Page 169 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

LYDIA

The ground shook violently beneath Lydia’s feet. She fell to her hands and knees, a scream tearing from her lips. Her ears rang from the explosion, and as she looked back toward Mudamora, it was to see a column of smoke rising high into the sky, debris raining down.

Someone had destroyed the xenthier to prevent more blighters from passing through.

Lydia sent up a silent prayer to whichever of her comrades had struck the blow in the south, then raced down the hill to the glowing nightmare below.

Sliding to a stop next to Malahi and Agrippa, Lydia stared up into the seething mass of vines.

What had once been separate mounds was now a single sphere, the vines all tangled around one another.

“I just climbed in last time,” she said between gasped breaths.

“They each had their own connection to the blight.”

“This is an abomination.” Malahi reached out to touch one of the vines. It shivered like a horse trying to shake off a blackfly, and Lydia almost gagged.

“We’ve only got minutes,” Agrippa said, his attention not on the monstrosity but back the way they’d come.

It was impossible to see over the ridge to the wall far below, but even from here, Lydia could hear the noise of far too many blighters.

She did not think the wall would hold them back for long.

Agrippa heaved on two vines, opening a gap that Malahi crawled into. “I’ll keep watch from the outside.” He caught hold of Lydia’s wrist. “Please take care of her for me.”

“I swear it,” she promised, knowing full well that there was every chance she’d fail in her oath.

But that no one would be alive to see it.

Lydia crawled into the mass of vines, following Malahi’s heels.

The interior of the sphere was humid and warm and heavy with the scent of decay.

It was like climbing through a ball of yarn, but the strands were as thick as her wrist and strong.

Sweat poured down Lydia’s face from the effort of forcing her way through.

“Where are they?” she hissed.

“They’ve burrowed. And not they. It .”

Lydia understood what Malahi meant a moment later. Illuminated by the strange glow of the vines, her eyes fell upon what had once been separate human beings, now merged into one grotesque form that throbbed with a single heartbeat.

“My gods,” Malahi whispered. “How do I control this?”

“Would it be easier to control it if it’s injured?”

“I don’t know.” Malahi’s voice was panicked. “Maybe?”

Unsheathing her sword, Lydia crawled next to Malahi and stabbed the creature with all her strength. It sank deep, and black blight oozed around the edges of the blade, the whole sphere shuddering.

Except rather than withering and dying, the creature began to expel her blade. Inch by inch until her sword dropped onto the shuddering vines, the creature entirely regenerated.

“I can try to pull the life out of it. Try to weaken it that way.” Lydia reached for the throbbing mass of plant, but Malahi caught hold of her wrist.

“No,” she whispered. “I think… I think if you do that, it will only expand the reach of the blight to feed itself. You can’t take life from it, because it will take from everywhere else.

This thing… it’s not human. It’s a plant.

It doesn’t think about anything beyond survival.

” Malahi’s head tilted. “Which gives me the advantage.”

Lydia did not see how, but before she could ask, Malahi pressed her hands to the mass of plant matter that had once been human beings.

Only to shake her head as she met Lydia’s gaze. “I can’t control them from the outside. I have to join them.”

It seemed like madness, but everything they held dear stood at the brink, so Lydia only gave a tight nod. “If you start to falter, I’ll keep you alive.” She gestured all around her. “There is enough life here for tens of thousands of people.”

“If I falter, this is over.”

Her friend was right, but the blighters on the far side of the wall felt like a distant concern as Malahi pressed her hands to the creature again.

Lydia gasped as shoots sprang out from the creature and burrowed into Malahi’s hands. She whimpered in pain, body shaking, only to abruptly stiffen.

“Malahi?” When her friend didn’t respond, Lydia moved so they were face-to-face. Malahi’s unseeing amber eyes moved back and forth. Her muscles flexed, jaw tight with strain, as though she were fighting against someone.

Or something.

