62. Zai
Zai
The Dual Wielder’s lifeless body sprawled across the ground. The one person who could seal the rift. Helping him had become my new purpose. My chance to return home victorious and prove my worth to my father.
And now he was dead. Because of me.
The woman kneeling beside him pulled my focus like a magnet. Her broken sobs and trembling body clawed at something deep in my chest.
Dirt and grime caked her clothes. Her matted inky hair hung loose and tangled, freed from its braid. She looked utterly destroyed.
I’d doomed the world. Ruined my one chance at redemption. But worst of all was how I’d destroyed any hope of earning her trust.
My fists clenched, fingers digging into my palms. But I forced them open, straining to keep bolstering her.
I couldn’t stop now. The storm had died, but her body bore the evidence of its fury.
Blood smeared across her face and arms. Her short-sleeved dress had been torn and shredded, revealing glimpses of deep gashes and angry blisters beneath.
She probably didn’t even realize how wrecked her body was.
Another sob shook her frame as she pressed her forehead against Erion’s neck.
An unbidden memory slithered through my mind. Wide eyes staring up at me, flaming red hair spread across my lap. Mother’s chest rising and falling in shallow gasps as I cradled her in my trembling hands. Just like Lora cradled Erion now.
Grinding my teeth, I shoved the image aside.
Mother’s death was an accident. Erion’s wasn’t. I’d killed him to save Lora. His uncontrolled magic had been tearing him apart from the inside, moments from consuming everything, including her. Killing him had been the only way to stop it.
But her soul-rendering grief left a bitter taste of failure scraping against the back of my throat. She’d blame me, just as my brother had.
Val’s words echoed through my mind.
If it weren’t for you, she’d still be alive.
I stumbled back as fresh agony slammed into me, dragging every shred of shame and self-loathing to the surface.
Maybe destruction was all I’d ever amount to.
Despite my efforts to change, I couldn’t shed what I was born to be. Violence flowed in my veins. Ruin threaded through my core. Ruthlessness was etched into my bones.
“Well, that was disappointing.” Tera’s voice drifted across the clearing as she emerged from the underbrush.
Lora didn’t react, draped over Erion’s body, trembling with sobs. My bolster still flowed into her, some subconscious part of me refusing to let her suffer even as my mind spiraled.
More crew members materialized from the shadows, men and women whose names had been imprinted into my brain after weeks of traveling together.
Somewhere along the way, they’d slipped past my walls and seeped into the crevices of my heart.
I’d grown to respect them. Fault and fire, I even cared for them.
And they’d turned on me.
My chest tightened, my breathing sharpening into ragged pulls.
I never should have told Tera the truth. Her betrayal seared through me, feeding something dark and primal. Heat coiled in my palms, crackling beneath my skin.
I should kill her. Kill them all. The thought pulsed through my mind, insistent and venomous. They’d fooled me into trusting them. They’d forced my hand and made me the executioner of Lora’s hopes, shattering whatever frail connection I’d built with her. They deserved to die.
The entire world deserved to burn. No one was innocent. They should all suffer for their crimes, just as I suffered for mine.
Molten rage seared through me, begging for release.
Lora lifted her head from Erion’s body, her gaze locking onto me. The hatred blazing in her dark eyes sliced straight into my core. Every thought of vengeance drained from my bones.
“You,” she snarled. “You killed him.”
Teeth bared, she staggered to her feet, her fingers curling into claws.
Droplets lifted from the ground like reversed rain, pulled from mud, from leaves, from the earth itself. Dread coiled in my chest at the raw display of power.
The liquid merged, solidifying into a frosted arrowhead hovering above her head.
The crew shifted uneasily around the clearing, hands twitching, clothes rustling. Nobody stepped forward. Nobody spoke. They just waited, watching.
Lora’s hands shot forward. The ice arrow soared straight at my chest.
Instinct took charge. A heatwave exploded from my palms, slamming into the ice, forcing it to veer sideways, half-melted. Steam erupted from the projectile as it hissed past my ribs, missing by a hand’s width.
My arms moved in deliberate motions, fingers splaying and contracting as I shoved heat into the scattered metal debris littering the ground. The fragments rose into the air, hovering around me, shaping into glowing shields.
I fixed my gaze on her, waiting for her next move.
And beneath it all, my bolster kept flooding into her broken body.