Page 167 of The Cruel Dawn
The lizards hiss and swipe at us. They know we’re about to steal their dinner.
I shout, “Be still.” Shari growls at them.
The hydrasalts hiss again, no longer so determined to keep their prize.
Because the body lying here…the man with that barely open lavender eye and matted chestnut hair is not theirs to keep.
This prize… Thismanbelongs to me.
41
Before I can start the rebuilding of New Vallendor, I must take out Old Caburh’s trash.
My arrival in what is now New Nosirest comes with a restored whirlpool of Spryte moths. Their wings flash brilliant reds and golds, and their glittering dust settles on my skin.
The town before me, though, remains a shadow of the shadow that it once was, its streets marked by violence and neglect. New Nosirest’s buildings sag with age and decay. Their windows are shattered or boarded up, the walls cracked like rotting bones. This place stinks of smoke and sour sweat, stale alcohol, and the reek of blood that may never wash away.
Maybe the Mera should swing by and shoot some fire to cleanse Old Caburh’s stench.
A few stragglers hiss at me, heckling and calling me names: Maelstrom, the bitch, the devil, the whore who dares to return but who won’t fight fair, not with swords but fight with fists, fight like arealman.
I don’t bother. Who puts on armor and weapons to take out the trash? Right now, I wear what every housewife in Vallendor wears to handle menial tasks: a housedress and a pair of sandals.
I hold my red-and-gold armor in my left hand, but in this moment, I choose to wield fire. The heat from my fingertips crackles, and with a flick of my wrist, flames leap from my palm, striking the barriers built around three taverns and a tannery. My fire burns several posters printed with “Kill This Evil” slogans and my likeness, tacked to standing posts. As the flames swirl around my fingers, I’m glad to know that this broken town will not suffer from people like this much longer. They’d made Old Caburh–New Nosirest such a miserable place.
The Broken Hammer Inn still stands, but its once-proud sign now hangs crooked, the wood weathered and decaying. Three angry men with axes—grizzled and wild-eyed, their clothes torn, their faces smeared with dirt and blood—hack at the battered red doors. Their frantic chopping is driven by anger and hate. They can’t even focus long enough to hit the same place twice.
My sandals are silent on the cracked cobblestones as I approach the inn’s porch. Unlike these three, Icanfocus, and my eyes seek out this trio as the fire inside of me builds with each step I take.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” I say.
The men freeze, their axes in the air. They turn to face me, their shoulders hitched to their ears, their faces twisted in rage.
The gray-haired man levels his ax and spits, “Maelstrom, you bitch—”
I whisk him away with a sweep of my hand, sending him and his slurs to their deaths six hundred paces away.
The one with the permanent scowl shouts and rushes toward me with his ax raised.
With only a thought, I turn that ax on its wielder, and the blade lands right down the middle of the angry man’s brow.
The third man drops his ax and runs away. He tries to make it home, but he shouldn’thavea home here, not anymore. Did he not hear me the last time? I said what I said.
With a flick of my hand, I drag him along that broken cobblestone road and slam him into the side of a large wood crate.
And now that my housework is done, on to bigger things. Like making Vallendor the realm it deserves to be.
…
Twenty dawns have come and gone since I faced the traitor, Danar Rrivae. Now, on the twenty-first, Elyn and the Raqiel sentinels stand at the repaired gates of New Gasho. Her white pangolin-scaled armor reflects all the light of the realm and brightens the land with possibility and promise. The Gashoans, though accustomed to the presence of gods, have never seen such splendor as Elyn Fynal, Grand Adjudicator of Vallendor and the Nine Realms, Sentinel and Divine Mediator. They bow their heads in her presence—and then they gasp in awe as I come to stand beside her in my lemon- and orange-hued sarong.
Over in the courtyard, the city-folk of Gasho fete us with song and dance, hailing our renewal during this feast of thanksgiving. A quartet of girls wearing golden gowns, their hair combed into four puffy ponytails, stands before me and Elyn with their hands clasped before them, their cheeks ruddy. With encouragement from one of the girls’ mothers and a wide smile from me, they clear their throats and sing.
All is right in Celestial’s might.
All is right, all is right.
Where she is, there will be joy,
