Page 186 of The Last One
One cursufly down. Countless to go.
Still no sign of Elyn or her sentinels. But there are more cursuflies. So many cursuflies.
I can’t…not all of them—
And then a shriek, that mix of high and low. A darkness darker than smoke moves over the fighting, and red eyes glow in the gray.
Tazara!Battabies swarm overhead and attack the cursuflies, putting out their lights. Tazara hovers in place, capturing the attention of the boss-beast cursufly, the one with fire in her cauldron-like belly.
The giant cursufly hurls a fireball at the king of night-dwelling creatures. With a single flap of his wings, Tazara sends the fireball back, hitting the cursufly who’d sent it, and the fire—her own fire—consumes her until nothing’s left.
“Thank you, Tazara.”
“The Lady of Dawn and Dusk asked that we follow you on your journey here,”the battawhale says. “She said you would need me.”
My gratitude and relief swell like the seas, but before I can speak another word, the king of the night-dwelling creatures is gone, leaving the battabies to complete their mission.
Soldiers hack and swing their swords at cursuflies, too, cutting down these new enemies, rolling out of the way of fireballs, some not rolling quickly enough.
We need to leave this place before I fight myself over the edge of exhaustion.
“Kai!” Philia’s face is bright with urgency. “Follow Gileon,” she shouts, pointing. “Please don’t lose sight of Olivia.”
“Lady, hurry,” Separi calls. “We’ll finish this fight. Go retrieve your amulet!”
“The soldiers have gone west,”according to those sparrows with the bloody beaks.
Past the smoke, I glimpse one single glow of amber bobbing and dropping, smaller and smaller as it races into the sun. Moths, red ones, gold ones, black ones, swirl around me. Their glittery trail leads out of the town, westbound.
“We need to go,” I shout to Jadon. “Now.Or we’ll lose her again.”
Jadon grabs the reins of two horses. Both look strong enough to carry us until the ends of the realm.
We gallop away from the smoke, racing beneath an immense blue sky that rolls on forever. I take a cleansing breath and look across to the man riding beside me, the man I thought I knew, the man who lied to me even as we depended on each other for survival, who shared my bed before the light rose in today’s sky. He’s not a blacksmith. He’s not an Ealdrehrt. He’s someone wholly different, someone I can no longer trust. Jadon Wake—the emperor’s son.
My only ally.
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Jadon and I slow to avoid tiring the horses but maintain enough speed to keep up with the moths’ sparkly trail.
“Can we talk about it?” Jadon asks.
I give him a firm head shake. My lips can’t shut any tighter.
He huffs. “But I just want to—”
I throw him a glare so hot his horse’s ear flicks.
There’s nothing Jadon can say that will make this chase through the desert any better. There’s nothing he can say that will make my heart hurt less.
The sooner we find Olivia and my amulet, the sooner he and I can separate, forever. Although the thought of leaving him forever makes my heart clench, I know my heart will heal.
Another gust of dry wind blows sand into our faces. I swipe at my eyes, and my hand brushes the cut on my cheek.Oosh. That’s right—a soldier sliced my face with his blade. But this cut… It feels different than any nicks I’ve received since waking up in Maford. This cut even feels different than the scratch made by Gilgoni the aburan. I thought it was my explosive anger and my use of wind power that had made my face numb, but no. This cut feelshot, and in just that single touch, I feel its heat and its burning pulse. My skin feels tight—my face is swelling.
I look across to Jadon. He’s scratched and nicked, and his nose looks swollen from the sucker punch, but he doesn’t look vexed about it.
Is this peculiar pain a result of a blade, or is this part of my degeneration?
