they were past them, hurtling like a stone. They punched into Iron moments later and Scorio felt the mana pouring stolidly into his reservoir even as he tapped it for his Ignition, eternally fueling his power.
“Stop!” cried Evelyn. “Scorio, I wasn’t part of it, I didn’t know, stop!”
Down he flew. He saw the great ledge where the shaft let out, where Emberlings trained in rich Iron. Whipped past it. The Chasm’s breadth was narrowing, growing crooked, great elbows of stone extending into the void with folded draperies of rock joining them to the walls. Ancient constructions, half-collapsed buildings, catwalks, piers, platforms jutted out into the dark.