Page 15 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

I can’t return to the Sanctum right now, not if I’m trying to figure out what Uncle Agon needs from me.

If I return to the Sanctum and try to explain to Zephar why Eaponys is now postponed, he will get pissy.

Though eventually, he’d come around to understanding, more time will have passed, and I just can’t deal with that right now.

He aims to control you—he always has…

Zephar is a warrior, a planner, someone who needs to…to control the situation. And sometimes, I’m the situation.

He’s an obstacle to your ascension.

No, I’m an obstacle to my ascension.

My gaze skips up to the cliffs.

The windwolf still sits there, snickering at me.

“I should burn you to a crisp right now,” I growl at it.

“But you won’t.”

I roll my eyes and tap my Spryte-filled amulet, and think, Sea of Devour—

An eclipse of gold, crimson, and black moths surrounds me.

I can’t see, but I feel the wind being made by the moths’ madly fluttering wings. Then, suddenly, they’re gone.

I stand alone as the daystar hides behind dark clouds.

Wind gusts across the plains, transforming sand as well as tumbleweeds and the dried skeletons of soldiers into prickly little cyclones that spin across the toxic green surface of the Sea of Devour.

Limbless trees with scoured trunks pepper this dying land.

Ashes swirl over bizarre creatures now scampering across the rocky terrain.

I remember the sea at its healthiest. Once upon a time, the sea had been a destination for holiday and sport.

Those who settled Peria, the land of saffron, had used the river that originated here to till the earth.

Zephar and I had bathed on the harder-to-reach banks of the sea.

Yeah, we made waves and made love. But now, my nostrils curl from its stink, and my eyes sting from this acid-tinged air.

Oh, Sea of Devour. What happened to you?

I happened to you.

Danar Rrivae happened to you.

Only one of us regrets being an asshole—and she’s standing here with burning eyes.

Speaking of the traitor… I don’t sense his presence. Good. Even though I wear new armor, I’m not ready to confront the usurper alone.

But I’m not alone.

A beast with the head of a lion and a bright blue shell, five skinny legs, and one giant claw scuttles behind me.

Sagird! Another creature—it’s an ape, no, it’s an owl, no, it’s both, it’s an ohty—gallops and flies in front of me.

Both animals are shadowed overhead by an otherworldly creature with a long snout and leathery wings.

I pull Fury from the scabbard with my right hand and thrust out my left hand at the lion-crab-sagird, using wind to send it splashing into the sea.

I swing my blade at the ape-owl-ohty, but my sword bounces off the beast’s fur, only stunning the creature, but giving me enough time to drive Fury into its neck.

Almost immediately, golden light shines upon the ohty, and the fallen creature writhes in its spot.

This can’t be.

I look up to see a beam of golden light emerging from the mouth of the leather-winged flying thing. What the…?

The ohty waggles its head and staggers onto its feet.

What. I blink— Am I seeing this? This… resurrection ?

My temples pound—from the fighting, from breathing toxic air.

Not only is the recently arisen ape-owl-ohty charging at me, but so are one, two…

six, seven other ohtys, fangs bared, their movements made quicker by the promise of life after death.

From the sea, three more lion-crab-sagirds roll out of the waters, acid still hissing from their shell-backs and dripping from their antennae.

Two more leather-winged flying creatures now circle above the sea, ready to resurrect any creature that I destroy.

The formerly dead ohty swipes at me.

I duck in time to save my unprotected head, and I roll…right into another ape-owl-ohty.

It swipes at me with its giant paw and slams me into the acrid earth. The pain feels like burning sandpaper, and I scream and thrust out my hand to launch a ball of fire from my fingertips.

Fwoosh! That ball consumes the ape-owl like it was made of paper.

I throw another fireball. Fwoosh! That ball consumes another ohty.

Claws snap at my ankle.

I cry out as fiery pain spills down to my toes.

I roll this way and that way, tears whipping from my eyes, as another claw grabs my greave-covered shins.

I shout, and my breath is snatched from my chest. Somehow, I find the strength to swing Fury again, chopping off that claw but not killing the lion-crab-sagird connected to it.

You will fail, Lady.

You do nothing but fail.

Crawling now, I grab that severed claw and swing it at the ohty.

