Page 163 of The Cruel Dawn
The traitor Danar grins. “You surely had to know that, Kaivara, or did you not want to believe your lover hated you from the very beginning? Everyone around you has lied to you. The Adjudicator, Miasma—they stand with you now, but they’re both liars. Why is that? Do they think you’re stupid? Or do they know you aren’t valued? Do they know that you are the great experiment? Hmm? Maybe it’s all those reasons, which makes you the most pitiful being in all the realms. I find it disgusting what they’ve done to you and what they’restilldoing to you.”
“Kai,” Elyn says, “don’t listen to him. He’s wrong about everything, including Zephar. He was never my choice for you, but he didn’t know about your mother. He—”
“Isthiswhat you want? Is this what you came for?” Danar snatches his amulet from his neck. “I don’t need it.” He throws it at me.
I duck, wincing, as TERROR flies over me, its heat singeing my skin.
The pendant instead smashes into the Destroyer standing behind me. Those compass points impale the warrior’s neck, and he falls to the desert floor, dead.
“I will never bow down to Supreme,” Danar Rrivae shouts, “nor will I ever heed the verdicts of the Council of High Orders. I will take this realm as my own just as they took my life from me. You may have slain my four children, but my strongest child remains.” His eyes slide from Elyn to me and finally settle on Jadon. “I have one love left.”
No unmarked patch remains on Jadon’s chest, and his ink has now crept down to his left elbow. He turns to me, bloodied from battle, eyes glazed over from being consumed. “We were wrong,” Jadon now says, his voice hoarse, his legs trembling. “That isn’t TERROR in his pendant.”
Elyn shouts,“What?”
“TERROR…” Jadon says. “TERROR lives deep within—” He lifts his tattooed right hand. In his left hand—still unmarked and guarded by Veril’s fox amulet—he holds that toothed greatsword. He drops to his knees, thrusts out his right arm, lifts the sword…
“No!”Danar shouts.
Jadon’s right hand falls to the dirt. His blood, red and black, splashes across the dirt as he falls to the bloody ground.
Danar Rrivae screams, “What did you do?”
With that bond between father and son severed, Elyn and I rush the traitor now gaping at his dying weapon, his dying son. I take to the sky and hurl handfuls of fire and wind at Danar Rrivae.
Elyn joins me, cardinals and moths lifting us both higher and higher. Together, we aim for the fallen god mourning the son he cannot approach. Elyn glides behind the traitor. She is the dagger to my broadsword.
I stand before Danar Rrivae, blocking his view of the child he created with the empress of Brithellum. “I’m here for a purpose,” I announce. “The realm cries out for mercy, and I must offer relief. That means you die today.”
Danar Rrivae’s eyes widen as he realizes that no one has stopped for his grief.
“Tell me now,” I demand. “Who runs this realm?”
He scowls and says, “I—”
“Wrong answer.” I drive Cruel Dawn through his heart.
Elyn drives Justice between his shoulder blades.
I pull out Cruel Dawn from that dying heart, and I sever the traitor’s head from his body.
Mera flames consume the rest of him, and the ashes of the traitor rain down upon Gasho.
I am Kaivara Megidrail, Grand Defender of Vallendor, and this realm and her people are safe once more.
40
The world is changed now. The daystar hasn’t yet peeked over the horizon. The nightstar still lights the dark sky. No blue birds or nightingales sing, nor do children dance to our victory songs. There is no laughter, no mirth. This place still reeks of death. This land still languishes with disease. The waters remain poisoned, and the dead lie in mounds here in Gasho and all across Vallendor.
All because of our diseased hearts that desire power.
But Vallendor is ripe for change, eager for healing. The world is different now—and so am I.
But my army—from the mighty Mera to the fearless Renrians—smile because together, we overcame the brutality of Syrus Wake’s reign as emperor and Supreme Manifest. We overcame Danar Rrivae’s petty revenge as he sought vengeance against his perceived enemies and, ultimately, against Supreme. We conquered the worst barrier—my ego—to reach a place of hope. But there’s so much work to do.
Again, the city gates of Gasho hang off their hinges like teeth hanging from diseased gums. Sybel Fynal, Grand Steward of Vallendor and the Lady of Dawn and Dusk, directs stewards from across the Aetherium to heal the mortal survivors of this gods’ war. While the Eserime fill their gold pitchers with new water to replenish the soiled canal and wells, the Mera clear away the dead and burned, and cleanse Gasho with more purification fire so that all new growth blooms and thrives. The Dindt will soon arrive by the Glass of Infinite Realms to provide expertise to the survivors on rebuilding. They will also restore the exquisite bath that Prince Idus built for me.
I want Gasho to be rebuilt stronger than ever—and to aid in this, I will send select groups of mortals to the places where gods fell, to gather hardened blood that has transformed into new jewels. However, I will forbid them to dig farther than a day’s work—any more would destroy the land and the creatures that live there.
