Page 167 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

LYDIA

Rufina walked over the ridgeline and then down the slope toward them, two corrupted striding to either side of her. They stopped as she pressed onward, both of them drawing weapons.

“Welcome to my queendom,” Rufina said. “A taste of what is to come as Mudamora falls beneath my army. And it will only be the first, for soon all the West will kneel to me, the Six forgotten to time.”

She’d destroy the world to strike a blow at the gods. Lydia’s mouth curled in disgust, every part of her loathing the creature that stood before them.

“It was a clever ploy,” Rufina said. “After everything that the Empire has accomplished for me, I believed they’d continue to be allies of convenience.

But I’ve lived too long and been betrayed too often not to have contingencies, and Marcus has paid a heavy price for his deception.

” She smiled at Agrippa. “He’ll pay a heavier price still when I’m done here. ”

“I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Agrippa replied, but Rufina only laughed.

“I don’t. My master believes it is his fate to serve, and it will not be only the West that falls to my master’s control but all of Reath.”

“It’s good to have ambitions,” Agrippa retorted, buying time for Killian to come up with a plan of attack.

Time that they didn’t have, because Bercola and the rest of their force wouldn’t be able to hold back the blighter army for long, and then the only thing that stood between them was two women and a wall meant to defend from the opposite side.

If she and Malahi couldn’t stop the corrupted tenders before the blighters broke through, then—

Killian moved.

One second, he was at Lydia’s elbow, and the next, he’d closed half the distance between them and Rufina. Whether Agrippa had known his intent or his reaction time was just that good, Lydia couldn’t have said, only that he’d already loosed two arrows, one striking a corrupted in the face.

“Go! We’ll hold them off!” Agrippa shouted.

Killian’s blade collided with Rufina’s with a loud clang. Lydia caught hold of Malahi’s hand and they ran up the slope, boots crunching in the snow.

Yet as Lydia crested the ridgeline to look down into the valley, she nearly stopped in her tracks.

Malahi snarled, “Abomination!”

The plant mounds had grown.

Rearing up from the ravine that had once held the town of Deadground, the mounds had grown into a twisted mass of vines that stretched at least a hundred feet in the air, all of it pulsing with the beat of the corrupted hearts within.

The task of destroying it felt more daunting than it ever had before.

Yet Lydia still looked back over her shoulder.

Agrippa engaged with the other corrupted, weapons crashing, but the one he’d shot had ripped the arrow loose, gore streaming down her face. She screamed in fury and then broke into a sprint after Lydia and Malahi.

“Get to the tenders!” Lydia shouted at Malahi, letting go of her hand. “I’ll be right behind you!”

And then she turned to face the corrupted.

The woman’s face was already healing, and she laughed as Lydia lifted her sword. “You can’t win this, little girl. Either you give in to the Seventh’s power or you die.”

“I’m not a little girl,” Lydia answered. “I’m a gods-damned queen.”

She knocked the woman’s sword sideways with a swipe, then punched the woman in the face. The corrupted staggered backward into Agrippa’s blade, and then dropped, spine severed.

“Go!” Lydia shouted to him. “Keep her safe!”

He raced after Malahi, and Lydia knelt on the corrupted’s chest, closing her fingers around the woman’s neck.

“Can’t help yourself, can you?” the woman whispered, her eyes voids rimmed with flame. Flame that diminished as Lydia pulled the life out of her. “You’re his. You’ll always be his. And I will be rewarded for bringing you back to the darkness.”

“I belong to no one but myself.” Lydia tightened her grip. “And the Seventh gives nothing. He only takes.”

The corrupted’s aging face paled, her eyes, now blue, fixing on the stream of life flowing out of Lydia’s free hand. Her life. “How?”

“Because I am not weak,” Lydia answered. “I have all the strength I have ever needed. Tell the Corrupter that when you meet him.”

The woman blinked once, her face ancient, then the light went out of her eyes.

As Lydia lifted her head, her gaze went down the pass to the wall.

From this vantage, she could easily see over it into Mudamora, and bile burned in her throat at the sight.

Racing through the trees toward the fortress Lena and Gwen defended were hundreds of blighters.

Behind them, more came on, like a swarm of insects flooding across the land.

Bercola has fallen.

Yet Lydia knew there was no time for grief. Killian battled against Rufina, the clash of steel loud. The Queen of Derin was his fight.

The blight was hers.