Page 16 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

KILLIAN

The speed at which Lydia moved told Killian everything he needed to know as she attacked the deimos, but there was nothing he could do with Rufina pressing him hard.

Their swords clashed in a symphony of steel, it feeling to Killian as though they picked up from where they’d left off the last time they’d fought. A battle that never ended, because they were too evenly matched.

Then the queen of Derin skittered backward and said, “Malahi will never break, which means she is no good to me.” Her laugh was cruel. “So I’ll let Kitaryia do my dirty work.”

She turned on her heel and ran.

Logic demanded Killian pursue. Rufina was the heart of all the horror consuming Mudamora, and killing her would end it.

But his instincts demanded he turn around.

Lydia stalked toward Malahi, who took one step back. Then another step.

“Lydia, no!” He broke into a run, but Agrippa was closer. Was faster.

Horror stole the breath from Killian’s chest as the other man swung his blade, the steel slicing through Lydia’s spine. “No!”

She fell, and Killian howled, wordlessly skidding to his knees before her. He’d lost her. He’d lost her.

“Get back!” Hands caught hold of his shoulders and tried to pull him backward. Killian lashed out at Agrippa, clipping the other man’s jaw.

“She’s not gods-damned dead, you fool! Get out of reach!”

Killian’s hackles rose, and he slowly turned his head. Lydia was reaching for him. Reaching, and dragging herself toward him as her severed spine slowly knit together.

“Kill her!” Agrippa shouted. “You don’t have much longer until she heals!”

He couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

“Fight it,” he pleaded. “Please, Lydia. You know you can fight this.”

“She can’t.” Agrippa froze as Killian pointed his sword tip in the legionnaire’s direction. “I’ve seen them like this. They can’t control themselves. She’s lost!”

“She’s not!”

“If you let her recover, she’s going to kill you! And then I’m going to gods-damned kill her!”

Killian ignored Agrippa, locking eyes with Lydia. “You can control this. You’ve done it before.” With the help of all the Six. “You can do it again.”

She went still.

“You have beat back a god, ” he whispered.

“Who else in the world can claim such a thing? The answer is no one because no one else is you. ” Killian swallowed hard.

“So many people love and depend on you. Teriana. Finn. Sonia.” Were the flames around her irises fading or was it just his wishful thinking? “Me, most of all.”

Her leg twitched. Behind him, Agrippa said, “Malahi, get on the horse. Baird, take her and run. I’ll deal with this.”

“Go with them, Agrippa!” Killian snarled over Malahi’s protest that she wouldn’t leave.

“No. I’m not leaving one of the corrupted to hunt at my heels. Some things are too dangerous to be left alive.”

Killian opened his mouth to tell the other man that if he tried to harm Lydia, he’d find himself run through with Killian’s sword, but then Lydia spoke. “By that logic, he should put you down, legionnaire. Soldier of the Empire. Soldier of the Corrupter. How much death have you left in your wake?”

“Numbers beyond count,” Agrippa answered. “But I’m not about to fall on my own blade over it and leave Malahi, who alone in this company has killed no one , to be murdered because her sworn bodyguard is too damn lovesick to do his job!”

Killian clenched his teeth, the barb stabbing through panic and fear, and he fought the urge to look over his shoulder at the queen in question.

“Better she be protected by someone like you, Agrippa?” Lydia crooned. “The man who has always chosen to be the villain?”

Agrippa tensed, and Lydia smiled. “Who was she? Who was the Bardenese girl? How much worth were your promises to protect her when the Thirty-Seventh laid siege to Hydrilla? Or does her corpse rot beneath Bardenese redwoods?”

Names and nations that meant nothing to Killian, but he could feel the anger seething from Agrippa as he snapped, “Silvara? I hate to disappoint, but hers was the last face I saw before I was whisked to this side of the world, and she was very much alive. Knowing her as I once did, she’s likely grown up to be a thorn in the Empire’s ass and in little need of anyone’s protection, least of all mine. ”

“Whereas helpless little Malahi makes you feel relevant?”

Agrippa’s scowl darkened.

“I wouldn’t count on him too much, Your Majesty,” Lydia said with a soft laugh. “Once he learns the Thirty-Seventh is on the Southern Continent, I suspect he’ll go scampering back to them.” She pressed fingers to her smirk. “And now he knows.”

