Page 8 of The Cruel Dawn
The big black wolf claws her way through a herd of urts, tearing their solid spines like fresh bread, cutting and slicing.
Over in the temple courtyard, a herd of urts chases a woman holding a baby to her chest.
I run toward them.
Zephar runs beside me and swings his dual blades to cut down two of those beasts.
The surviving urt continues to chase the mother and child, and just as it lunges for them, I pounce on the creature and knock it to the ground.
Pulse thrumming in my head, I drive Fury through the urt’s heart. After the creature’s death cry, the woman wraps her free arm around my leg. I take that moment to look back at the city.
A temple with smooth-coated stone walls stands in the northern part of this city. The temple’s massive dome is covered with tiles of crimson, gold, and black and reflects the flames now burning up date palm trees whose reddish-brown, crispy fronds haven’t borne fruit in seasons.
The houses here are no taller than three stories high, with flat roofs, square windows, and doorways draped in cottons and silks faded by the daystar. Some houses have crumbled, earth returning to earth. Chickens—some roasted by the fires, others running and clucking—huddle with villagers who glow bright amber.
Is this city now under the rule of Syrus Wake? Or is it now part of Kingdom Vinevridth? Maybe it belongs to a tyrant-king worse than the traitor Danar Rrivae and Wake combined. Who did I just bleed for?
Wait. I remember.
I know this city.
Gasho, the capital of the kingdom of Ohogar, in the middle of Doom Desert. One of my favorite provinces in Vallendor Realm is now besieged. By whom? Or what?
I’d left this place, and then the wild things came and tore through these streets. Yes, I’d left this place because they’d complained about working too hard to cultivate the land. They’d complained, about the daystar being too hot, about wanting a god who didn’t require them to fight and toil and experience hardship. The people here had started to compare me to some made-up god that someone’s cousin had heard about on holiday.
In the past, I’d healed visitors who’d come here and had been attacked by cowslews during their travels. I’d saved those who could be saved and had ordered the order of Eserime stewards to install protective wards on the roads. But then I’d been ordered by Gashoan leadership to ward lesser-traveled trails and to remove protections from those humans they deemed unworthy. Those leaders, not just in Gasho, but all over the realm, had started to treat me more like a tool than the Lady of the Verdant Realm. I’d warned them of where their disrespect would lead. They didn’t care. They wanted what they wanted.
All of that had pissed me off. And I’d said, “Fuck it,” and that had been that.
Not everyone had rebelled against me, though, not enough to justify the wild things invading the city and doing their worst to this family and others like them. I failed to protect them, then—and while I can’t undo what’s already been done, I can be…better.
The skies are smoky from the burning palms but clear of those fuzzy buzzards. No silver-spined beasts chase children over the cracked flagstone pathways. Healers tend to the injured as the warriors help the living and carry the dead to the center of town.
Zephar saunters over to me and offers me a leather flask. “Well,shit.”
I take the flask and let water dribble into my mouth. Just like that, my tongue shrinks, and the insides of my cheeks soften.
“Surprise, it’s me,” I say, now that I can, trying to smile.
The woman’s hold around my legs tightens as the baby cries.
Before I can speak to her, an Eserime healer with bright pink hair comes to embrace her. The woman melts into this comforting hug and releases me. She whispers, “Celestial,” to the Eserime, who looks nothing like me. To the woman in need, though, we must all look alike.
Now that Zephar and I are alone…
“You’re still the fighter I remember,” he says in his soft, low voice. “Methodical. Tenacious. Always taking one bite at a time.”
“I’ve never been a messy eater,” I say.
“I am, though,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “From what I remember, you loved watching me eat.” He blushes as he tucks a stray hair behind his ear, then whispers, “I’ve missed you, Kaivara.”
My breath catches in my chest as the sound of my name on his lips brings back memories of the…mealswe’ve shared. And from what I recall, I was his favorite snack. That wolf pendant twinkles around his neck.
“And I’ve missed you, Zephar,” I whisper. “Zee.”
He’s the man I’d forgotten.
He’s the man I love.
