Page 18 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

How can he ask me that? After the distance I’ve traveled, after the quests I’ve completed, after learning that there are still quests that I must complete, that all of Vallendor could die… What do I want ?

I hold his gaze and level my shoulders. “I want many things, but more than anything…I want to see my father—”

“I can’t help you with your father.” Agon’s words are hard.

“Because you don’t know him like that anymore? Or you can’t help me because you don’t want me to be with him?”

“Your father won’t see you.”

A light shines in a dark corner of my mind, and I swipe the tears from my eyes. “If he refuses to see me here, I’ll go to Linione or even Mera. Can you take me?”

“I’m not Mera, and therefore, I’m not allowed to step foot on Mera,” he says, shaking his head. “You know this.”

“And I know that you must grant me permission to use that down there.” I point at the guards standing at the dark end of the aerie. “Please take me to Linione—”

“I can’t take you to Linione,” Agon says and lowers his head.

“Nimith,” I say, “the steward who escorted me up here. She addressed me as ‘Blood of All.’ I’ve never heard that before. What does that mean? Why—?”

“There is no time. Again: what do you want?”

“I’ve told you,” I shout, my eyes wide and desperate.

“Every request I’ve made, you tell me that you can’t, or you won’t.

You’ve refused to help me every time I ask.

I know you’re a monk and probably don’t talk much and didn’t prepare for my return, and I know that I’m bossy, and yes, I’ve caught you off-guard, so I apologize for that, but surely you can be nicer. Right?”

Agon doesn’t speak.

My temper grows close to boiling. “I have a job to do. I’m supposed to stop the One, and he’s as powerful as Sybel warned. I was fooled, lulled into not believing any of this was possible. But I’m awake now, and I need your help, and you need mine.”

“You’re correct,” Agon says. “The One is a danger and still needs to be stopped. Is that what you want?”

“Yes!” I thrust my hands and send blasts of wind that knock over a bookcase. The ancient fierer wood splinters, and the ghastly sound of breaking shelves echoes off the stone.

The old man whirls around to glare at me, his face twisted with shock and rage. “You dare use your power against me? In this sacred place of learning and respite?”

I cover my mouth with a shaky hand. I can’t see him clearly because tears cloud my vision again. “I’m sorry, but you’re not helping me. You’re not listening to me. Why don’t you care about what’s happening here? Why don’t you care about what’s happening to me ?”

Agon sneers at me, his face quivering because he’s that mad. And now, he takes a breath, places his hands behind his back, and stomps over to the window. “You are the Destroyer of Worlds, and I’m vexed that our destiny lies in your wicked—”

“No!” I fling wind from my hands again, knocking over another bookcase. I send another blast of wind to turn over a table. Then I kick a chair that hits the wall and shatters. “Don’t call me ‘wicked’! I’ve done nothing to deserve that!”

Agon’s face twists with a fury that he’s barely controlling. “The convocation that just ended? It wasn’t a meeting about Danar Rrivae. It was a meeting about you . About how to stop you while also trying to appeal to anything good within you—”

“What?” I cry, lightheaded with outrage. “Who do you think you are, questioning me, questioning my intent, my identity? You sit up here, in your cave away from everything and everybody, away from the threats and sickness of this realm. How dare you—”

“Silence!” His hands push out from those sleeves and a gust of wind sends me backward, wheeling toward that window. My blood boils as I right myself. Heat erupts from every pore on my body. I lift my hands, but Agon’s hands are already out, and they shine with silver energy that hits me hard.

The aerie glows bright as though Selenova has entered the room.

“Stop this!” Red cardinals flutter behind Elyn Fynal, who now stands just inside the window.

Her white hair is pulled into a braid just as it was the last time we were together.

She wears a cloak of swirling golds and blues, and white pangolin-scaled armor.

Her walking stick seems solid now, no longer clouds and sugar.

This stick can strike over and over again, forever, until the end of time.

The glossy black stone in the center of her dove amulet vibrates with pent-up energy.

“Agon the Kindness has brought you here despite the danger you present,” Elyn says, “and you and I must discuss-—”

I snatch her hand.

She cries out in surprise, then strikes the side of my face.

I hit the wall as though an elephant has whipped me through the air. I fall to the stone floor, breathless. But I shake it off and thrust my hands out, striking back at her with my own blast of wind.

But the cyclone that I produce doesn’t even flutter her cloak.

She sends back that whirlwind.

I stumble and land on my back. Shit. I push myself up on my elbows, shaking my head while trying to square my shoulders.

Elyn leaps forward and strikes my jaw.

Red-and-gold dust explodes all around me. Her blow sends me sliding backward, hitting the wall again.

Someone’s learned how to punch.

I swipe my mouth—blood wets my fingers. Agon’s healing was all for nothing.

“Stop this fighting at once,” my uncle shouts.

The walls of the aerie shake at this old man’s voice.

Elyn and I both freeze in surprise.

“We aren’t here to fight each other,” he growls. “We’re here to stop Danar Rrivae from claiming Vallendor as his own.”

“Apologies.” Elyn nods to my uncle and settles her gaze on me.

“I did what I had to do, Kai. I needed to separate you from the weapon. Even now, he is still not who— or what —we think he is. And back then, we hadn’t come close to understanding the truth, so I thought it was best to keep you apart.

” Her posture eases before she says, “I offer my apologies for being so… hasty .”

I unclench my teeth, and even my hands lose some of their fight. “If it wasn’t for your mother,” I say, “I’d be picking my way across the fucking tundra right now, wasting time and hating you more than ever. You have the nerve—punishing me while asking me to use the power that you resent—”

The stone in her dove pendant flashes with red light. “I don’t resent your power,” she snaps. “Stop being so melodramatic.”

“Says the woman who keeps sweeping me to the ends of the realm—”

“Danar Rrivae,” Agon interjects.

“Is in Brithellum,” Elyn says, “working together with Syrus Wake now that his primary weapon is off the field. For now . Danar is currently creating a new species of otherworldly more powerful than before.”

“I met a few of them down at the sea,” I say. “A leather-winged flying beast is now resurrecting dead creatures.”

“Resurrecting?” both Agon and Elyn say.

“I saw it happen right before I popped into the abbey, and…” I shrug and shake my head with wonder. “If I hadn’t seen it firsthand, I wouldn’t believe it.”

“How?” Elyn asks.

I shrug again. “No clue, but we have to kill those beasts to keep them from healing and raising the dead.”

“The challenge, then, is greater than before,” Agon says. “And the weapon?”

Elyn sniffs. “It’s been days now, and he still keeps his back turned to me and refuses to talk to anyone. But I think that’s about to change.” She sizes me up with narrowed eyes and gives a crooked smile. “Because I know someone who can loosen his tongue—and she’s standing right in front of me.”