Page 67 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

She threw all her weight into the struts, striking the bolt that chained my feet to the floor.

Another strike, another. The metal screamed in protest before finally giving way, the blade denting under the stress.

She turned to my chained hands, her jaw clenched and hair flying.

The raw tang of blood and bowels filled the air from Kane’s body in the corner as she hacked between ragged sobs.

One manacle finally broke one. She pried open a seam of the chain on another that refused to dent, and it fell away with an uneven clang as the blade shattered, only leaving the cuff.

I winced as I sat up, my vision blurry with the poison coursing through my veins, a dull throb in every limb instead of the original fire. I stood, my head clearing as I held the wall for balance.

Faruhar backed herself into a corner, her mad eyes roving. She clutched her head as a strangled cry escaped her bruised lips, her hands torn and bleeding from the force of her swings. “Who did I kill? Tell me their names!”

I shivered through my thin clothes, at the ice forming over my heart. I couldn’t answer. Her eyes darted around the cell, to Kane’s body, then locked back on me. “Who was he? Please, tell me. Where’s my journal? I’ll write everyone down.”

“Did you kill Mahakal?”

“No,” she said, her voice tight, urgent.

The lights in the room flicked off.

“Far?” I tried to reach for her in the dark. “Ask Bria what’s—”

The door opened. Mahakal’s silhouette, a battle ax in his hand, a heat vision helmet on his head. The door slammed. Darkness again.

Panic raked my mind. I couldn’t see, just feel the vibrations through the floor as he struck, hitting stone.

Faruhar screamed and Mahakal grunted, then a clang of metal on metal.

All Faruhar had was that broken sword. The ax sparked on the walls, giving me a flash of Mahakal’s sneer.

I picked up the chain, hearing Faruhar’s choked gasp as the ax met something wet.

A body fell against me, heavy and male. Mahakal’s ax shaved my leg.

I pulled the chain in my hands tight before wrapping it around Mahakal’s neck, rolling away from his swing, choking him.

The ax sparked against the wall as we wrestled, my movements shaking with the pain of my injuries and poison, but I could push through.

Faruhar roared, and I heard the ax clatter away.

Pain flared through my side where Mahakal elbowed the arrow wound in my chest. He rolled me.

His weight pinned me to the floor, his breath refilling his lungs as the chain loosened in my hold, his arm leading on my neck.

He pried a hand between his throat and the metal, as his heavy breath washed over me.

Faruhar lunged for him and he twisted, slamming her into the wall with his body as I wrestled for control.

The door opened, dim lantern light filtering in.

Ash. It was Ash.

Relief washed over me, an intense wave that threatened to drown me as Mahakal tried to prise the chain from my hands. Faruhar scrambled to grab the ax, bleeding from a gash on her side.

“Asher!” I said, my voice hoarse.

Asher set the lantern on the floor where our shadows tangled. And I had the chain tight against Mahakal’s neck once more, holding tight as he tried to break me against the stone with his fists and knees.

Faruhar drew Mahakal’s battle ax. Ash took his place beside her with Istaran.

Mahakal landed a blow on my jaw. But his eyes were unsteady, face blue.

Pulling the chain tight, I fixed my legs around him and rolled him over, driving his head into the stone wall with the chain, kneeing him hard in the groin. Far readied her swing.

“Far, no,” I said.

She froze mid-motion as Major Mahakal purpled, his grip against the chain weakening.

“Let me, please.”

With a nod, she tackled Mahakal from behind, her weight adding to the pressure on his already compromised air supply. She took the chain from me, loosening it only enough to hear him gurgle.

Fury pulsed in my head, rage fed by the relentless nightmares of everything Mahakal had done. Everything she…

I hefted the ax in my hand.

“You told me once you killed with justice, slow or fast, depending on what they deserved.” Clarity stilled my ragged breaths. “I have some justice for you.” I lifted the ax and drove it hard into his groin. His eyes widened. “That’s for Faruhar’s mom.”

Faruhar blinked at me. She jerked the chain again.

“Then there’s my mom.” My voice held steady in the storm. I hacked off a finger in one shot, the metal grip on the ax cold in my hands.

“Bella was twelve!” I roared, arcing the ax down in a sickening squelch to Mahakal’s foot.

Faruhar loosened the chain for his scream and tightened again, ensuring the death would be slow.

“Sora, Samantha, Cara!” I screamed, bringing the ax down again and again, this time connecting with more fingers, moving up his arm, severing a fresh sliver with each blow. A spray of crimson painted the stone wall behind Faruhar as he twitched.

“Iden, Mal, Oren.” His feet, his remaining hand. Mahakal’s struggles grew feeble, his grunts turning into gurgles as the stone welled with blood.

Asher’s mouth was moving, forming words I couldn’t quite grasp—nothing I wanted to grasp.

“Galen, Meragc, Atalia—” With each name, each face I loved, I hacked at his arms and legs, scything him bit by bit, a litany of the lost, a chorus of the wronged.

“Jesse,” Asher said.

I ignored him.

“Plato, Ruan—” Each blow clanged to the stone floor, a rhythm as easy as the hammering of Galen’s forging press. He was a mess now, his blood dribbling from stumps of limbs, but still breathing. Chaeten-sa did not die easy. I kept hacking, bit by bit.

“Jesse!” Asher gripped my arm, his face horrified and pleading in the flickering glow.

I shivered away. “Dr. Garla … Juna … Hector…” I said, sobbing between swings.

It was Faruhar’s touch behind me that made me pause. She should be behind Mahakal, making sure he died. Making sure this ended. He’d get away.

“Don’t get up!” I said.

But she blocked my arm when I brought up the ax once more, heavy, dripping crimson. My gasped breaths were ragged, my body quaking.

“You’re not him,” Faruhar said, her cracking voice an arrow between my ribs. “You’re not me, either.”

Faruhar stood rooted to the spot, her knuckles white on my arm until I lowered the ax. Her gaze flickered to Mahakal’s ruined body. He breathed rapidly and shallow, pale with his one good eye unfocused. She stared down the storm within me until I broke.

“Strike cold, without malice,” Asher said, voice breaking. “ Niire Mai.”

I closed my eyes with a nod. “ Niire Mai. ”

Faruhar stepped away as I raised the ax for the last time, severing Mahakal’s head.