Page 187 of Red Ruin

The temperature spikes. Lightning crackles.

So does the fire in my veins.

I snap to start the rain.

A hail of hellfire screams down from the sky.

I grin as Kyorgos disappears under the flames.

We’ll burn together.

* * *

REMY

Little Kevan Kyorgos fights my shadows. He sputters through his gag, shaking beneath the pink sky.

I sneer on his mental frequency, making sure the sound of his sizzling flesh doesn’t block out my disdain.

Azrid Supreme trained his heirs to kill at all costs.

When you drop your sword, pick up a rock.

When you drop your rock, use your bare hands.

If you can’t win, sacrifice yourself.

Anything to stop the hordes.

Anything to save a human life.

Sentinels have become spoiled.

They don’t remember the hopelessness of a world without Guides.

My passion for the war shattered with my sanity, but there’s one soul left that I’d shred myself to protect.

“Battle ready,” I murmur to the shadows, reminding them not to kill.We can use this skeleton as Iris’s shield. “Keep him battle ready.”

I’m certain to forget.

As I sharpen the shadows into thin, invisible blades, the darkness narrows my view.

I whisper between his burning screams.

My shadows weave between waves of meteors.

With slices as shallow as paper-cuts, I carve arrays beneath his clothes.

They’re the same arrays Azrid Supreme carved into me so may times. All hidden where Iris will never know.

The pattern is pure evil, designed to speed failing Azrids to their next rebirth. To keep us fresh for the next battle.

The array corrupts the bloodline.

Toxins gather faster.

Rampage knocks sooner and takes a deeper hold.

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