Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Then it stopped. The wind. The shaking.
I scrambled back to Aios’s side, peeling back the torn collar of her gown. A thick pink line encircled her throat. The skin was bruised over her heart but healed.
Her chest rose with a deep, singular breath.
“Aios,” Saion gasped.
Her eyes fluttered open— silver and bright. “Saion? I…” Her throat worked on a swallow, and her head jerked so quickly toward me that I winced. “Sera.”
Hands shaking, I smiled weakly. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she whispered.
Screams rippled through the air, sending a bolt of fear through me. We needed to get Aios out of here. The sleep that came after what I’d just done didn’t seem like something anyone had any control over. Saion twisted toward the Rise, his jaw hardening.
Aios struggled to sit up as Davon fell from the sky like a sack of boulders, slamming into the ground but righting himself quickly. “W-what is…?”
I caught her by the shoulders. “You need to get inside. Hide.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Saion twisted. “Kars?”
A guard stopped at the foot of the Rise and changed direction, heading for us. His steps slowed, eyes widening.
“Get Aios inside. Now.”
Blinking, he shook his head. “On it.”
I rose as the god helped Aios to her feet and then lifted her to his chest, turning to… “Help me get Ector down.”
“Sera—”
“I can try.” I went to Ector’s ankles. “I have to try. Just like he did.” My throat burned. “Just like he has.”
“Yeah. Okay. We’ll get him down, and I’ll get his…”
I flinched, but we did it quickly, laying Ector out so that he almost appeared whole. Briefly meeting Saion’s stricken gaze, I summoned the eather—
“They’re coming over,” Rhain shouted from the Rise. “Get back. Everyone get back!”
Screams shattered the air, and the embers flared and pulsed, over and over as I reached to place my palms on Ector’s still chest.
“Fuck.” Saion rocked back. “The dakkais are over the wall.”
“Keep them back,” I ordered, breathing in deeply.
The scraping of claws over stone overpowered the sound of my pounding heart. The essence flared, deep and powerful, and my vision turned white—pure white—for a second as the eather swelled—
“Stop. Stop!” yelled Saion as the eather rippled out from my palms, splashing against Ector’s chest. “It’s drawing them to you. Stop!”
All I needed was a few more seconds. That was all. I could bring Ector back—
Saion grabbed me by the waist, hauling me back.
“No!” My eyes went wide as the essence flickered over Ector and faded. “Let me go!”
“There’s no time.” Saion pulled me back as muscled bodies slick like midnight oil charged the courtyard, jaws snapping and claws digging into soil. Their snarls fell upon me like daggers.
I struggled against Saion. “I can bring him back. I just need—”
“No.” Saion twisted, shoving me back several feet. His eyes flashed with essence as my boots slid on the blood. “You do that, and they’ll swamp you. You’ll die.”
I was going to die anyway.
I started toward Ector as arrows pounded into the courtyard, striking the dakkais.
But I…I couldn’t die yet. Because the embers were important. More so than Ector. Than me.
And I knew that.
Gods.
I knew that.
And I hated that I did.
Saion shouted, twisting as he drew the swords from the sheaths at his back and side. A dakkai launched at him, and another veered past him. I screamed in fury and anguish as I bent quickly, swiping up a fallen shadowstone sword instead of going for my dagger.
Spinning, I brought the sword down on the neck of the faceless beast, severing its head. I dipped, grabbing another sword. I thrust forward, shoving it deep into a dakkai’s chest. Foul-smelling blood coated the blades as I spun, dragging the sword through the air. Lightning rippled across the sky.
A dakkai veered past Saion, past the guards now in the courtyard. Then another. And another. I whirled, horror knocking the wind out of me as they went for the power—the eather.
Ector.
“No!” I screamed, launching across the slippery ground and driving the sword into the dakkais, into any part of them I could as they swarmed Ector’s body in a nightmare of claws and teeth. I lost all sense of skill. I simply hacked away at the beasts.
Saion was there. Then Rhain. Another guard—a god—used eather, firing at the dakkais, but it only drew more, and they kept coming, crowding the pikes. They kept coming, even as we struck them down, their mouths and claws coated with shimmery reddish-blue blood.
The embers inside me throbbed wildly. Pained-filled shouts filled the courtyard and the Rise as Rhain kicked a fallen dakkai aside, off to where Ector had been laid out—
The god staggered back from…from what was left behind. He turned, vomiting. The sword slipped from my fingers. A mess. That was all that remained of Ector. A mess. My hand shook. I shuddered, and deep within the cavern inside me, the essence of the Primal of Life roared. My skin hummed. A metallic taste coated the inside of my mouth as dull pain lanced my jaw. A whirling motion swept through me as my lips parted.