Page 151 of The Cruel Dawn
Behind me, Elyn and the Raqiel have also assumed their true forms, ready to fight beside me to save Vallendor from both Zephar now and Danar Rrivae when we’ve defeated him.
“You need an entire suit of armor to fight me now?” Zephar cracks, unimpressed.
I peel off my vambraces and greaves and throw them to the ground.
“Kai,” Elyn shouts behind me. “Don’t take the bait!”
I unbuckle my breastplate.
“What are you doing?” Elyn shouts.
I pull off my tunic, and now I’m wearing only my bandeau. Arms extended, I turn before Zephar in a circle. “Tell me what you see,” I shout, my words louder than any war chant.
Yoffa. Melki. Ithlon, all three realms destroyed without approval from the Council under my leadership. The leaves and vines that connect these to smaller orbs: Hastow, Pontin, Lemoor, Arton, and Fybury, realms that I destroyed under orders in my role as second-in-command to some of the men who would later lie to me about Ithlon and their loyalties to the Crusaders. The words DESTROYER OF WORLDS inked beneath my heart.
“I am Mera,” I shout, glaring at Zephar and the Diminished who stand behind him. “From the moment I took my first breath until the moment I speak the word to Supreme. Each of you should be thankful that it’s my mother’s blood that keeps my hands to myself now, that the Eserime in me has kept me from burning each one of you for your betrayal.”
“Put on your armor,” Elyn hisses.
“I don’t need any armor,” I say, my teeth clenched, my hands burning as rage races like fire through my veins. I point to my opponents. “Your disloyalty will never be forgotten or forgiven. You will forever be Diminished.”
And then, I unsheathe Cruel Dawn and hold her up before me.
Zephar’s eyes widen as he regards the blade. “A sword of linionium,” he gasps.
I cock an eyebrow. “Oh, this little thing? This is just a gift from my father. But this sword won’t be the only way you’ll leave this realm today.”
Zephar snorts and says, “You’re gonna be the one to die today, Abomination.”
I roar, my voice a thunderclap. The ground trembles violently, and the earth buckles beneath our feet. Fault lines spread, swallowing trees and boulders. The land is seared with the heat of my anger.
Zephar roars back at me, his voice the crack of a whip vibrating through the ground. The earth shakes, harder this time, and tears open, into new caverns and canyons. Jagged rocks rise from the earth like sharp teeth.
Around us, the Crusaders scowl and sneer at me, and they raise their swords and spears and shields to the sky. Their voices rise in a collective, guttural, “Yekaa! Yekaa!” Louder and louder, and the air around them crackles, too, and the ground beneath them also trembles in response. Ready to fight. Ready to destroy.
New mountains thrust from the earth, their peaks splitting the heavens. The world is warping. We are reshaping the realm with our power.
In the distance, I hear the screams and pleas of mortals in Penem and Peria—two cities caught between gods waging war. Though their anguish echoes from a distance, their distress is real and cuts through the chaos. I feel their suffering, their helplessness. Their lives are unraveling as the land beneath them collapses.
This realm bleeds. I need to end this battle—for them.
Zephar has sixty Mera Crusaders and a wolf on his side.
I have ten sentinels and the Adjudicator of Vallendor. I am the only Mera warrior on my side, and I may just lose this fight.
But my blood is that of a Mera warrior who knows nothing of surrender.
And my blood is that of an Eserime steward who knows everything about healing.
Yeah, I’m fucked.
“You have me.”
I know that smoky voice now in my ear. “Shari?” She is still standing beside Zephar.
“I was yours in the beginning,”she says,“in your true state. And I’m yours again, Mother. Some gifts can be taken back.”
A lump rises in my throat, but there’s no time to think or respond. Mortals scramble across the realm in search of safety, some running between the feet of Elyn and the sentinels like ants rushing from their overturned hills to find new dens before the floods arrive.
