Page 57 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)
She backs away from me. “I don’t know what’s come over you. Maybe you’re just exhausted and hungry, but whatever it is, you need to snap out of it right now. There’s too much at stake. I’m not your enemy, Kai.”
“That’s what they all say.” I hurl my bundle of food out the window.
Elyn gapes at me. “Kai…”
“I’ve snapped out of it,” I say, “and now I see that I’m alone here, that everyone I meet wants what I have, that they think they need it for their own survival. I’ll have to save Vallendor on my own.”
…
Only four moths flutter around me, and their delicate wings brush against my skin as though they’re saying “goodbye.” I land on the ground, on the highest bluffs at the Rim of the Shadows.
I want to take off this armor—it’s too hot, too heavy.
I swallow, but my mouth is as dry as the desert.
I blink, but no tears wet my eyes. Yet the world still blurs.
The thin air feels charged with an unnatural energy.
The view below should be breathtaking, but the desert landscape sprawled out before me remains barren.
The earth has withered, and the once-vibrant wild grasses crumble into dust with each gust of wind.
The river that had briefly sprung to life is choked again with stagnant water.
The sky above me churns with dull golds and muted violets, a bruised sky to match the bruises that mottle my skin from my neck and back down to my smallest toe.
Lumis, the daystar, the warmest of us all, casts a cold, distant light, and his rays are dim as an ember in a dying hearth.
And as I sit here, on the brink of all things, the weight of Vallendor’s death presses down on me.
The unnaturally cold winds carry the scent of death across the hills and mountains that tower over Gasho. The pine, walnut, and acacia trees have twisted into skeletons, their branches gnarled and barren.
I close my eyes, trying to wipe these images—evidence of a dying realm, an acute reminder of my failure—from my mind. I’ve lost this fight. What can I do other than sit here and wait for the end to come?
I needed an army to fight Danar Rrivae, and now I find myself alone in this battle.
The Renrians are required to fight for me—and Separi and her kin can’t say no to the Lady of the Verdant Realm. But I won’t ask.
Elyn will use the Raqiel against me just as she did in previous battles. She told me seasons ago that I’d never leave Vallendor if I failed to yield and obey her. I didn’t believe her threat, and now I’m dying in this land of chaos. Who’s the fool? Me, for not believing her.
And then there’s Zephar…
I needed his blades and the Diminished—though in their new state, they are no longer mine.
Yes, I’ve lost this fight.
A growl sends me scrambling to my feet. I reach for my new blade.
A windwolf pounces on me from behind.
I roll away, but not fast enough. His paw snaps the pauldron off my left shoulder.
The pewter armor, as cracked as it is, barely protects my skin and bone.
Chunks of my breastplate, greaves, and vambraces fall into the dirt.
I spot bleeding sores on my knees and the backs of my hands.
I taste my own poisoned blood each time I swallow.
Every time I blink, I see traces of someone I lost.
Jamart. Vinasa. Tisen…
My whole body hurts, screaming, “No more.” I’m about to give my body what it wants.
The four otherworldly snarl at me, teeth wet and filthy with another creature’s flesh.
I consider letting the windwolves take me, but my head shouts louder than my body, “Fuck dying by windwolf. If you’re losing Vallendor, make your death an epic death.”
Fine.
I hold up Cruel Dawn, even if it hurts both of my arms to do so. “Whose blood will stain this first?” I point Cruel Dawn at the wolf pacing in front of me. “Will it be yours?” Without looking, I gesture at the wolf lurking to my right. “Or will it be yours?”
“You may kill us,” the pacing pack-leader says, “but you will still fail.”
“Yeah,” I say, “but you won’t be here to say, ‘Told you so.’”
The new blade swings easily through the air, slicing the head off a wolf who has no time to howl before he dies.
Another windwolf leaps toward me, and I slide beneath him and cut him open along his belly.
The steaming tangle of the wolf’s guts splashes across the dirt before the rest of his body does.
The last two wolves pause as I stagger to my feet.
I blink and see Veril and Lively and Mother…
The greaves that had been protecting my shins lie on the ground, no longer adorning my calves.
“Care to join your pack?” I ask the surviving wolves.
“We will die anyway—today or two days from now.” The windwolves howl again and charge at me.
“See you, then, in two days.” Even as I slit one’s neck and behead the other, I’m overwhelmed by sadness. Even the otherworldly have given up on the possibility that I’ll save this realm.
Anger. Lowly windwolves no longer fear me, not even with my amulet or Cruel Dawn, the strongest blade in the realm.
Pain rips through me, sharp and insistent. My muscles throb, and the once-solid armor jostles against my body, now a heavy burden. Each blow jolts my ribs, my spine, and my arms.
Loneliness sticks to me more than any physical sensation.
I fall to my knees, a gasp of pain on my lips. My mouth tastes like burned butter and stagnant water, overripe berries and rancid meat. I taste anger, frustration, exhaustion… I taste good things polluted and turned sour.
Vallendor will never be the paradise it was intended to be because I was never the god it needed or deserved.
“So you’re just gonna lie down and surrender?”