Agrippa was silent. Killian risked a backward glance over his shoulder to find all the color drained from the other man’s face, his blade tip lowering. “The Thirty-Seventh is in the West?”

Killian’s instincts flared, warning him, but not fast enough.

Lydia regained her feet in a flash, lunging at Agrippa, but as she did, roots exploded from the ground beneath her, wrapping around her body in a thick net and pinning her to the ground.

Killian staggered, struggling to keep his own footing on the shaking ground, the horses shrieking in panic.

Agrippa grinned. “Malahi’s not helpless. Far from it.”

Rising from where her hands had been pressed against the charred earth, Malahi drew back her hood and approached. Not Lydia, but Killian.

Though he’d seen her briefly in Helatha, Killian had not at the time fully appreciated the horror that had been enacted upon Mudamora’s queen.

Her skin was sallow, the shadows beneath her eyes so dark it made them appear sunken.

Her once lustrous blond hair had been roughly cut, though patches of it were gone entirely, her scalp scabbed where the hair had been ripped out.

All her fingernails were missing, and her hands were covered with livid scratches.

But worst of all was the livid wound stretching from her hairline to her chin that had been badly stitched together.

Malahi had been tortured, and for all Killian wouldn’t change his choice to go after Lydia at Alder’s Ford, there was no denying that none of this would have happened to Malahi if he’d done his duty and remained at her side.

There were no words that could undo the harm done to her, but still his lips parted. “Malahi, I—”

She held up her hand. “Don’t. I have no interest in hearing it.

What is done is done, and I desire to focus on the future, not on the past, because it will be in the future where we win or lose this war against evil.

I refuse to go toward that battle with someone I can’t trust to put me first at my back.

Therefore, Killian Calorian, you are released from your obligations and oaths to me.

In truth, you were never free to give them, for you were sworn to Princess Kitaryia Falorn—Lydia—long before you and I ever met.

I am grateful for all that you have done to liberate me from Ru—” Her voice caught, and she swallowed hard.

“From Rufina. But your path is no longer at my side; it’s at Lydia’s. ”

Shock radiated through Killian, but Malahi allowed him no response as she turned to kneel before Lydia.

“Malahi…” Agrippa reached for the queen with the obvious intent to pull her back, but he stilled as she cast a slight smile over her shoulder.

“What happened to me not being helpless?”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t make bad choices on occasion.” He grimaced. “I said I would have your back as long as you needed, so at your back is where you will find me until you tell me to piss off.”

Malahi’s smile grew, then fell away as her focus returned to Lydia, who had stopped struggling against the implacable vines. “You were right.”

Lydia said nothing, only watched the queen.

“In those brief moments we spoke in Helatha, I claimed a higher road in my refusal to betray Yara’s gift to the Corrupter’s influence and you said that doing nothing was also a betrayal.

I hated you for saying that. Hated you for so many reasons, if I am being honest. But in the days since, I have come to see that you were right.

We have both acted in ways that have given our enemy power, you in a desperate attempt to be strong, and me in conceding defeat. We have both erred.”

Killian said nothing, didn’t so much as move, for Lydia was listening.

“I didn’t want to fight,” Malahi said softly. “I wanted to hide. To crawl back under the bed in my prison and slowly fade, because I felt as though everything about me that had value had been destroyed. I was weak. Broken. Ugly. ”

Agrippa made a noise of protest, but Malahi held up a hand to silence any interruption.

“All those things are true,” she continued, “and yet Rufina has pursued me at all costs to try to get me back. Why would she do so if I held no value? If I could not make a difference to Mudamora? Perhaps it is strange, but seeing proof of how much Rufina values me allowed me to value myself. I am weak, broken, and ugly, but I am not yet defeated.”

To Killian’s horror, Malahi reached out and clasped Lydia’s hand. He lunged to pull her away, but Agrippa blocked his path. “If she wants help, she’ll ask.”

Lydia’s eyes fixed on the hand holding hers, but Malahi’s battered fingers showed no sign that Lydia was draining any of her life.

“I think you keep allowing the dark part of you to take control because you believe you are weak. Because you know you aren’t a warrior.

