Page 66 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

The otherworldly of the desert—windwolves, hydrasalts, cowslews, and urts—rush from both sides toward Elyn, the Raqiel, and the Renrians, their glowing eyes cold and their bodies twisting with a power, their glows flickering from blue to amber as blades and staffs strike them down.

My sword strikes true, and the bodies of these soldiers, Wake’s men, crumple from the force of my linionium blade and become heaps of black light. Feels like I’m pushing steel through fog. Yes, these fighters’ bodies feel like they’re made of foam and hope and not bone and muscle.

The otherworldly, though…

The ground shakes as massive worupines leave their dens, their bristling poisoned quills ready. They fire those deathly needles at Elyn and her guard.

Elyn summons the wind with a powerful sweep of her hands and sends the barrage scattering into the sky. Those deadly missiles slam into the necks and faces of Wake’s army. Their bodies fall like chopped timber.

Shari romps and chomps, fearless.

The Renrians, their lavender eyes glowing bright, step forward with purpose.

Half an age has passed since they fought in the Great War—but they move with the same fluid grace and power they once did.

Their staffs, topped with carved animals—bears, eagles, the day- and nightstars—unleash storms of energy that cut through Wake’s forces—soldiers and beasts—like sharp blades through brittle cloth.

The scent of battle hangs over us: acrid blood, spilled guts, all of it poisoning soil that already struggled between growth and restoration. No life will return here, not until the fires from the Mera roll across this land.

We all swing, slash, and summon. Wake’s army has no chance here.

They are worms trying to fight lions. One by one, stronger forces trample them until their blood soaks the earth.

The otherworldly, for all their power, don’t fare well, either.

No resurrectors float over them to bring them back to life.

Their bodies fall broken and scattered across the banks and flats of the Sea of Devour.

A soldier with a cruddy sword shouts, “For the emperor,” and charges at me.

I flick my hand and send him flying into the slot canyons.

The daystar creeps toward the horizon.

We’re losing time.

A herd of wolf-horse howlthanes races toward me, with its largest racing far ahead.

Where the fuck did they come from?

The howlthanes lift their heavy heads and bellow to the gritty sky.

“You must stop your incursion,” I shout at them, my hand held out.

But the beasts keep charging, their hooves striking the muddy, bloody soil.

“Your creator sent you here to die,” I shout to them, “but I’m offering you life. This realm does not belong to him. It belongs to me, the Lady of the Verdant Realm, and I’m promising you now—”

One howlthane me leaps at me, its mouth frothing with milky spit, its teeth sharp and filthy and fouled with meat and hair.

I rush forward on Fraffin and plunge my sword upward, right at the howlthane’s heart.

The creature shrieks as its blood rains down on my hands and Fraffin’s coat.

The howlthane is already dead before it slams into the ground.

The herd slows and skids to a stop, bellowing and waggling their heads. Their thoughts are as disordered as their bodies.

“I don’t want to kill you,” I whisper again.

But there are so many—and none are listening to me as they gnash their sharp teeth, as they call to the sky. Creatorkillhelppleasepainnoplease .

Danar Rrivae had no right to create these beasts.

Mercykillnopainenduslady.

I thrust my hands at them, and a massive ball of white-blue fire shoots from my fingertips and consumes the herd. The creatures catch fire, their cries immediately swallowed by my charged storm. I force myself to look—I don’t want to, but I must witness their end.

And then I look around.

No soldier wearing Wake’s tunics stands upright.

We’ve have cleared the field of fighters.

Panting, Elyn runs over to stand beside me.

“This was too easy,” I say.

“Easy?” Elyn responds, still out of breath. “What—?”

“Those soldiers and otherworldly against our forces, they were already dead.”

Elyn shakes her head, still not understanding.

I don’t have time to make it clearer as I peer out across the land of the fallen.

Because now, here he comes.

Syrus Wake, Emperor and Lord of Vallendor and All Realms, the Manifestation of Supreme, the Divine and Most Holy, rides the most magnificent white stallion I’ve ever seen beneath the ass of a man.

Wake’s copper armor—no dents, no dullness—glints in the dying light, and his white cloak ripples like a glass sea.

He glows a bright blue—and so do the soldiers behind him.

He wears no helm to hide thick hair as white as a heron’s feathers.

His face bears no wrinkles or signs of age, skin too smooth to be believed.

The lie of Syrus Wake catches the light, and in those brief flashes, I see brown spots and crags, baldness and swollen veins.

He was as young as me on the day I placed the crown on his head and presented him with his own Librum Esoterica .

An age has nearly passed since then—he shouldn’t be riding this horse.

No, his ashes should be riding on wisps of memory and legend.

Time is not only my enemy—it’s also his.

“Lady.” The white stallion addresses me first.

“You’re Vapor,” I say. “I knew your grandfather, also called ‘Vapor.’”

“The emperor calls me ‘Snow.’”

“Lovely to see you, Vapor,” I say, dipping my head.

The horse neighs and dips his head—he hasn’t heard his name called in ages, and certainly not with the respect he deserves. Nature tells him now to kneel, but the jackass in the saddle kicks his haunches and presses him forward.

Vapor knows better.

But I know Syrus Wake, and this man won’t stop hurting this horse until Vapor obeys.

I don’t have time to play these power games. I hold up a hand and shout, “No need, Vapor.” I hop off of Fraffin and tromp toward the emperor. “This won’t take long.”

