Page 202 of The Last One
All my anger and concern for him, all those feelings that could’ve turned into love given the time, burn up my throat like fire. I want to scream, and I want to run to him. But I do neither. No, I slip my amulet over my head and grip Fury’s hilt tighter before moving away from Elyn.
My lips tighten into a scowl. “You’re the last person I want to see right now.”
Behind Jadon, the battle continues. The yellow-gray sludge from the sea hisses, the acid burning leather, steel, and flesh. The vapors of sulfur and rot make it difficult for any living thing to breathe, and eventually every living lung will disintegrate. No vibrant colors exist here—nothing sparkling yellow or vivid blue. Sickness, that’s what I’m reminded of. Desiccated flesh after the best parts have been eaten away by animals and time.
Jadon closes some of the distance between us, and some of my anger slips into hurt—my skin tender again from his stabs of falseness and duplicity. In his new uniform and that pearl-gray armor, he’s beautiful, and he takes away what little breath I have. His hair, thick and dark, has been washed. He’s shaved. He’s—
“Well, look atthis.” Elyn laughs as she stands, hand still pressed against her now-healing laceration. “TheKai Megidrail, Destroyer of Worlds, all dewy-eyed over aboy.” She chuckles again. “The blacksmith, not the prince, has swept her off her feet. Good job, Ser Wake.”
Jadon keeps his gaze fixed to mine. Since I can no longer hear his thoughts, I try to read his expression, but I can’t decipher that, either.
The roar of battle grows louder, bouncing off the surface of the sea and splattering against Mount Devour’s steep granite walls. Burning this and sooty that. Ash and acid, swords and screaming. The earth beneath us quakes as men and otherworldly throw each other around. Danar Rrivae’s otherworldly battling Elyn’s otherworldly—each side fighting for a realm that doesn’t belong to either. Because to gain ultimate control of this realm, they need to kill me, but I will never surrender the only world that’s mine.
I will not die by any mortal man’s sword. I will not die by Elyn’s sword. I will not die by Danar Rrivae’s sword. I’m not dying, period.
“You’ve been working against me all this time,” I say to Jadon. “You’ve wanted Vallendor for yourself, your brother and father. Why are you here? To kill both Elyn and me?”
Jadon doesn’t speak, so I turn to Elyn. “Why is hehere?”
One side of her mouth lifts into a smile. “One step at a time, Kai.”
She has nerve to be as cocky as she is, considering I still grip her sword in my hand. I stow Fury and study Elyn’s blade. So light. So beautiful.
Now I read aloud those engravings across the blade. “Arbiter. Judge. Truth. Mediator. Justice. Life. Death.Absolutely gorgeous,” I say, peering at the sword’s hilt. “Too bad you didn’t get to use it.” I turn a gaze sharper than this blade to Jadon Wake.
He stands there, silent and unreadable.
Does he feel guilty for abandoning me? For betraying my trust? Does he even care? No. Did heevercare? No. He and his family need to kill me—they want what they want.Vallendor.
“Not even going to say one word?” I would kill to hear his voice, to see him drop that stony countenance and be the blacksmith again. To be my friend. But that man is gone, replaced by this soldier before me.
He’s like a statue on this muddy ground as he stares at me with his jaw clenched. The shadows in the sky slide across his face, making him look somehow…more. A glow pulses between his bones and skin.
“Good. We’re all here.”
I turn to see a man strolling across the plains. He moves toward us, but his feet don’t touch the ground—he can’t touch the ground because this realm is not his. So, his countenance is flat because he is here but…not.He is an apparition.
My stomach drops, and my mouth goes dry. I recognize this man.
Danar Rrivae stands behind Jadon, nearly dwarfing him. He’s as broad as three men, and his long, gray hair is captured in a ribbon that crests down to the middle of his back. His crimson-inked markings look bold against skin that’s sick-looking, white and lilac. He wears no tunic, and those markings of spheres connected by swirling vines cover the left side of his chest. Signifiers of all the realms he’s destroyed.
There’s the crescent of Kestau Realm—it used to be. There, near his hip bone, are the stars of Fendusk Realm—that used to be, too. And others. So many destroyed realms. A few ordained and sanctioned. The rest: mutiny.
Danar Rrivae cares nothing about order or duty. He cares nothing about love and sacrifice, wisdom and legacy. He abhors the work of Eserime and Renrians and peoples from the realms that are no more—they’re now only trophies of his rebellion. He wants what he wants. And he kills to take it. He wantseverything.
A chill seeps through the soles of my boots.
Have I become him? A specter of malice and cold ambition, flowing through my veins like poison? This realization claws within me—that I might be this man’s echo, his shadow.
No.I won’t have it. My hands ball into fists, even as I fight within myself against the seduction of power, vengeance, and justified cruelty. I think of the path I cut across Vallendor, especially, and I’m sickened by my dearth of empathy, patience, love…Temperance.
I may be quick to act, quick to judge, but I am not Danar Rrivae. I might as well be, though—a cruel oppressor who wants what she wants, no matter the cost. I’ve forgotten so much, but I now remember who I am, who I’ve longed to be.
The usurper stands behind Jadon like a father standing over his son. His breath clouds from his mouth, not with frost but with fire.
“Little Defender,” Danar Rrivae says, smiling at me. “My, how you’ve grown. You’ll have to excuse my own…appearance.”
“You can’t step a foot on Vallendor,” I say, eyebrows furrowed.
