Page 3 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

The cowslews that surround me and the city-folk burst into flame. Some of the otherworldly drop to the ground and roll in the dirt to put out the fires singeing them.

BOOM!

The world quakes again as the meteor strikes the ground.

My knees give and just as I fall back…all action around me stops.

A pair of hands presses into my back. The flames around me, no longer flickering, still shine bright.

I look back to peer at those hands-—strong, large hands that span the width of my shoulders. I turn to face the one connected to these hands.

He is wreathed in fire, and his rum-colored eyes shine brighter than flame.

His skin is the color of this land’s soil, and he looks strong enough to carry all of Vallendor on his back.

He wears a bronze wolf amulet on a black leather cord.

A source of power like my moth pendant, his pendant twinkles as bright as the real-life black wolf that fights alongside him—she’s the size of a horse and moments away from killing the closest urt.

He moves so fast that he can stop the realm—everything and everyone around us is now frozen in place.

But because he has been punished by the Council of High Orders, his powers have lessened, and he can no longer stop the realm for too long a time.

“Aim your blades elsewhere,” the beautiful warrior tells my captors. “Our leader has returned.” He winks at me. His deep voice rolls through me like thunder.

Before I can respond, one of the healers rushes over to me and tends to my injured wrist.

“They don’t remember me,” I tell Beautiful Warrior.

“They do,” he says, “but no one knows who you are right now.”

Who I am?

I’ve already forgotten that I’m hurt, but I still remember to thank the healer.

“Raodae kur kuka kim?” he asks. Ready for some fun? The language he speaks is not the same as the healer’s, but I know it just as well. This tongue is also a part of me, the Mera part of me: Meran.

I nod and smile. “Yes, I am.” And I drink from the flask and taste the sweetest water I’ve ever known.

Before I can say, “thank you,” the battle action thaws around us and the fighting starts up, the otherworldly burn, and the wolf has killed again. The beautiful warrior’s dual blades swing in smooth arcs, striking down the herd of cowslews that tore at me.

The closest otherworldly look over their shoulders. They attack still, slowing down as fire and metal chop them down and burn them up.

The big black wolf clamps the hands and heads of urts between her jaws. Cowslews howl to the sky and glare at the Mera warriors now cutting them down.

Together, Beautiful Warrior and I race toward the creatures now wrecking carts that protect women wearing ochre-colored robes. These women close their eyes and pray:

“Hear us, Celestial. Be our sword and shield. Don’t turn your back on your children.”

My mind immediately responds. I will never turn my back on you. Why did I answer? Ah. Yes. It comes back to me. They call me “Celestial” in this province.

The women’s eyes open, and their faces relax—they heard my promise.

Beautiful Warrior wields his dual blades of catherite and flame like a cat’s claws.

He rips through the skin of silver-spined urts and fuzzy cowslews, and his big black wolf pounces on the flying ones, keeping them from escaping into the air to strike again.

Her knife-like teeth rip at necks, and her silver claws rip at bellies.

I bend, stronger now, ready to swing Fury.

My first strike rips a cowslew from its hip to its heart.

I lunge, and my blade sinks into another otherworldly’s throat.

In between my slashing and burning, I sneak peeks at the man wielding those dual blades.

Watching him makes my skin tingle. I can’t not look at him, at the way he fights and the way he moves…

I like the way he moves.

I remember now. He taught me to go above my training as a Mera warrior, to use blades like I’d use my fingers.

He taught me that not every fight should be fought the same way, that I needed to know the “why” to affect the “how.” He wrapped my hands when they bled.

We bathed together after every battle to soothe our muscles but to also talk about the fight we’d either won or almost lost. He baked me honeycakes and always burned the bottoms.

Yes, Zephar Itikin taught me how to fight—and how to love.

But he is now known as “Diminished.”

My stomach swings from desire to alarm as a cart spirals toward me.

I unleash a burst of wind from my hands and push the wagon back at the silver-spined urt who’d thrown it at me.

The cart hits the otherworldly—and the power of my hands and the fierceness of the wind causes both the creature and the cart to splinter into thousands of pieces.

