Chapter 74 #2
Xallix, unable to get close enough to strike with the spike, struggled to keep the suit closed over his chest with one half of an arm, an attempt to protect himself from Airik’s unrelenting blade.
“Well, I’ll tell it to you anyway.” Iver’s hand uncomfortably tightened on her neck. “And you will be thankful that I did. A nice little bedtime story for your grandchildren one day.”
He snaked his arm through hers, an anchor and chain.
“A death flow is when a morazir is forced to use their sword as just a sword. It almost never happens, and I was beginning to think it was just a rumor, so what a treat this is—all we’re missing is popcorn.
” He chuckled to himself. “I didn’t think they still taught this at morazir academy or wherever demented place they break these poor bastards.
” His arm clamped tighter around Nora as she squirmed to get away.
“Did you know they pick them as children? An algorithm selects them. I imagine it’s quite like picking flowers.
The best and brightest are plucked. Only one in ten survives into adulthood. Did your prince tell you any of that?”
Nora whimpered, trapped in a new version of hell where she was forced to listen to the ramblings of a madman and watch Airik fight for his life.
“They say morazir descended from the heavens. They flew—with wings sprouting from their backs and able to soar between stars—blessed by a god whose light shone on all that is true and just. No sacrificial son. No flight to heaven in the middle of the night. No path to shed wanting and accept suffering as a condition of living. Only Ulliel—their true father and god—and all the knowledge and technology he wanted to spread.”
Nora stopped struggling. “Do you… Do you mean like…an angel?”
Iver paused, as if considering his next words and deciding if it would make Nora more manageable if he fed into her delusions. He sighed, then nodded. “Yes, little doll. Like an angel.”
A loud bang echoed through the hall as Xallix threw Airik onto a desk, the metal planks bending under Airik’s weight. Airik twisted left, dodging the kudra spike Xallix thrust toward his belly, leaving small sprinkles of poison in its wake.
“Please,” Nora cried, turning to Iver in an attempt to reach the parts of him that were human. “Help him. This is wrong—why the fuck are we just sitting here?”
“I can’t.” Iver’s expression went stiff. “There are so many more lives at stake than what you see here.” He tapped the remaining claws on the glove together, his jaw rippling as it clenched. “If I could—”
An inhuman roar burst through the hall.
Her breath stopped, a deadweight in her lungs as she forced herself to look up. Xallix had been knocked onto his back, his maimed arm blocking Airik’s sword from piercing his eye, and the hand holding the kudra was trapped in Airik’s right grip.
Both of them groaned with effort—Airik against a biomechanical suit designed to overpower everything, and Xallix against a man who Nora knew would not let the smallest harm come to her, even at the cost of his own life.
The sword’s tip hovered over Xallix’s right eye, but no matter how much Airik strained, it wouldn’t sink far enough, his arm held back by Xallix’s forearm and the tip somehow repelled by the suit. Like pressing the same poles of a magnet together.
That was when Nora saw it. Though Xallix’s right arm had no hand, the suit’s sleeve came together in a point, forming a knife’s edge. He shoved up, piercing Airik’s chest.
She couldn’t help it—Nora screamed, transfixed on the spot over Airik’s heart that now dripped blood onto Xallix.
Airik’s head shot up, looking for her.
Using the distraction, Xallix knocked the sword from his hand.
He pressed the suit’s pointed sleeve against Airik’s neck, then flipped them both so Airik was on his back and Xallix trapped him beneath, ready to slice his throat.
But the pointed sleeve flopped over, leaving only a thin cut on Airik’s skin.
As he had done with Torren, Xallix thrust the kudra spike at Airik’s chest.
Airik caught his wrist, stopping the kudra just an inch away from the open wound over his heart. Completely trapped beneath Xallix, he tried to reach for the combat knife in his boot.
He managed to grab it and thrust it toward Xallix’s neck. Xallix let go of Airik’s throat and let the knife collide with his arm. It screeched as it slipped past the armored suit, and now Airik’s arm was tangled, between Xallix’s crossed arms.
One of Iver’s needles shot toward Xallix, but the moment it hit the suit, it broke into tiny shards, the pieces falling over Airik’s abdomen.
Laughing, Xallix opened his fingers one by one, starting with his thumb. He wouldn’t even need to penetrate—Airik’s skin and blood lay exposed through his torn shirt. All he needed to do was drop the spike.
The suit didn’t obey Xallix as he wanted—that much was clear from his pained exclamations and his focus on his hand, as if trying to will the joints to open. The middle finger wouldn’t move at all, and smoke rose from the joints.
Instead of keeping his eyes on the spike that would kill him, Airik turned to Nora. His body shook—instinct and training colliding in a bid to preserve itself, and veins lifted in his arms and neck as they strained.
But Airik’s mind, she realized, was with her. His gaze started at her feet, on the slippers he’d made her, and slowly moved upward. A sight, she realized with sudden, startling perception, he was trying to savor.
So it would be the last thing he saw.
Airik’s gaze shifted to Iver. “Take her,” he growled. “Back. Her home.”
Both Nora and Iver froze.
“Please,” he said, shuddering with immense strain. Xallix pushed down harder, a fraction closer to his heart. He stomped his boot to emphasize the desperate request.