Page 103 of An Honored Vow

My breath hitched as the thin thread of a portal appeared behind him. Riven slipped through, reaching for the pendant.

Damien’s lips didn’t even twitch as he swung his arms back down. This time his target wasn’t the pendant, but Riven’s arm. I looked over my shoulder and saw Dynara standing with the others, but they stood around the portal watching Riven reach for it instead of what Damien was doing. I shot a gust, trying to stop Damien’s blade but it hit too low. It blew against his feet, throwing them into the air, but Damien was already through his swing. The Dagger’s body fell to the ground and the inky blade severed Riven’s forearm.

Riven crumpled to the ground behind me in shouts of pain as Damien laughed. He stabbed the pendant with the blunt end of a dagger and it shattered into pieces.

I hurled myself at his host. Damien was still laughing as I knocked him back to the ground. “Do you see it now?” he mused in a voice much too low to be his own. “You attack me, and we all lose. There can only be one king of Elverath and it will be—”

I snapped the Dagger’s neck before Damien could speak another word. His body crumpled into a pile of nothing. I ran to Riven. Amber blood splattered along the ground as he coughed. His arm had been cut a few inches below the elbow and lay discarded a few feet from him through the portal.

The decay from the Unnamed One’s saliva was already eating through the flesh.

My chin shook as I tried to find the words. “I need to get you to Rheih,” I choked.

“Diizra,” Riven coughed. “There’s no time.”

“No. We can fix this.” My vision blurred. “I just need Rheih. No, Gwyn. Gwyn!” I looked at Dynara.

Dynara opened a portal to a group of Halflings in Myrelinth. She pulled Gwyn through and closed the portal behind them.

Gwyn paled as she saw Riven.

“Diizra, there’s no time—”

“Yes, there is. We can fix this.” I turned to Gwyn. “Fix him and I can heal his arm back together.”

Gwyn shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Use the debriding spell. I just watched you do it.” My hands shook as I wiped the hair from Riven’s face.

“Keera,” Riven said with as much force as he could manage. “You need to h-heal it now or it will f-fester. You have a m-minute at th-the most.”

I froze. “Or what?”

“Or he dies,” Gwyn answered. “You can debride a cut made by the Unnamed One’s claws but this”—she pointed at the sword dripping in thick, black liquid—“is Unnamed saliva. It’s too potent to debride.”

Riven groaned. The saliva was eating through the end of his detached arm. “What about this?” I waved my hand over Riven’s wound that was also lined in black saliva.

Gwyn’s face was hard. “We amputate.”

“No.”

“Do it,diizra,”Riven urged.

My throat tightened. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t maim Riven even more than he already was. My mind understood the logic, but my body resisted.

Gerarda stepped forward. “I will do it.”

Gwyn cut the tongue of a discarded boot and stuffed it into Riven’s mouth. Tears streamed down my face as Gerarda blanketedme with her shadows so I couldn’t see anything except the raise of her sword.

The shadows disappeared. Gerarda had only taken a couple inches, leaving his elbow intact but discarding the rest of the rotting flesh and bone.

“You have to heal the amputation, Keera.” Gwyn knelt and placed a hand on my back. “Now before he loses more blood.”

There was a deafening shriek. I turned and saw the injuredwaateyshirexplode into pieces above the stone wall. Syrra’s golden sword sticking from its chest. The others roared in rage descending on Syrra.

“Dynara, take Fyrel.” I nodded at theshirak. “And Gerarda and Elaran too.”

She nodded. “I’ll be right back for Riven.”

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