Because you think it’s the only way to protect those you care about,” the queen said.

“Yet ask yourself this, Lydia: Why would the Corrupter give his enemy a tool that made them stronger?”

Silence hung in the air, the tension as thick as the smoke from the fires that still burned around them. Then Malahi’s hand began to heal, the scratches disappearing and the torn nail beds becoming whole.

Lydia let go of Malahi, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, and her eyes…

Were once again green.

Relief flooded Killian’s veins even as Agrippa muttered, “Fuck me, she did it.” Which she he meant, Killian didn’t know, and didn’t really care, because Lydia was herself again.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said hoarsely. “I…”

“Don’t waste breath on apologies.” Malahi pressed her healed hand to the earth and the roots unraveled from around Lydia’s body, disappearing beneath the ground. “The enemy sees you as a threat, and it can’t just be because of your name. We need to discover what it is they think you can do.”

“She can heal people infected with blight.” Killian blurted out the truth. “Lena was infected, and Lydia saved her.”

Malahi’s eyes widened. “How?”

“It’s only possible in the short time between infection and death, and it nearly killed me.” Lydia climbed unsteadily to her feet. “But it’s why I think a tender might be able to do the same thing for the land, we need only figure out how.”

It bothered Killian how easily she dismissed her own value, refusing to recognize that she’d accomplished something no one else had even tried. Why didn’t she see that as the strength it was?

“This is all wonderful news,” Agrippa interrupted, catching Malahi’s wrist and tugging her away from Lydia.

“But there are several thousand corpses hunting for a way around that wall, and once they find it, they’ll be in pursuit.

Perhaps we might save conversation for later, when we have put them off our trail. ”

“I’ll catch the horses,” Baird muttered. “Foolish animals can’t have gotten far.”

Malahi swayed with exhaustion, and Agrippa immediately caught her elbow and steadied her, the pair speaking quietly as he led her away.

Killian watched them for a long moment, then said to Lydia, “I knew you were struggling, but not once in the past days have you said that you didn’t have it under control. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was ashamed.” She looked anywhere but at him.

“The Six themselves pulled out the Corrupter’s claws, but a big part of me wants to fall back into his control.

I know what Malahi said is right, that allowing my mark to be corrupted makes me weaker, not stronger, but it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. It makes me feel invincible.”

“Agrippa proved otherwise.” His tone was flat, and Killian winced, knowing that he wasn’t helping.

Hegeria had said that this would be a lifelong battle for Lydia, but a big part of him had been certain that the worst was over.

Had been convinced that the memories of what she’d done, what it had been like to be under the Corrupter’s influence, would be enough motivation to keep her from slipping up again. But he’d been wrong. “How can I help?”

He took a step toward her, but Lydia took a quick step back.

“I need space,” she whispered. “I… I can’t be tempted. Not yet.”

Unbidden, Killian’s eyes moved to their companions.

Agrippa lifted Malahi into the saddle of the horse Baird had caught before swinging up behind her.

Malahi leaned back against him, and a flood of envy ran through Killian.

Not for their closeness, but for how easy things seemed between them.

Something as simple as touch, which they took for granted and yet was forbidden to him and Lydia, the stakes her sanity and his life.

Killian’s hands balled into fists, the urge to curse and shout and slam his fists into something nearly overtaking him. All he wanted to do was help her, yet the best thing he could do for Lydia was to stay away. “I understand.”

“It’s not fair.”

There was bitterness in Lydia’s voice, and he noted her hands were as tightly fisted as his own.

“The only reason we haven’t been together is because of the obligation you felt to Malahi. The guilt you felt over her being imprisoned. But not only did she free you, she seems to have forgiven you,” she said. “Yet the gulf between us feels bigger than it was before. It’s my fault, and I—”

“It’s not your fault.” He reached for her, then caught himself and shoved his blood-smeared hands into his pockets where they could do no damage. “You’ll learn to control it. It will get better.” Please let it get better. “I will be at your back, come what may.”

Lydia wiped at her eyes, then gave a tight nod.

I love you, he wanted to say. I will always love you.

But sensing that the admission would only make both of them feel worse, he said, “We should ride. Night is coming, and we need to have good cover before more deimos take over the skies.”