Page 289 of Emylia

Because I was not finished.

Hooves thundered across the dying earth, dust and ash billowing in the horses' wake as they sprinted toward us—braving the fire, the smoke, the stench of death.

For us.

Without hesitation.

They were fearless. Loyal. Undeserving of being dragged into the ruin of our fate.

I didn’t waste a second. As Stormfire barreled past, I caught the saddle horn and vaulted into position before her hooves had even stilled.

Maalikai stood right beside me—steady, solid—but he made no move to mount. His eyes darkened, something in them so heavy it punched straight through my chest. I knew what was coming.

He was going to send me away. Push me toward safety. Away from him.

But when his labradorite eyes locked onto mine, the question he asked was something else entirely.

"Are you ready?"

A sharp breath whooshed from me, dragging a thousand feelings with it. “You’re not going to order me to run?” I rasped, daring him.

“No," he said, voice low and certain. "There’s nowhere safer for you than at my side—except maybe behind your mother’s ward. Sending you away would only make it easier for death to find you.”

He stepped closer, the smoke weaving around him, wrapping him in the ruins of a world he refused to surrender.

"Besides... there's no one I'd rather fight beside."

My throat burned.

Gods, after everything—after everyone—we'd lost—he still chose me.

Not out of desperation.

Out of belief.

“Have I told you I love you?” I managed, the words splitting against the grief lodged in my chest.

"You could tell me a million times," he murmured, brushing his knuckles along my thigh like a vow. "I'd never tire of it."

Tears blurred the wreckage behind him—the smoldering sky, the broken earth, the hollowed-out future.

I gritted my teeth, feeling the fire claw up my throat.

"Then let’s go kill some fuckers."

With a furious cry, Stormfire leapt forward, her hooves tearing into the bloodstained ground. The breath of the dead rose behind us—thick, clinging, relentless—pushing us into the jaws of war.

Only fifteen minutes had passed before something caught my eye in the rocky terrain ahead.

“Maalik!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“I see it,” he called back.

Boulders of color lay strewn across the field. As we neared, my stomach turned.

They weren’t boulders.

They were bodies.

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