Page 161 of The Cruel Dawn
Dark clouds of deadly hot gases washed down every street, every river and mountain and across meadows and through canyons. There was no air to breathe.
This was death.
My mother, Lyra, had served as the Grand Steward and had settled in Gundabar, one of the biggest cities on Ithlon Realm. At that time, she’d been presiding over the start of fall harvests in this wealthy town covered in mosaics and statues. Most of the realm had been corrupted by greed, as some of its people gained immense wealth from trade and land. Even before the Mera came, festivals that were meant to celebrate community had become deadly traps of selfishness and vice. Slavery, rape, and murder spread like mold, consuming every home. Ithlon had failed and had fallen…but still not enough to be destroyed, according to the Council of High Orders.
But I grew convinced that the Council made the wrong decision—and other Mera Destroyers had agreed with me. So we destroyed Ithlon.
And then we were all punished, and I was alone.
Now, though, my father stands beside me as I fight for Vallendor’s survival.
The nightstar begins her slow and deliberate rise, as if reluctant to begin her necessary journey. Full now, she glows with an eerie light, the orange of ripened pumpkins and the white of seashells bleached by salt and heat.
And beneath that dusky gleam are dead soldiers and Diminished scattered across rocks and new cliffs, impaled by spears, hacked apart by swords. In the city of Gasho: a dead prince. Dead priests, dead families, dead soldiers. No water. No food.
Amber light flickers from survivors of the last attack who had taken shelter in the Temple of Celestial. As Selenova rises above the horizon, windwolves and hydrasalts stalk them—another threat to this realm’s existence.
The army of Devourers floods the land, stark-white giants with those blank red eyes, their pale skin stretched thin across their hulking forms. Their long arms hang lifelessly at their sides, their bloody-taloned fingers holding swords poised for battle. They wear chest panels made from the shells of the crocodile-like otherworldly, naperone, and loincloths stitched from the leather of every cow, lamb, goat, deer, and bison left on Vallendor.
The land is marred by their passage and the march of otherworldly everywhere, scarred and broken beneath their colossal weight, and once-fertile fields lie in ruin surrounded by splintered and twisted trees. The aqueduct has run dry again. The silence of this dead land is broken by the low, distant growls of Devourers standing in formation.Theyare the new river flowing across the desert floor and foothills.
“What has he done?” Father whispers, his gaze sweeping across row after row of countless living-dead warriors.
The leather-winged resurrectors circle above it all with their long snouts and sharp eyes, ready to give life to the fallen. Like the creatures at the Sea of Devour, the otherworldly here have swept through Gasho for supper, and they feast on the Gashoans who’d built me tubs and altars and praised my name.
I exhale long and loud, then look over to my father.
“You must finish the work,” he says.
I cover my mouth with a shaky hand. I feel the weight of eyes on me: the eyes of soldiers who’d left Wake’s army to join mine. I feel the eyes of Renrians who’d given everything to fight for Vallendor, for me. I feel the eyes of Raqiel sentinels, and Mera warriors, and Elyn Fynal.
I heave another sigh. “Let’s finish the work.”
Father lifts his sword, which burns with the fire of our order.
All the Mera cry out in unison, “Thak ak ail kuav!”This is our day!Their call echoes across Vallendor, stirring up red dust to swirl across the sky. But this realm answers with her own war cry—quaking beneath our feet, a demand that we win her at all costs.
The Raqiel guard hold the perimeter, and they focus on the soaring resurrectors above us.
Shari lopes over to greet me, and we nuzzle our noses. “I love you, too, Shari. Will you fight by my side again?”
She licks my cheek.
I wave my hand over her, forming a shield of protection.
Then Elyn waves her hand over the wolf—another shield.
Father pats the wolf’s head. “Shari, I remember your mother, Riya. She was part of my litter on Mera.” Then he offers the wolf a final protective shield.
“Kai,” Elyn says, pointing to the north.
Danar Rrivae looms over Gasho. He wears a red-and-gray breastplate and his amulet of dark metal with crossed swords and compass points tipped with blood-like thorns. The pendant shines with the sickly red light of TERROR, the second gem we need. That jewel brightens as Selenova continues her ascent over Vallendor.
Although the traitor can’t set a single toe upon this land, he is not untouchable.
Flanked by four Raqiel sentinels, Elyn marches to the front of our battle line. At her god-size, she is splendid and commanding in her platinum armor and blue cape. Justice crackles in her hand. “I am Elyn Fynal,” she says, her voice hard as stone. “As Grand Adjudicator of Vallendor and the Nine Realms, Sentinel and Divine Mediator, with the approval of the Council of High Orders, I sentence you, Danar Rrivae, Seeker of All Truth, Veil Breaker and Destroyer of Realms, to death.” She pauses, then adds, “Will you yield?”
Danar Rrivae stares at her, then smiles. His gaze moves past her. To this traitor, she doesn’t exist.
