Page 166 of The Cruel Dawn
We trek over the bones, though the sharp edges catch on our boots. We don’t slow down even as the chasm grows tighter and the walls press in so close that sometimes we must move sideways. The world narrows. It’s a blur of red walls.
Shari’s low growls signal that we’re getting closer. There is light ahead at the end of the canyon.
Moths the color of fire and forest flutter over a mountain of bloody rocks, severed hands, and bones from humans and beasts.
Elyn whispers, “Oh, no.”
We burst into open air under an immense sky streaked now with finger-like clouds. We skid to a stop at the largest pile of scavenged bones I’ve ever seen.
I use the tip of Cruel Dawn to push through the heap of bones…
A blue-tinged mail breastplate.Fuck.Jadon was wearing this armor.
I continue my search and push aside…
A cap-sleeved leather tunic. “That’s his, too,” Elyn whispers.
I continue my search even though my shaky hand can barely hold on to my sword and…
No. A chain with the moth amulet.
I pull my old pendant from the mess. The black stone in the moth’s thorax pulses with light. I stare at the amulet, unable to speak.
Elyn takes over the search, using Justice’s blade to sift through the remains. I keep my eyes on the amulet until…
“He’s not here, Kai,” Elyn whispers.
Shari howls and pants.
Fifty paces away, a lounge of hydrasalts tears into some poor creature’s leg. One of those three-headed lizards gnaws at a boot.
“That’s Jadon’s boot,” Elyn says.
I watch the lizards eat until a curtain of tears obscures my vision. Those teardrops fall into the parched earth, and flower buds and blades of new grass sprout through the dirt. I cover my heart with a shaking hand.
I wish…that I could’ve made it right between Jadon and me.
I wish…that I could’ve healed him once and for all.
I don’t regret doing all that I had to in order to save Vallendor. But he’s gone, after making the ultimate sacrifice.For you. For us.
Danar had threatened to cut Jadon’s strings at any time. Little did he know Jadon would cut his own.
Shari howls again, this time because she can feel the weight of my grief. She didn’t know Jadon, but she knows my heart.
“We must leave this place,” Elyn whispers. “We must go back and check on the living.”
I nod and swipe my wet face against my shoulder.
The nightstar burns high above us in the western sky. Her silver light illuminates everything beautiful and horrible now twisted together in this realm. But past the stench of death, there’s a new smell. Fresh honeysuckle and night-blooming jasmine now grow wildly around us—all here because of my fallen tears. Fireflies flicker and dance across this healing meadow, ready to illuminate the night and the path back to my people, back to my land.
“Look.” Elyn points to the east, where Lumis will soon rise and bring with him a new dawn.
Out there, a figure sprawls across the red dirt. More hydrasalts circle this body, which now glows deepest amber, that shade right before life slips to death.
Who is that?
Elyn, Shari, and I run toward that body.
