Page 260 of Mother of Death and Dawn

AEFE

We crashed upon Ara in a frenzied rush. It was easy for me now to turn myself over to that blood-drunk version of who I used to be. I became Reshaye when we clawed our way from the ship and onto the shore.

I stayed beside Caduan. He fought as well as he was able, but his movements were rough, his strikes too slow. His magic failed him often. But I refused to leave his side, and I compensated for every missed strike, every falter. Life and death mingled together at my fingertips.

We had only one goal: to slaughter until Ara no longer existed. As far as I was concerned, that meant finding Nura, ending her, and taking the power back that she had stolen from us.

We could do this, I told myself. Destroy Ara. Banish those who had tortured me from this world and the next.

And save Caduan.

I could save him.

Every kill I made, every strike, every spurt of human blood spilled over the ground was to the beat of that promise.

I could save him.

CHAPTERONE HUNDRED EIGHT

TISAANAH

The darkness was oppressive, the hours until dawn endless. The only light arose from Max’s fires and the torches along the barricades, which illuminated screaming faces in slashes of crimson. When our own dead began to move, it seemed too nightmarish to be real.

Our defenses had nearly fallen apart. The Fey were making strong headway, cutting through the tide of corpses, though they too struggled against the sheer mass of people. Max ran through the lines of Aran soldiers that still held, roaring commands and encouragements, voice increasingly hoarse. The weight of exhaustion pressed down on our shoulders.

Despite our best efforts, our defenses were starting to collapse.

Crack!

The sound made Max and I freeze. We watched in horror as a third wave of Fey warriors crashed over our banks. Worse, these were magic users—they broke down our Solarie walls of earth as if they were nothing.

I let out a strangled sound.

We were done.

Between the corpses and the Fey, there were just too many of them. Max and I looked at each other, and I could see the same horrible realization in his face.

He swallowed and tightened his grip around his weapon. Flames shuddered to life again along its length. In turn, I lifted Il’Sahaj. At least we would go down together—fighting until our last breath.

Then I caught sight of something strange in the distance, approaching through the pass leading into the city—something that looked different from the rest of the decimated landscape. A string of… light? Of gold? It was nearly impossible to see in the darkness.

I blinked blearily at it, then grabbed Max’s arm.

“Max. Look!”

His brow furrowed. At first, he didn’t seem to know what he was looking at, either. Then he saw what I did:

It wasn’t just light. It was a distant row of torches, thousands of them, illuminating gold armor and matching banners that waved a silent greeting. The banners were too distant to read, but I knew what they bore—the insignia of the Roseteeth Company.

Max nearly fell to his knees, letting out a laugh of exhausted, delirious euphoria. “Fucking Brayan. I have never loved that bastard more.”

The Roseteeth worked fast. They poured into the city from the north. Brayan had been right—they were incredible warriors. Their arrival split the Fey’s focus, pulling our enemies in multiple directions. Did it turn the tides? It was too early to tell—in the thick of something this bloodthirsty, this dark, what did “winning” even look like? But with the addition of these forces, now we were, at least, surviving. I knew that much, and knew it was more than we could have hoped for minutes ago.

Eventually, Max and I fell back behind one of the few remaining fortifications. We were both breathing so heavily we could hardly speak. My muscles screamed. I was injured somewhere, but at this point I didn’t even know where.

“Until we kill Nura, this will never end,” I panted.

Max nodded, unable to speak. He was bleeding, too. How badly had he been—?

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