Chapter 34
RAINIER
My muscles ached, and I could barely catch my breath. Bodies pressed against me from every direction. The woman who’d died was being crushed beneath us, as even more Vestian soldiers were thrown into the pit. I was certain there were more people dying, being trampled beneath our feet or starved for air. We were barely alive.
The shadow wolves continued to circle, attacking the soldiers who were already battle weary and disoriented after falling into what would likely become our grave. I’d given up on my divine fire, knowing it was not enough. I was more likely to injure someone with it than make a difference.
And I didn’t dare try to move the earth again, certain we’d be buried immediately. Although that might have been preferable.
Maurice was beside me, his armor digging into my own and denting the iron. I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, but his pale face was covered in tiny red dots, his eyes bloodshot as he panted.
“Can’t...breathe.”
I couldn’t respond without losing too much of my limited air. Though I’d seen Em flying overhead with Lux, I realized now I must have been hallucinating it. Lux wasn’t nearly close to the size of the creature I’d seen overhead. It had been ages, and I was so hot and growing dizzier by every second. She hadn’t been real.
“Pull him out!”
The Supreme’s voice boomed from above, and I groaned as shadows twisted around my arms and shoulders. At first, I thought they meant to wrap around my neck. Dragging me out to display my body, the Supreme and Nythryians could proudly proclaim their victory.
But it wasn’t anything of the sort.
As Nereza’s shadows lifted me higher, pulling me from the throng of bodies, Maurice grabbed onto my foot. As I was raised through the air, the boy’s attempts at escape nearly broke my ankle, but I didn’t kick him off. How could I?
Nereza didn’t appreciate the added resistance, using her divinity to fling him back down into the pile of bodies. My knees buckled when she placed me on the ground, and I could barely stand as I gasped for air. Bending over, I sucked in desperate breaths. My vision had blurred, and it felt as if the earth spun below me. I would have fallen if the Supreme hadn’t forced me to the ground first.
Someone bound my wrists behind my back, but I was too exhausted to fight it. I blinked, my vision clearing, as I took in the massive beast before me.
It hadn’t been my imagination at all.
My beautiful wife stood, just too far away, Lux towering behind her. Like a mountain, enormous and immovable, the dragon stood guard at her back. The same blue eyes shared by Em and her sister stared down at me, now nearly as large as I was. My jaw dropped as I took in my deliverance. Despite every hesitation I’d had, every fear that she would come to harm, she was here. She was the one saving me.
It always came back to this, didn’t it? I needed her more than she needed me. It didn’t make me inadequate or pitiable, but instead, filled me with pride. I was lucky that Em—this beautiful, intelligent, headstrong woman—was the other half of me.
I might have once felt torn, watching her be in such close proximity to our enemies, beside the dragons that were both her greatest strength and vulnerability in one, but all I felt was awe. She stood with her head high, hands tucked primly behind her, and waited.
My wife wouldn’t look at me, and I couldn’t understand why. Perhaps I’d disappointed her in getting myself caught in that trap. Perhaps she couldn’t stand to out of fear for what might happen. She wore a grimace. It wasn’t as if I had expected her to be grinning over our predicament, but she seemed more distressed than I would have imagined. I was sure the tiny movement she made was a flinch of pain, especially when she adjusted her posture in the way she did when her back ached in the mornings.
I could only stare at her, until suddenly a loud thud sounded behind me. Whirling around, my breath stuttered as I found Ryo, bound and beaten. The poor creature had been stabbed—so many times. A dozen daggers stuck out from his spine, between the twining shadows which bound him.
I nearly retched.
Em had been in pain.
Because she certainly felt every bit of Ryo’s agony.
“If you think I will let you continue to torture the both of them, you are sorely mistaken,” she said, without a hint of fear or pain creeping into her voice. “They’ll burn along with you, if it must come to that.”
At that moment, I didn’t doubt her words.
She pulled her pack in front of her, hair falling forward. Opening her bag, she reached into it, and across the bond, righteous anger and terrible fear danced like courtiers at a royal ball. Embers from her fire fell from the sky before her, surrounding her in ruinous fireflies.
She looked like a goddess. When her golden-brown tresses lifted in the wind, and she jutted that chin out and narrowed her eyes, I thought perhaps Hanwen had been born again.
Nereza stood beside Ryo, and when she gasped, I didn’t understand. I stared at Em, dumbfounded, as she lifted something high above her head.
“Do you think I can kill the other seven before you retreat? I’ve managed two in just a few short months.” Em’s voice rang out, crisp and refined, such a stark juxtaposition to what she held in her grasp. Nereza’s shadows threw me to the ground, and the woman swallowed a sob. And in a low voice, almost unsettling coming from a mother as she spoke to another grieving a daughter, Em continued. “Although I’d prefer a nice, even number when we display them on pikes outside the city walls. Perhaps you’ll join your Nine and make it ten?”
In Em’s hand, suspended by long, light brown hair, swung Cethina’s severed head.