“Help her, Yara,” Lydia prayed as the sphere of vines trembled. “Give her the strength she needs.”

As the words left her lips, Lydia found herself flung sideways, the entire sphere moving as though a god had plucked it off the ground and shaken it.

Except it wasn’t just the sphere, it was all of Reath. The ground shuddered with violence that made the destruction of the xenthier pale in comparison, the roar of distant avalanches making it sound like the whole world was tearing asunder.

Which perhaps it was.

A scream tore from her lips as she was tossed sideways, her spectacles cracking, but Lydia crawled back to Malahi.

That was when she saw it.

The sickly radiance of the tenders was fading, the vines withering and slackening as it consumed itself.

The sphere began to sink into the ground.

Blight pooled around Lydia’s knees, and through the vines, she saw the great river of death was pouring up the slope and into the pit the creature had dug for itself.

It flowed into the thing that had once been human tenders, its strange plant-like flesh crisscrossed with inky veins as Malahi reversed its power.

As she drew death into it, slowly killing it from the inside out.

Except it was not only the creature that was dying.

Malahi’s skin was ashen, and the shoots embedded in her skin turned black, the flow of blight, of death, rising into her arm. Withering her as surely as it had the monster she sought to destroy.

Without thought, Lydia placed a hand on Malahi’s shoulder and pushed life into her. Yet the glow didn’t just suffuse the other woman, but the entire creature. Malahi and the creature were connected.

They were one.

As understanding of what was happening settled upon her like a lead weight, a vine unraveled from the withered mass and weakly shoved Lydia away.

She’s sacrificing herself.

Hot tears rolled down Lydia’s cheeks as her friend turned grey, her veins turned black, and her pulse slowed. All around them, the tangle of vines was doing the same. Dying as Malahi drew more and more death into it.

“Malahi?” Agrippa shouted, and Lydia choked on a sob because she didn’t want him to watch this happen.

“She’s got control of it,” Lydia called through the collapsing sphere. “She’s winning!”

“Is she all right?”

Lie, logic told her, but Lydia couldn’t bring herself to do so, and her silence must have told Agrippa all he needed to know.

The dying plant mass shook as he leapt into the pit of withered vines, fighting to reach his wife, and Lydia flinched as he shouted, “Malahi, no!”

Agrippa flung himself at Malahi and tried to rip the midnight shoots free from Malahi’s flesh. “Lydia, help her!”

“I can’t.” Sobs shook her body. “There’s no other way to defeat it. If I put life into her, it will go into them. They’re too connected.”

“Please!”

When she didn’t move, he lifted his blade so that it rested against Lydia’s throat. “Help her.”

“Agrippa.” Malahi’s voice was soft as breath but loud as thunder as she said, “Let me go.”

He didn’t move his weapon. “I can’t.” Tears slicked his face. “I swore I’d protect you until the end.”

“And this is that end.” Malahi’s skin was withering like a dying vine, but her amber eyes were still bright. Still human. “You kept me safe so that I could do this, but now it is done. I love…”

Her voice trailed off as the throbbing heart of the plant stuttered, then went silent. The light faded from her eyes, and Malahi Rowenes slumped into Agrippa’s arms.

Agrippa screamed her name, and the sound compounded Lydia’s own grief and shattered her heart. Yet as she looked out through the pit to where the river of blight had once been, it was to find an empty trench carved into the land. No longer a wound but a scar. A scar that would eventually heal.

Malahi had done it.

Had saved Mudamora from the blight, but the cost… The cost would haunt Lydia for the rest of her days.

Because she feared she wasn’t done paying.

Scrambling to her feet, Lydia began to climb out of the pit of dead vines. “Killian!” she shouted. “Killian!”

Resting her elbow on the edge, Lydia heaved herself over, rolling onto her hands and knees. “Kill—” She broke off. Because surrounding her were thousands of blighters.

All still very much under the Corrupter’s control.