The big black wolf claws her way through a herd of urts, tearing their solid spines like fresh bread, cutting and slicing.

Over in the temple courtyard, a herd of urts chases a woman holding a baby to her chest.

I run toward them.

Zephar runs beside me and swings his dual blades to cut down two of those beasts.

The surviving urt continues to chase the mother and child, and just as it lunges for them, I pounce on the creature and knock it to the ground.

Pulse thrumming in my head, I drive Fury through the urt’s heart. After the creature’s death cry, the woman wraps her free arm around my leg. I take that moment to look back at the city.

A temple with smooth-coated stone walls stands in the northern part of this city. The temple’s massive dome is covered with tiles of crimson, gold, and black and reflects the flames now burning up date palm trees whose reddish-brown, crispy fronds haven’t borne fruit in seasons.

The houses here are no taller than three stories high, with flat roofs, square windows, and doorways draped in cottons and silks faded by the daystar.

Some houses have crumbled, earth returning to earth.

Chickens—some roasted by the fires, others running and clucking—huddle with villagers who glow bright amber.

Is this city now under the rule of Syrus Wake? Or is it now part of Kingdom Vinevridth? Maybe it belongs to a tyrant-king worse than the traitor Danar Rrivae and Wake combined. Who did I just bleed for?

Wait. I remember.

I know this city.

Gasho, the capital of the kingdom of Ohogar, in the middle of Doom Desert. One of my favorite provinces in Vallendor Realm is now besieged. By whom? Or what?

I’d left this place, and then the wild things came and tore through these streets.

Yes, I’d left this place because they’d complained about working too hard to cultivate the land.

They’d complained, about the daystar being too hot, about wanting a god who didn’t require them to fight and toil and experience hardship.

The people here had started to compare me to some made-up god that someone’s cousin had heard about on holiday.

In the past, I’d healed visitors who’d come here and had been attacked by cowslews during their travels.

I’d saved those who could be saved and had ordered the order of Eserime stewards to install protective wards on the roads.

But then I’d been ordered by Gashoan leadership to ward lesser-traveled trails and to remove protections from those humans they deemed unworthy.

Those leaders, not just in Gasho, but all over the realm, had started to treat me more like a tool than the Lady of the Verdant Realm.

I’d warned them of where their disrespect would lead.

They didn’t care. They wanted what they wanted.

All of that had pissed me off. And I’d said, “Fuck it,” and that had been that.

Not everyone had rebelled against me, though, not enough to justify the wild things invading the city and doing their worst to this family and others like them. I failed to protect them, then—and while I can’t undo what’s already been done, I can be… better .

The skies are smoky from the burning palms but clear of those fuzzy buzzards. No silver-spined beasts chase children over the cracked flagstone pathways. Healers tend to the injured as the warriors help the living and carry the dead to the center of town.

Zephar saunters over to me and offers me a leather flask. “Well, shit. ”

I take the flask and let water dribble into my mouth. Just like that, my tongue shrinks, and the insides of my cheeks soften.

“Surprise, it’s me,” I say, now that I can, trying to smile.

The woman’s hold around my legs tightens as the baby cries.

Before I can speak to her, an Eserime healer with bright pink hair comes to embrace her. The woman melts into this comforting hug and releases me. She whispers, “Celestial,” to the Eserime, who looks nothing like me. To the woman in need, though, we must all look alike.

Now that Zephar and I are alone…

“You’re still the fighter I remember,” he says in his soft, low voice. “Methodical. Tenacious. Always taking one bite at a time.”

“I’ve never been a messy eater,” I say.

“I am, though,” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “From what I remember, you loved watching me eat.” He blushes as he tucks a stray hair behind his ear, then whispers, “I’ve missed you, Kaivara.”

My breath catches in my chest as the sound of my name on his lips brings back memories of the… meals we’ve shared. And from what I recall, I was his favorite snack. That wolf pendant twinkles around his neck.

“And I’ve missed you, Zephar,” I whisper. “Zee.”

He’s the man I’d forgotten.

He’s the man I love.