Page 150 of The Endless War

The Usurper stood before her with a sword in hand, her last remaining bodyguard standing behind her on the narrow path. “He’s not coming, dear one,” she said. “So I think it safe to say that your usefulness is at its end.”

A shadow moved above, soundless as a cat.

“You keep saying that he’s not coming, Auntie,” Zarrah said with a wild grin as Keris jumped from the switchback above, landing behind the soldier. “Every time, you are wrong.”

Keris drew his sword. “Let her go, Petra.”

The Usurper stumbled away from Keris as her bodyguard attacked. She tripped over Zarrah and fell against the rock wall. Zarrah reached for her with bound wrists, catching hold of her leg to keep her from running.

The Usurper fell, her sword sliding up the path. She crawled forward, but Zarrah held on. If she escaped into the cavern, there might be other ways out. She might get away. She might come back, ever remaining Zarrah’s nightmare.

Zarrah could not let her go.

She clambered up the older woman’s body, bound wrists not stopping her fingers from closing around her throat.

Zarrah squeezed.

The Usurper’s eyes widened, and she clawed at Zarrah’s hands, skin purpling. “This is for my mother,” Zarrah said. “For Yrina. For Valcotta.”

She heard Keris grunt behind her, then the scream of the soldier as he was tossed off the edge of the cliff.

“But most of all,” Zarrah whispered, “it’s for me.”

The Usurper went still, staring into Zarrah’s eyes. She twitched and jerked; then, with a last burst of strength, the Usurper threw her weight sideways.

Zarrah gasped, trying to counter the motion. But it was too late.

They were falling.

“ZARRAH!” HE SHOUTEDas she crawled after Petra, trying to knock the soldier in his path out of the way to reach them. There was nowhere for Petra to go, for his companions would catch her on their way down. “Zarrah, let her go!”

It was as if she didn’t hear him, her bloodied face a mask of desperate determination as she reached for Petra’s throat.

The soldier slashed at him and Keris parried, knocking the man off-balance. A punch to the jaw sent him stumbling off the edge, revealing Zarrah atop Petra, strangling her.

Then Petra rolled.

No.

Memories flashed before his eyes. Of himself diving and reaching, Otis’s clothes brushing his fingers as he fell to his death. Of Serin just out of reach, his plunge setting a nightmare into motion.

Not her.

Keris dove forward, the bare skin of her arm slipping through his grasp as she dropped from sight.

HIS FINGERS BRUSHEDover her arm, trying and failing to stop her plunge, and Zarrah screamed as she fell.

Only to stop short as Keris caught hold of the rope between her wrists, her shoulders nearly wrenching from their sockets, for the Usurper had hold of her as well.

“Kick her off!” he shouted. “I can’t hold you both!”

Zarrah sucked in a panicked breath because with each heartbeat, Keris slid another inch over the edge; there was nothing for him to grasp for leverage.

“Zarrah, please!”

Her eyes shot downward to where the Usurper dangled from her belt. Below, the deadly plunge, the rocks on the riverbank already splattered red from the fallen guards.

“Dear one, please! Please don’t let me fall!”

---