Page 162 of The Cruel Dawn
I need no introduction. I march out to stand beside the Adjudicator. “Will youyield?” I shout.
Danar Rrivae glares at me, then flicks his eyes at my father. “No.”
Well…
I lift my sword and shout, “Thak ak ail kuav! Dawn belongs to us.”
There’s no turning back now.
All around me, Mera warriors lift their swords and spears. We, too, are rows upon rows of fighters. We, too, are not of this world—yet we stand here to protect it. Fire and wind swirl around our weapons. One more cry—“Yekaa!”—and we charge straight into those undead giants, whose hollow eyes now burn with crimson light.
Danar Rrivae’s eyes, once green, are now cold and gray. Two resurrector beasts with skeletal wings flank him while other creatures prowl low to the ground or soar overhead. All move with deadly purpose, their claws and fangs dripping with life-giving light.
Devourers meet Destroyers in a thunderous clash. Swords clang against swords, flames eat through bone, and the earth reverberates with the sound of heads of the fallen toppling to the ground. Devourers fall, but light soon swallows them, and then they rise again with mended flesh and mended bones.
Resurrectors at work.
Cruel Dawn and I make quick work of those Devourers lunging for me. We step and thrust, step and swing.Yekaa!I strike a leather-winged resurrector, knocking it to the ground without mercy. I then chop off its head.
Elyn and her guard fight as one, methodically cutting a path through the gerammocs and sunabi, the worupines and cursuflies, and advancing closer to our primary target, Danar Rrivae.
Shari fights beside me, clamping hands and legs in her jaws long enough for me to chop off their heads. She’s a good girl, a deadly girl. Just like her momma, Rivya, and now me.
But the Devourers keep pouring forward. There are so many of them—rising, falling, and sometimes rising again.
The Mera, though, don’t flag—this is what we do. We gain strength not from this realm, but from the power of the Aetherium.
Yekaa!
My father calls forth more wind and fire. Tempests and firestorms incinerate hordes of Devourers, reducing them to smoldering ash.
Elyn and the Raqiel guards close the distance to Danar Rrivae, who is enraptured with the destruction of my favorite place on Vallendor. There is so much quaking and shifting: new lakes where there were only oceans of sand. Another meadow, another valley, another new plateau.
The Mera sever heads and leave the fallen in mounds across the land.
Hope surges in my veins.
But Danar Rrivae remains, and he hovers above the ruins of his scattered and slain otherworldly. He lifts his hand, and shadows rise and twist around that hand, taking form as a massive, double-bladed scythe that pulses with a nauseating green-orange gleam.
With my eyes fixed on the traitor, I approach. Cruel Dawn blazes bright with lightning and eternal flame.
A far-off screech from the skies stops me in my step.
A meteor burning blue and lavender explodes from the clouds and crashes into the space between Elyn and me and Danar Rrivae.
Jadon!
He rises to his feet, demigod size now. He’s not as big as Mera Destroyers, but he’s big enough.
The nightstar shines now at her fullest. She would be glorious any other night. On this night, though, she’s just one more beautiful villain.
We’re out of time.
“Supreme has fooled you all,” Danar Rrivae spits, his voice ringing across Doom Desert. “The false god has forsaken me and allowed my family to be captured without any explanation, without care or apology.” He points to me, his lips twisted. “You’re a fool for returning to the fold, to the liar, that so-called loving and merciful…”
He sneers. “Supreme allowed your beloved mother to die by your hand! Taken from youbyyou because of the lie told to you by your own soldiers and counselors, including the one you just slaughtered.”
I stumble backward. “Zephar?” I gasp.
