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“Why is that?” the Mindshaper forced out.

“Because I am a man of gambles, and I keep a long list of what I have traded, lost—though that list is rather short—or am owed. Debts don’t go unpaid where I’m concerned.” His teeth chattered, eyes dazed as my voice turned brutally, twistedly dark. “If you hurt him, I’m forced to repay the favor.”

With his blood-loss, the warrior was slow to understand what I meant. That made it slightly less satisfying to pull my family dagger from my hip and slice it across his neck. The poor bastard barely had a chance to piss himself.

Sparing him no more thought, I kicked his bleeding body aside and turned to Dax. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

I wiped the blade on my pants and returned my weapons to my belt. Stretching down, I tried to work some of the pain out of my right knee. According to Santorina, I’d continue to feel the ghost of my injuries despite magic, especially when in high intensity situations.

When I stood, I was face to face with the western half of Kakias’s map, light ebbing along the surface like a moonlit midnight.

“By the fucking Angels,” I breathed, whirling toward Dax and flexing my hand. “I have an idea.”

Chapter Sixty-Four

Malakai

It was fucking carnage as we raced into the valley. A rush of adrenaline tapered the roars into a steady hum as I focused on my breathing and Ombratta’s pace.

Our quickly-timed second attack was intended to break down what our first couldn’t while they were distracted, creating a hole in their force. Everywhere I looked, weapons flashed, warriors screamed, and blood coated the night in murky streaks of crimson.

Ombratta held steady beneath me, a warrior horse to her core, and at our side, Mila sliced neck after neck of the Engrossian-Mindshaper army. Fucking Spirits, was she beautiful. An angel of vengeance with twin swords in her hands and the moon haloing her frame, blood arcing through the air after each kill.

All the motivation I needed to get through this battle was right there.

I shut out the pained outbursts, ignored the uneven ground and thoughts of bones trampled beneath hooves, and squeezed my thighs around Ombratta to hold myself up as we charged.

There was a gap in the warriors at the lowest point of the valley where the land leveled out. A crack in their foundation that, if we could keep pushing through, would segment their force. My vision tunneled around that point as I leaned forward, and everything around me blurred.

We had to break them. To carve their army into smaller groups. They outnumbered us, but we could surround them.

The further we raced down, the more vulnerability choked me. But for the clan that was ruined by my bloodline, I could do this. For the allies fighting by our side tonight, for the friends who were scattered across this battlefield and the rest, and for the general who survived atrocities and still returned, I could do this.

I braced my weapon as I sliced through an opponent, and Ombratta kept on; I focused on the tension in my muscles and where every strike landed. I wouldn’t get injured again.

The deeper we drove, the heavier the air was with the stench of death. Blood coated the snowy floor of the valley, a deep crimson seeping across dirty white.

No one I know will join it, I swore to myself as I swung my sword across the back of an Engrossian whose cuirass had been knocked askew. It slashed clean down his spinal column, and Ombratta kept going.

“Malakai!” Mila shouted, and I pivoted in the saddle.

A buried but newly-awakened instinct had my sword raised before I saw the flash of the ax.

I met it, bracing my arm against the jolt of the collision, and forced the weapon aside. The man swayed on his wolf mount, fingers tangling in the animal’s fur. Taking the chance, I shoved my sword between us. It was awkward atop our steeds, but the blade slid beneath his chin to claim his life.

It wasn’t an explosion or valiant rescue. Not a roar of death, but a whisper. An eerie silence as a spirit left a body.

A dropping of his jaw and red bubbling between his lips.

A death no one would notice, not until this was over and the tallies were taken. Then, he’d be mourned. And the pain of this night would set in.

But I couldn’t think about the possibilities of after the battle right now. Not if I wanted to stay present. Flexing my hand, I pulled my blade clean of the warrior. I rolled my shoulders, testing my muscles and centering myself in the present. Focusing on the new way Mila had taught me to fight, allowing everything I’d been through—survived—to culminate in strength rather than building a barrier around myself.

I dug in my heels, and Ombratta charged down their line, forging the gap we needed and scanning the valley as we went. Soldiers danced in front of and around us, and?—

Lyria.