I try to balance on one knee as I swing and swing, but I’m hurt, and none of these otherworldly are dying, at least not for long.

My vision turns wet and wavy and the world blurs.

Will the leather-winged flying things bring me back to life if I die on these shores?

One lion-crab-sagird grabs my wrist, and I drop the claw.

Another lion-crab-sagird grabs my already injured foot, and the two sagirds pull me in opposite directions, trying to tear me apart.

Now, I feel nothing as my body goes numb.

I squeeze my eyes closed and throw my head back and shout, “Abbey!” and—

I’m no longer fighting for my life at the Sea of Devour.

This time, I’m dropped like a piece of trash and splayed on the ground in the middle of a long corridor that stretches without end.

Moths whirl around me, helping the power of Spryte ferry me from one place to another.

Job done, the eclipse flutters down that corridor and vanishes in the distance.

I whisper, “Please don’t go.” Too late.

The shiny black floor is made of stone with veins of golds and blues. This floor isn’t cold and hard as marble, nor is it soft as wood. This floor is otherworldly.

There’s a long gray wall to my right and a long blue wall to my left.

My limbs feel too heavy to move. The bloody gashes on my hands don’t sting as much as those on my cheeks and chin.

The armor below my waist feels wet on the inside, filling up with blood from my cut-up calf and foot. I may just drown in my own blood.

At least it’s quiet here.

At least it’s clean here.

Maybe I could stay here forever.

I’m the only stinking, bleeding thing in this place—not that there’s much to see.

I turn my head to squint down the hallway, rubbing my thumb against the pendant and shuddering from the buzzing energy now living inside of it.

Bleeding and swollen, I lie there, on that otherworldly floor, I don’t know for how long, clutching my amulet and listening to my blood drip onto that floor, pain biting at my neck, wincing every time my lower back flares.

My brain tries to pull out of this fog—feels like I’m sleeping with my eyes open.

It’s so nice in this place.

But in the back of that fog-brain, a part of me whispers.

Time…time…

Every time I come close to understanding my surroundings and what’s happening to me, that knowledge skitters away.

I take a deeper and longer breath, and the air snakes through my nose and fills my lungs, and energy pulses through my veins. A strange numbness climbs from my feet up to my legs.

Clear-headed at last, I sit up, and the hallway swings precariously. I close my eyes and wait for the world to settle.

I need to stand—but there is nothing that I can use to lift myself up.

Shit.

I grit my teeth and roll onto my knees. “Ow!” I shout. I want to vomit, but that will only make this slick floor slicker.

Time…time…

I force myself to my feet—one foot burns and the other foot bleeds.

I take one weak step and then another. Despite its polished shine, the floor isn’t slippery beneath my boots.

The single window behind me lights this corridor—there are no torches or lanterns, sconces or candelabras hanging from the ceiling.

Out that narrow window, white, puffy clouds hang in a sky that shifts from light to dark, and then gold, red and blue, black and white, and then light, dark, and each color again.

This place… I know this sky and those clouds and this floor and this air, and I didn’t know what perfection felt like until no longer feeling it outside of these walls.

This is the Abbey of Mount Devour.

I want to admire my surroundings. I want to celebrate having made it to this haven, finally . But nothing gets done by standing in place. I have work to do—starting with finding Agon the Kindness. Finding my family, finally .

Lightheaded, I count my steps as I stumble down the long hallway.

At four hundred fifty paces, I’m still stumbling.

I look behind me— fuck all. Like a snail and its slime, I’ve left behind a trail of blood.

My face burns with embarrassment. I have to come back and clean this up, hopefully before anyone sees this mess.

The abbey is too sacred a place, and it deserves respect and order-.

Also, no one should have to clean up after me, a grown woman.

More than that: neither my mother nor Sybel Fynal raised me to be okay with just…

leaving blood everywhere . I’m many things—selfish and shortsighted—but I’m not filthy.

Up ahead, I spot a set of dark double doors made of wood stronger than Vallendor’s strongest oaks and ironwoods. Protective wards have been carved into the wood—diamonds, bears, wolves, paddles, and knots—to keep out those who don’t belong.

With bloody hands, I reach for the two knotted metal doorknobs.

The tall, dark doors open before I even touch the knobs.

I belong here.