Page 82 of The Cruel Dawn
We were all charged with watching over our mortals, and some grew bored with tending perfect worlds like this meadow and this brook. They enjoyed the destruction of a world too much or despised the realms they’d discovered. They started whispering into mortal ears, tempting them to fight, to steal, to make chaos in the quiet.
But who’d grow bored of meadows and brooks like these? Who could despise beauty, truth, good health, and riches beyond geld? Those who wanted disruption corrupted the realms with otherworldly, with sickness, with polluted waters and dying animals. They loathed Supreme, and they gained strength through their chaos and destruction.
They won’t stop, not until every realm is destroyed—even if I succeed in killing Danar Rrivae.
I peel my armor off, and my stinging skin feels like it has also peeled away in strips. I step into the cold waters of the brook and sigh with relief as I apply soothing peppermint oil. Clean and scented, I wash my clothes, then twist the towel that Separi brought with her around me.
The trill of a fife drifts from the camp below.Veril!My heart leaps, but then I remember: my counselor and friend has moved on.
“Hey.” Jadon smiles at me from his spot near a small waterfall—the stream has slowed to a trickle even though it was flowing just moments before his arrival. Buthelooks lovely with his damp hair and clean-shaven face. “You’re thinking too loud,” he says.
I snort.
He walks toward me but stops a few paces away. “May I?”
Wary, I shrug and say, “Maybe.” I sit up straight as though good posture will block Miasma.
Though I can feel the trouble he brings, I want to be near him again. He risked his life for us and fought beside me again, and the courage he showed melts most of my hatred.
“I won’t stay long—I know what I am.” He sits beside me. He takes my hand and brushes my knuckles over his cheeks. “Your skin…”
“I know.” I blush, and the damaged parts of my face burn.
Jadon’s gaze roams my neck. His eyes linger.
“There, too?” I ask, my fingers finding a patch along the curve of my neck.
He nods.
“Fuck,” I say and tug at that unsightly flap in futility.
Jadon keeps staring at my neck.
I point to a far-off tree. “Hey! Look over there.”
He laughs.
I don’t. I fight off sudden tears.
“You smell good,” he says.
It’s up to me to figure out who I’ll hurt for.But the ache along my thighs and hips isn’t from pain.
I squeeze his hand.
We sit there, in the silence.
“I’m terrified, Kai,” he whispers, at last. “I’ve never admitted my fear to anyone except you. At the end of all of this, where will you be? And what about me?”
I can’t make promises. Even if I knew we would both survive, I don’t know what comes next. “If we destroy TERROR and WISDOM,” I say, “that will help us destroy him—”
“But destroying my father…”
Destroys Jadon.
We stare out at the valley, its carpet of green grass speckled with wildflowers.
He says, “Back when we fought those… What were they?”
