Page 197 of The Last One
But I’ve been marching toward her as she glided.
The world around us is silent, as though we’re inhabiting a bubble.
“Stop where you stand,” she shouts.
I throw less wind, enough to knock her back on her ass. “Here I am, bitch,” I shout. “Chasing me across the realm? I’m not running anymore. You’re looking for me? You found me. ‘Give me Kai’? Well, here the fuck I am. Now what?” Hatred and exhaustion flicker in my core until my anger burns white-hot against my skin.
Adrenaline fills my limbs, rolling back like waves and then surging forward, stronger now. I pull out Fury—my sword has gained mass, and I’m ready to take an ear, a finger, a hair, a single slice of her skin. Any trophy, anywhere.
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“Stop!” Elyn shouts again, breathing heavily.
“You’re gonna make your otherworldly kill me?” The air around me crackles, and I thrust another sizzling gale at her with my free hand.
She tumbles back again, rolling into a crouch. We’ve reached the banks of the sea, and she has nowhere to go. “The otherworldly are not my beasts. I didn’t create them—neither did Supreme.” Her eyebrow arches as her gaze travels from my feet to my head, taking in my hand-me-down luclite and trusty cloak.
“Yeah, I’m beating your ass wearing rags.” I stand before her, legs apart, sword at my side. “I hear you’re looking for me.”
Elyn squints, then grimaces. “And you look like shit.”
“Aren’tyouthe judgmental one,” I say.
She shrugs. “That’s my job.”
“Why are you here?” I growl. “What is this about? Why will you be dying today?”
She throws her head back and laughs. Like…belly laughs. “Tears in her eyes” laugh. Her eyes scan me again, and she falls into another fit.
“Fine.” I lift my hand, and blue crackles pop across my fingertips.
Her eyes widen, and she yells, “Don’t.”
But it’s too late.
This time, I use wind to sweep a boulder from the pile of fallen rocks and throw it at her.
The boulder hits Elyn’s left side. She cries out in pain as she’s slammed to the ground.
I pull that boulder back and let it hang in midair over her.
Elyn, supine on the ground, lifts her head, eyeing the boulder and watching me. Tears shine in her eyes. “You’re still Kai,” she says, her voice weakened. “Still quick to act. Still quick to judge. Still impatient. And all of that has led us…” She reaches out and takes control of the boulder hanging above her and hurls it into the sea. “For once in your life, listen to me.Please.”
I search her face for duplicity. I see none and drop my hands.
“I never thought I’d be on this side and you on the other,” Elyn says, climbing to her feet, “especially since we started our journeys of becoming together. And now, here we are, on Vallendor, in yet another war.”
“Another?”I cock my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She squints at me, wondering if my confoundment is true or not. “Mutiny.”
“By?”
“You.”
I roll my eyes and murmur, “Not this again. I refuse to believe that I willfully destroyed the realm of my kin. I would remember something as horrible as that.”
“Do you remember the realm of Kestau, then?” she asks, breathless. “Forests and blue lagoons, animals, rocks, and shells. One of the oldest and largest realms, so large that it needed separate governments. The realm of marathons and athletes.”
