Page 159 of Of Serpents and Ruins
Brandt staggered forward, shaking his head. Every muscle and sinew strained. His body trembled. The charm burned yellow. "I won't...let you...win..." he ground out through clenched teeth.
"Oh, it’s already over, boy," the Gola Resh purred with a dark laugh. She glanced back at the Babadon.
His laughter merged with hers but hitched. He dragged his massive hand along his head. Though his face was still not fully returned, his eyes narrowed with what seemed like concern.
The Gola Resh’s gaze darted between Brandt and me. That rolling laugh of hers grew. "Go on then, puppet. Throw her in the fire. Snap her pretty neck. Rip her throat out. I don’t care. Just kill her."
"No," Brandt strained.
Veins bulged along his neck and arms. His breaths grew ragged, his body slick with sweat and stained with ash and blood. His fingers flexed and curled. Pain radiated through his features.
"You monster!" I screamed at her.
That only made her laugh harder.
The rooting terror tried to overtake me again. It clawed at my mind, but it was not so heavy this time. I fought to push it away and gulped in a breath. Minutes. Maybe seconds left.
Buttercup tossed her head and lowed, shaking her crest and horns with obvious distress.
Kine moved closer to the edge, his strides slow but steady as he avoided the Gola Resh’s gaze. His hand slipped into the upper inner pocket of his stained, tattered robe.
"You don’t want him to kill you? Then you kill him. Put the animal out of his misery," the Gola Resh chortled. "You insignificant little creatures sought to stand against us. Now you unravel and burn! Kill Brandt, little girl. Put him out of his misery. Even if you had somehow found a way to succeed, he’s gone now!"
Brandt struggled, his face contorted in agony. More than any other time, he struggled. His jaw clenched. His eyes burned into me.
I couldn’t look away. My breaths choked in my chest.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. The only comfort that flashed into my mind was that neither of us would have to suffer long without the other.
Then rage knifed inside me.
He was fighting in there. Even from this distance, that much was apparent. The panicked brightness. The bold defiance.
He was fighting, and so was I. So long as we both had breath, we would fight and not let this monstrosity turn us on one another.
"One of you, move," the Gola Resh shrieked.
The Babadon continued to stare down at his hands. He released a low shuddering breath. The Goblet and Great Axe were gone now. All remnants of the table had vanished. The rocks with the reagents glowed red, the feathers, herbs, and roots all consumed—except for the one in Kine’s robe. The spearhad sunk even farther down, the metal shaft a brilliant yellow-red.
Something was happening. Once more, it slowed.
Kine drew closer to the edge.
I opened my mouth to speak and distract the Gola Resh, but Brandt lurched toward the cliff’s edge. His gaze snapped to the molten lava nearly twenty feet below.
His mouth moved. "I’m sorry," he rasped.
"Brandt!" My eyes bugged. Wild energy surged through me yet held me in place, paralyzing me like a viper’s bite. "Brandt, no!"
Brandt lunged off the edge of the cliff. Yellow-gold and blood-red lava twisted and bubbled below, the line of blue sulfur lava forming the perfect heart of the cavern.
No. Blue-hot terror pierced my heart.
Kine shifted into his water serpent form and sprang forward like silver liquid. His long, scaled body arched through the air, shining in the shimmering heat of the lava. He missed Brandt at first and then arched again in midair, barely striking him with his body. But it was just enough to knock both of them onto one of the tilted islands of stone that hung above the lava river below.
Brandt crashed backward. He cracked his head on the basalt. Kine collapsed, falling out of his serpent form. He shuddered for a moment, his body pulsing as he collapsed. His body angled toward the downward slope of the rock island.
It was too far for me to jump, even in water serpent form. But I had to get there. Every cell in me screamed that I had to be there at the wedge where the rock island split. That awareness spiked in my gut and flared up through my chest with an undeniable weight.
