Chapter Thirty-One #3
Another man wearing my father’s face runs out of the forest, a bow in hand, followed by a dozen others. Stars, is that him? Or another illusion? Conflicting emotions war inside me as a scuffle breaks out between them and Laleh’s revenant soldiers.
But I have my own problems to worry about when my magical shield alerts that Masi?ta and his men are moving closer in an attempt to surround me.
Deflecting an ice blast, I release a starlit flare.
I’m down to the dregs of my magic, but it’s still strong enough to incinerate three of the men to my right.
“We need her alive!” Masi?ta roars as a pillar of fire fizzles against my weakening shield.
I spare a glance at the fight behind me and glean hope from the fact that my hopefully real father seems to have the advantage.
Gritting my teeth, I try to pinpoint my attack, instead of wasting what little akasha I have.
There could be more men hiding in the trees, and if I’m depleted, I’m doomed without a weapon.
Sending out a tendril like a lasso, I yank one of the men closest to me forward and obliterate him—but not before divesting him of his sword.
There, not so doomed.
“Cut off their heads and burn them with fire,” I hear someone shout from the other side. Someone I know. That can’t be . . .
But I am too busy deflecting an attack of ice spears to turn around.
More horde warriors, as I suspected, slither out of the forest where they’d been hiding.
My simurgh’s shield will have to guard against the magical attacks, and I’ll have to take these pricks out with my sword.
The odds in my favor are not great, but I haven’t trained for weeks to just give up now.
With a war cry, I eliminate two men with a series of quick thrusts before sliding into a lunge to wound a third across the backs of his ankles. Blood flies, spattering me like rainfall, but I’m lost to my battle instincts as I fight to stay out of their clutches.
A shout of pain that sounds too much like my father breaks me out of it, and I spin, just in time to see a half-dismembered revenant pierce a sword into my father’s leg. In slow motion, I watch him stumble and fall, blood leaking from his lips.
Aran—I knew I’d recognized that voice—appears behind them, carving his weapon straight through the revenant’s head and then sketching a fire rune over his decapitated skull.
Instantly, it bursts into flames. He drops to his knees beside my father, and to my shock, he gathers him close and places his hand over the wound, trying to heal him.
Wait. Why is he helping him? Aran is Roshan’s man. Fero’s man.
Unless . . . he isn’t. Is he with my father and the insurrectionists?
He doesn’t see Laleh loom from behind them, a crossbow at the ready.
She meets my eyes and grins evilly, releasing her arrow right into my father’s stomach.
I roar with helpless despair, unable to reach him through Darrius’s wards.
Rage overcomes me as my simurgh shrieks, a strange pressure reverberating in the air.
We are not powerless.
With that, my Starkeeper soul implodes like a supernova, creating a black hole of magic that sucks akasha from everywhere. Masi?ta screams along with his men as every single one of their bodies dries to a husk, their magic nourishing the dearth of mine.
It’s both horrific and beautiful, frightening and sublime, when immense power claws up my body, through my bones, and the runes on my hands detonate.
I feel the wings on my back expand wide as my spine bows with the influx, and the smirk on Laleh’s face turns to shock and then alarm.
I touch a shimmering finger to the barrier and it fractures in a smoky spiderweb of cracks.
We are your end, revenant.
The magical voice is a high-pitched, multilayered sound that makes the remaining humans clutch their ears. I step past the shattered wards, and I cock my head at the necrotic creatures the god of death created.
Tell your master we are coming.
“Sura, it’s me,” Laleh cries. “Your friend. Don’t abandon me this time.”
But even in my heightened ascended state, I know that my friend—my dearest, sweetest friend—died a long time ago. With a single flicker of thought, the revenant who stole her face liquifies to purple-red sludge.
My light dissipates as I crash to my knees. “Papa?”
“I’m here, peapod,” he rasps, breaking the arrow with a grunt to remove the shaft. “Flesh wound.”
Everything is spinning, but I fight the dizziness as I send magic to his bleeding injury. “Why have you come? It’s dangerous. This war will leave nothing but rot and corpses in its wake. I need you and Amma to be safe.”
“She is safe.” He wheezes with a low laugh. “And well you know that I can’t sit still or silent and let our people suffer. That abomination with Laleh’s face came to Coban looking for you. I went to Kaldari for help, and the king’s cousin made the portal for us to follow her.”
I squint at Aran, who is staring at me with pleading, oddly hopeful eyes. “Why are you helping my father? You are an imperial runecaster on Roshan’s side. Fero’s side.”
“No, I’m not. My cousin isn’t lost,” he rasps. “And I think you’re the only one who can save him from the clutches of that thing.”
“He’s gone, Aran,” I say. “His soul is corrupted. You saw what he did to me. What he made you do, too. To save him, you’re going to need the might of a god, and we’re in short supply of those, unless you have a connection to Saru no one knows about.”
Tears leak from him, his remorse a tangible thing.
“Ashes, Suraya, I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.
But Roshan is fighting. He won’t stop, not while your starlight still burns inside of him.
And it does, I promise. Please, please. If you ever loved him at all, if you hold even a spark for him now, please don’t let him go.
Please don’t let his struggle be for nothing. ”
Everything inside of me aches—my soul, my body, my heart—for the man I loved. Perhaps even still do, deep down where my heart is quietest. “I’ll do my best,” I say finally. “But, Aran, I can’t promise anything. The rot is an unholy essence. I . . . I might not be strong enough to save him.”
Relief floods his features. “I understand, Sura. Thank you for being willing to try.”
Pressure in the glade builds as a storm of shadows descends. When they clear, an apoplectic Darrius is standing there, fury written in every line of his powerful frame. My chest swells, and I smile, my heart so full I can barely contain it. “You found me.”
“I’ll always find you,” he says. His gaze flicks to my father and then Aran, darkening considerably at the latter. But then his voice lowers as I fall gladly into his embrace. “The manticore heard your call and knew you needed me. He shifted back and my magic healed us.”
“I’m glad,” I murmur. “Get my dagger? It’s over there . . . Masi?ta . . . dead.”
It’s my last thought before I let myself sink into my beloved’s shadows.