Page 160 of The Cruel Dawn
I stop several paces away from Jadon, the distance between us too much and not enough. All that’s happened between us lingers in this gap. I fear breathing the air around me. I’m not sure if he still has the power to weaken me. He’s bigger than before, his frame wider, his muscles bulkier, but he retains that same elegance. He wears steel-gray mail tinted a subtle blue that shimmers like the ocean in a storm.
“I’m here to fight,” Jadon says, his voice deeper, gruffer.
The greatsword he holds looks meaner than his old sword, Chaos—this new blade’s teeth gleam with menace and hunger.
“You’re here to fight,” I say, “but for whom?”
Jadon gazes at me, his blue eye and lavender eye both flaring with pain. “I’m here to fight foryou,” he says. “To fight forus.”
“I wish I could believe you,” I say, “but you’re wearing my amulet. You also held a knife to my throat as we stood on this very bluff. Yes, you’re ready to love me, but you’re also ready to kill me.” I pause and then add, “All of Vallendor will soon witness your ultimate choice.”
He remains cursed with Miasma—no, heisMiasma, heisthe curse—and his power rolls toward me and pushes against my armor like the tide against the shore.
I take another step back. I’m no fool. Tides wear down mountains that stand in their way.
“I’ll do anything for you,” Jadon says.
“Now is the time to prove it,” I say. “Everything’s different. Times have changed because thereisno time, not anymore.”
“You killed the emperor,” Jadon notes. “My father was a strong man.”
“And your true father is stronger,” I say. “And you’re stronger than him.”
Jadon holds out his arms. “You have nothing to fear—”
“You tried to kill me,”I say, narrowing my eyes at him. “You took that from me.” I gesture to the moth amulet hanging from his neck.
“Obviously, you didn’t need it,” he says, his blue eye glimmering. “Here you stand.”
“It wasn’t yours to take,” I say, ice pooling in my heart. “And then to steal Veril’s amulet from Separi? How much lower can you go?”
“As low as I need—and it’s worked. Because hereIstand.”
“Unwilling—or unable—to help in this fight but hanging over us like a poisoned sword.”
Jadon says nothing, but he doesn’t look away—nor does he respond to my accusation.
I stare at the tattoo that continues to creep across his skin. Fire and water, earth and ice, circles and circles all slithering up his neck and down his left shoulder.
“You’re willing to sacrifice yourself at the end of this?” I ask him.
“I’m willing to do what must be done.” He presses his lips together and clenches his jaw. Both of his eyes brighten him. “And I will do it for love, for change, for all that yet breathes.”
Caught off-guard, my breath catches in my chest as my eyes burn with sudden tears. He’d said that to me in my dream right before the world around us exploded. “We’re done here,” I say now, turning away from him.
“You may not believe this right now, but—” Jadon’s nostrils flare, and that lavender eye flickers. “I do love you, Kai.”
I look back at him over my shoulder. “I know.”
…
Ithlon had been the last realm where I’d witnessed the awesome descent of my order in their god-sizes. That day had been an urgent cobalt blue and bright gold, swirling and luminous. That day smelled of copper and iron, of leather tanned over fire. The towns and cities and hamlets of Ithlon had shuddered beneath that falling sky.
I remember shrieking, wailing, burning. Collapsing.
Mera Destroyers, each of us as wide as six oxen and as tall as the oldest trees, stalked across the provinces, our giant red hands wielding two-pronged staffs tipped with fire. There were no shields. There was no obstacle great enough to stop this destruction. Flames wreathed our heads and around wings as crimson as blood. Our chests were adorned with countless swirling markings that glowed like flowing lava. With fire and molten rock falling from our mouths, we’d lifted whole houses as if they were loaves of bread.
The Eserime had stood in every city center across Ithlon, their faces twisted in horror as we marched over ridgelines and into their lives. They’d worn no armor, and their garments, light as air, could not protect them as they were launched into the sky. The air grew hotter as each steward flew higher, closer to Ithlon’s daystar, Sandall. The god’s glare was concentrated into a singular beam so bright that no being on the realm of Ithlon would ever see color again. No being on the realm of Ithlon would everbeagain.