Because there is no time.

Syrus Wake climbs off the horse and heads toward me. He chuckles even though his green eyes remain flat.

Yes, I remember this man who’d fought his way across Vallendor to take Beaminster, Tumunzah, Bolduf, and other lesser provinces.

The scar across the bridge of his nose—that came from the battle at Antleah.

His missing left ring finger: from the fight at Aerie Fells.

After being slit with a Dashmala dagger across his throat, the scar hidden now beneath his tunic, Wake stopped swinging a sword to conquer.

And he lost that battle, and he lost Bacha as well as the southern regions of Vallendor, which went to the victor King Hamund Exley, ruler of Kingdom Vinevridth.

For a long time, Exley pushed back and won every attempt against Wake’s army, retaining Maford, Pethorp, and all territory east of Caburh and south of Doom Desert.

But then Wake achieved knowledge by opening that book I’d given him on his coronation—and then, he’d wanted to learn more, and a certain Keeper of Knowledge said, “Hey, I know a guy…”

And now, Syrus Wake stands before me, so arrogant and certain of everything that even his cocky and disrespectful fingers don’t tremble with fear.

The mortal father of Jadon Wake doesn’t resemble his son at all.

Gileon and Jadon share their mother’s lightning-blue eyes.

Syrus Wake’s eyes, though, remind me of murky water filled with dead things.

Sea of Devour green. And now, those eyes stare at my amulet, which thrums and glows with absolute power.

“I’m here to proffer,” Wake says, his voice sounding like clotted gravy.

I mock confusion, looking this way and that. “And who are you talking to? Surely you aren’t addressing me .”

The old man pauses, purses his lips, then dips his head. “Kaivara Megidrail, Grand Defender, Lady of the Verdant Realm, it’s been a long time since my last audience with the most beautiful and most powerful being in the realm.”

“Oh?” I say, wide-eyed. “ Now I’m the most beautiful and the most powerful? The streets are saying that I’m not god enough for you. You listened, and look where it’s gotten you: standing before me anyway with a prayer on your tongue.”

“Not a prayer,” he says, wagging his index finger at me, his voice dripping with condescension. “A proffer . That’s when—”

“I know what a ‘proffer’ is,” I say. “A proposal. A plan. A scheme. A fancier word, in my opinion, for ‘prayer’ because you, a mortal, can offer me nothing. You may have lived for a mighty long time, but to me, you’re only dust.”

The shadows on his face deepen. His jaw tightens, and the cords in his neck constrict—he’s holding back an explosion.

Time… I’m running out of time.

Wake’s top lip curls into a sneer that he tries to hide beneath a smile.

“My… prayer is this: I will turn from Danar Rrivae and provide you my allegiance and belief. I will command my armies, including my very best captains and lieutenants”—his nostrils flare as he motions toward the men behind him—“to follow you. You, then, will rule beside me as empress—”

I laugh. “ What? I will rule beside you?” I laugh and laugh and laugh some more.

Those shadows on his face now swirl like dark smoke. He’s not a man who is laughed at.

“You see,” I say, catching my breath, “I’m amused because your eldest son, Jadon?

He made me that very same offer not too long ago.

And your baby, Gileon? Had he lived long enough, he would’ve certainly asked for my hand and offered me a place beside him as well.

The Wake men have one filthy habit in common: disrespect. ”

I shake my head and peer at those very best captains and lieutenants still straddled upon their horses.

“The princes didn’t get it. None of you get it ,” I say, glaring now at Syrus Wake.

“I’m here because I’m the highest mountain this realm will ever see, and I’ve yet to stop growing. I rule beside no one.”

Syrus Wake smiles at me, that condescension thick as slimy spit across my face. “You must not understand, Kaivara. I’m offering you—”

“Kaivara?” I take one step forward and swing Cruel Dawn, and she moves so fast, she catches fire as she cuts off the head of Syrus Wake.

Oh, the insufferable arrogance of men.

Syrus Wake’s head lands at my feet, those dead, sea-green eyes still bright with surprise, that mouth still hiding its venomous sneer.

The gasps from those very best captains and lieutenants are as loud as the gasps from the soldiers standing in formation behind them.

“She killed him.”

“He can’t be dead.”

“How do you kill Supreme?”

Their thoughts buzz in my ears as loud as the corpse flies now buzzing over the dead.

The horses, including Vapor, stomp their hooves, their eyes wild and nostrils wide.

“We’re free!”

“He’s dead.”

“They too will die.”

“Hold fast for now,” I advise the horses.

Then I snatch the head of Syrus Wake from the dirt and hold it up by that snow-white hair for his very best captains to see.

“You have a choice on this day,” I tell them.

“Live and protect Vallendor from foes of this realm. Or…” I lift Wake’s head higher.

“You die alongside the charlatan, Wake.”

Some soldiers bow their heads and immediately kneel before me. Others stick their blades between their ribs or slide their daggers across their necks. They prefer death to serving me. That’s certainly a choice.

“For those joining me,” I tell the survivors, “I will bind you to that promise. The moment your purpose turns from mine, you’ll drop dead where you stand.

An extreme punishment, yes. One relying on your fear of me, certainly, but you’ve already shown me your disloyalty.

But this”—I hold Wake’s head even higher—“is your prize if you show me your ass.”

“Hey, Kai,” Elyn says, coming to stand beside me. “We have a guest.”