Page 103 of The Cruel Dawn
Nature knows I am the Lady of the Verdant Realm.
Welcome to my world—
…
I’m pulled from sleep, from that dream of…
There’s no turning back.
What’s that?
A dull roar vibrates through my bedroom. I sit up in bed and look to the narrow window bright with moonlight, to the chaise lounge lined with crimson-and-gold pillows, to my clothes and armor folded atop the chest at the foot of the bed. My back still aches.
Someone pounds on my bedroom door, which bursts open.
Elyn, in her tunic and breeches, stands there with mussed hair, backlit by torchlight. “Are you okay?” she asks.
Behind her, Raqiel guards shuffle along the corridor.
“Yeah,” I say, throwing off the quilt. “Did something happen with you and Calyx?”
“Huh?” She frowns, caught off-guard by my question. “It’s not that.”
The worry on her face makes me hop out of bed.
“People are falling ill,” she says, grabbing a breastplate from her guard’s hands and buckling it on. “Something’s invaded the abbey. Hurry up and get dressed.”
Invaded the abbey?
That’s impossible.
I pull on my clothes and turn so that Elyn can buckle my pewter breastplate. A small piece of the plate around my waist cracks and crumbles between her fingers.
I gape at the fracture and the disintegrating metal. “Why is my armor…?”
She dusts off her hands and says, “No time, Kai! We need to go.”
I hear fear—in her voice, in the footsteps of those running down the hallway. And I hear something new: moaning and crying. I grab my scabbard, and the leather holder feels loose.
Elyn and I make our way through the abbey’s hallways. Columns of Raqiel guards hurry in every direction. Senators still wearing their nightclothes poke their heads from their own chambers or collapse in the doorway, their eyes gunky or filled with blood.
“Who’s invading?” I ask. “Who are we fighting?”
“This invader wields no blade,” Elyn says.
I can’t believe her, with the shrieks in the air… Only otherworldly can bring about this sort of terror. I still draw my sword, convinced that a ram-headed sunabi or a bear-man aburan might roam the halls of the abbey, striking down the gods of the Aetherium.
But there is no blood on the guards’ spears and swords. Nor are there gory remains left by a gerammoc or a burnu.
There’s blood, though, shining bright on the tile floors, and it’s the super-red-blue blood of the gods.
We pass a man slumped against a door, his back arched in a final, agonizing spasm. We pass another woman twisted on the floor, her tongue clenched tightly between her teeth, her bulging eyes wide open.
The Abbey is becoming a tomb.
“What’s happening?” I ask Elyn.
Before she can respond, a woman staggers from door to door, coughing and gurgling. She wears a mauve gown that gathers and separates like trousers. She coughs once more before collapsing at my feet. Her copper skin looks pale, her face tight like she’s struggling to breathe. It’s Nimith, the steward who led me to the aerie just days ago. She gapes at Elyn and me, her eyes filled with fear.
