Every silver pane turned, and the dead skiff became their only wall.
Myrn folded her sound wing and dropped behind its peeled hull. The injured wing followed late, trailing clear scales through rain. Green bolts crossed above them and punched smoking holes through the half-sail.
The rough wake shook hard enough to rattle Jiang's beak against a neck scale.
He tasted blood again.
Ahead, the skiff rolled around its broken mast. Each turn gave them shelter for one wing beat and exposed them on the next.
"It will break apart," Hest called from the rear brace.
Valea watched another bolt enter the hull. "Then appreciate it quickly."
Sivra had both hands off the ruined reins. One held mothglass across the copied fibers. The other rested against Myrn's shoulder strut, rising and falling with the animal's shorter wing stroke.
