Page 157 of The Cruel Dawn
“Your creator sent you here to die,” I shout to them, “but I’m offering you life. This realm does not belong to him. It belongs to me, the Lady of the Verdant Realm, and I’m promising you now—”
One howlthane me leaps at me, its mouth frothing with milky spit, its teeth sharp and filthy and fouled with meat and hair.
I rush forward on Fraffin and plunge my sword upward, right at the howlthane’s heart.
The creature shrieks as its blood rains down on my hands and Fraffin’s coat.
The howlthane is already dead before it slams into the ground.
The herd slows and skids to a stop, bellowing and waggling their heads. Their thoughts are as disordered as their bodies.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I whisper again.
But there are so many—and none are listening to me as they gnash their sharp teeth, as they call to the sky.Creatorkillhelppleasepainnoplease.
Danar Rrivae had no right to create these beasts.
Mercykillnopainenduslady.
I thrust my hands at them, and a massive ball of white-blue fire shoots from my fingertips and consumes the herd. The creatures catch fire, their cries immediately swallowed by my charged storm. I force myself to look—I don’t want to, but I must witness their end.
And then I look around.
No soldier wearing Wake’s tunics stands upright.
We’ve have cleared the field of fighters.
Panting, Elyn runs over to stand beside me.
“This was too easy,” I say.
“Easy?” Elyn responds, still out of breath. “What—?”
“Those soldiers and otherworldly against our forces, they were already dead.”
Elyn shakes her head, still not understanding.
I don’t have time to make it clearer as I peer out across the land of the fallen.
Because now, here he comes.
Syrus Wake, Emperor and Lord of Vallendor and All Realms, the Manifestation of Supreme, the Divine and Most Holy, rides the most magnificent white stallion I’ve ever seen beneath the ass of a man. Wake’s copper armor—no dents, no dullness—glints in the dying light, and his white cloak ripples like a glass sea. He glows a bright blue—and so do the soldiers behind him. He wears no helm to hide thick hair as white as a heron’s feathers. His face bears no wrinkles or signs of age, skin too smooth to be believed.
The lie of Syrus Wake catches the light, and in those brief flashes, I see brown spots and crags, baldness and swollen veins. He was as young as me on the day I placed the crown on his head and presented him with his ownLibrum Esoterica. An age has nearly passed since then—he shouldn’t be riding this horse. No, his ashes should be riding on wisps of memory and legend.
Time is not only my enemy—it’s also his.
“Lady.”The white stallion addresses me first.
“You’re Vapor,” I say. “I knew your grandfather, also called ‘Vapor.’”
“The emperor calls me ‘Snow.’”
“Lovely to see you, Vapor,” I say, dipping my head.
The horse neighs and dips his head—he hasn’t heard his name called in ages, and certainly not with the respect he deserves. Nature tells him now to kneel, but the jackass in the saddle kicks his haunches and presses him forward.
Vapor knows better.
