Chapter 19 Lord Imas
LORD IMAS
The iron door does not yield; it disintegrates.
Wood splinters and steel screams as the hinges are torn from the stone. The heavy barrier crashes inward, slamming against the floor with a violence that shakes the dust from the rafters.
I step in front of Leora.
I do not have my magic. I do not have the coiling shadows of The Serpent to weave into a shield, nor the chaotic whispers to warn me of the blow before it lands. I have only a notched blade of mundane steel and a body that is already failing me.
My shoulder burns where the stone sliced it. My legs are heavy, the muscles trembling from the exertion of the climb and the frantic, desperate act of love we just shared.
But my mind is clear.
I am facing death without the screaming cacophony of a god in my skull. There is only the sharp, acrid scent of burnt air—like lightning striking dry tinder—and the steady rhythm of my own mortality.
"Imas," Leora whispers behind me. I feel the heat of her back against mine, a fragile anchor in the storm.
"Stay down," I command softly.
Lord Malek steps through the ruined doorway.
He has always been a large man, but tonight, he is monstrous.
The magic of The Warrior flows through him, a visible, shimmering aura of blood-red heat.
It swells his muscles, turning his skin the color of gunmetal, and makes the veins in his neck bulge like cords of iron.
He does not walk; he stalks, vibrating with the testosterone-fueled rage of his patron deity.
He holds a double-headed battle axe in one hand as easily as if it were a quill.
"Look at you," Malek sneers, his voice amplified by the magic until it rattles the shelves. "The Master of Night. Hiding in a closet with a whore."
He kicks a pile of books aside, clearing the space. His red eyes burn with triumph. He feeds on this—on the dominance, on the victory.
I raise my sword. My stance is perfect, the result of a Khuzuth education that demanded excellence in all things, even the physical arts I disdained. But against the raw, magical mass of him, I feel like a child holding a twig.
"She is not a whore," I say, my voice cold and steady. "And you are not a Lord, Malek. You are a rabid dog off his leash."
Malek laughs. It is a wet, ugly sound. "And yet, I am the one holding the axe. And you are the one holding... nothing."
He lunges.
He moves with a speed that shouldn't be possible for a creature of his size. The axe sweeps down, a blur of steel meant to cleave me in two.
I dodge. I do not try to block; the force would shatter my arm. I spin to the left, the wind of his swing ruffling my hair. I thrust my sword into the gap of his armor, aiming for the kidney.
The tip strikes true, but it skids off his skin.
The Warrior's blessing has turned his flesh to iron. My blade leaves only a thin, white scratch on his side.
Malek roars, backhanding me.
His gauntlet connects with my jaw.
The impact is tectonic. It lifts me off my feet and throws me backward. I crash into the reading table, sliding across the wood before tumbling to the floor.
I taste copper. Darkness fringing my vision, and a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
"Imas!" Leora screams.
I see movement in the corner of my eye. Soldiers are pouring into the room, stepping over the wreckage of the door. They wear Malek's colors. Two of them grab Leora.
She fights them. She is small and exhausted, but she fights with the ferocity of a cornered cat. She claws at their faces, kicking, twisting.
One of them strikes her across the face.
The sound of the slap cuts through the ringing in my ears.
Rage, pure and blinding, floods my veins. It is not magic. It is something older.
I scramble to my knees, spitting blood. My jaw feels unhinged. I reach for my sword, my fingers scrabbling against the stone.
"Get off her!" I shout, my voice raw.
Malek steps between me and Leora. He kicks my sword away, sending it skittering across the floor.
"Watch," he commands me.
I look up. The soldiers have her. One has twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to her knees. The other has a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back, exposing the long, pale line of her throat—the throat I kissed only minutes ago.
She meets my eyes. Her face is streaked with tears and dirt, her lip split. But she is not looking at the knife at her throat. She is looking at me.
Despair crashes into me.
I should kill her.
The thought is a jagged shard of ice in my heart. I should summon the last dregs of my strength, snatch a dagger from my boot, and throw it. I should end her life before Malek can touch her. Before he can drag her back to his dungeons and break her piece by piece.
It would be a mercy. It would be an act of love.
My hand drifts to my boot. My fingers brush the hilt of the small knife I keep there.
I look at her. I imagine the light going out of her sapphire eyes. I imagine the silence she brings turning into the eternal silence of the grave.
I can't do it.
I am weak. I am selfish. I would rather see her suffer and live than be the one to extinguish her light.
"Please," I whisper to Malek. It is the first time I have begged in my life. "Take my head. Let her go. She is nothing. She is just a slave."
Malek grins. "She is everything, Imas. She is the reason you are weak. And I am going to make you watch while I carve the weakness out of her."
He turns back to me. He raises the axe high above his head, preparing for the execution stroke.
I try to move. I try to crawl toward my sword. But my limbs are heavy, weighed down by the crushing gravity of my failure.
Malek brings the axe down—not to kill me, but to slam the flat of the blade into my shoulder.
CRACK.
Bone shatters.
I cry out, collapsing onto my side. The pain is a white-hot starburst in my shoulder, radiating down my arm, stealing my breath.
"Imas!" Leora screams. She lunges, breaking the soldier's grip for a second, scrambling toward me on her hands and knees.
The soldier grabs her by the hair again, jerking her back so hard her neck snaps. She cries out, a sound of pure agony.
"Stay down, bitch," the soldier growls.
I push myself up. I have to get up. I have to reach her.
I crawl. I drag myself across the stone, leaving a smear of blood behind me. My vision is tunneling. The world is reduced to the sight of her face, twisted in pain, and the boot of the soldier pressing her into the floor.
Malek steps on my hand. He grinds his heel into my fingers, crushing them against the stone.
I gasp, but I do not stop looking at her.
"Pathetic," Malek spits. "Look at you. Crawling in the dirt for a human pet. You are a disgrace to the Khuzuth."
He shifts his grip on the axe. He raises it again. This time, the edge is down. This time, it is for my neck.
"Any last words, Master of Night?" Malek asks.
The world slows down.
The scent of burning wood and old paper fades. The pain in my shoulder dulls to a distant throb.
I look at Leora.
She has stopped fighting. She is staring at me, her eyes wide, the sapphire blue swallowed by the Purna blackness. She is frozen in horror. She thinks this is the end. She thinks I have failed.
And I have. I have failed to protect her. I have failed to hold my power. I have failed to be the monster the world needed me to be.
But as I look at her—at the tangle of her dark hair, at the fierce, terrifying love in her eyes—I realize something.
I do not regret the silence. I do not regret the loss of the magic. I would burn a thousand cities, I would slaughter every priest in the temple, I would tear the sky down just to have had that one hour of peace in her arms.
She is not a poison. She is the antidote to a life I didn't know was a sickness. She inhabits the hollow spaces of my soul, filling them with a light that is brighter than any star. She is the breath in my lungs. She is the beat of my heart.
She owns me. Utterly. Completely.
I cannot speak. Malek’s power is pressing down on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs.
So I mouth the words, shaping them with my bloody lips so she will know, so she will carry them with her into the dark, a talisman against the night that is coming for her.
I love you.
It is not enough. The words are too small, too human to contain the sheer, devastating magnitude of what I feel. But they are all I have.
Malek grunts, his muscles bunching as he brings the axe down.