Page 107 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

L ee threw me over the edge of the border spell, out where magic could flow freely.

Power rushed through my veins.

On my knees, my spine bowed as Ara’s magic attempted to knit the wound closed—it almost did.

Fire seared my insides, my strength renewing. Lee swiped his sword from the ground and returned to the thick of battle as my strength surged.

At the sight of Ara’s flayed hand, I wanted everyone to burn.

Iaso sat outside the border too, tending to Ara’s hand as she lay unconscious, but not even Iaso could work miracles this quickly.

I dropped to my knees at Ara’s side and brushed the hair from her sweat-slicked face.

Iaso’s focus was unwavering, her golden power cascading through Ara, and her armor—her golden breastplate gleamed like copper under the wash of red.

Ara’s blood was everywhere it shouldn’t be: smeared over Iaso’s armor, soaking through her gown, pooling in the snow and mud.

She hadn’t opened her eyes. Her chest rose and fell, her pulse slow—slow but steady. Alive.

The wraith screamed and devoured whoever it could reach, swelling higher into the sky with each handful of men. Newer bones, stained with sinew, appeared among blackened ones.

The soldiers’ bones.

My stomach lurched. With a hard swallow, I scanned the rest of the battlefield.

Drakyth ripped through human men in dragon form, plowing a hole through the center of their ranks. Two arrows protruded from his back where his wings should’ve been.

My blood boiled, teeth lengthening to sharp points. The scars between my shoulder blades itched and burned.

Every living Draki was ground-bound.

Edana fought three men at once. Fire swept over her blade, and she hacked at them again and again. Smoke rose from their wounds as they fell into pieces. She didn’t slow to catch her breath. Instead, she turned her anger on new targets.

Puer Mortis swarmed on both sides. Pale bodies flitted between men. Blood filled their eyes and overflowed, staining streaks of red down their cheeks.

I leaned over Ara’s form and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, in stark contrast to the firestorm building in my chest. As I stood, I pulled Severance from her sheath and replaced it with Sacrifice.

“Watch over her,” I said to Iaso. “Keep her within the border. She’ll be safe here—you both will.”

I crested the hill and surveyed the field below, then checked my wound. White veins pulsed beneath my skin, stitching it closed for the time being.

Fire rippled over my dragonscale armor. Power surged, hot and hungry as I tightened my grip around Severance and charged into the thick of it with my eyes set on the creatures.

Humans charged me as I passed, but up close, some of the men looked starved—their faces gaunt, clothes and armor hanging loose over too-thin bodies, their movements labored and careless.

A flicker of guilt sparked deep in my gut. I had stolen their supplies. I did this to them.

I met their strikes, deflecting to survive, but not to kill.

Despite everything, I didn’t want to be their executioner.

At the sound of another scorpion triggering, I jerked my face to the sky. A bolt arced over the battlefield. My fire sparked the tip, and blazing green exploded before it speared through the wraith’s gut.

It spun and screamed. More spears triggered. More arrows.

Pyric Fae assaulted the creature with an onslaught of fireballs. It flitted across the field away from its attackers.

I braced my feet and cultivated my fire in rage, in hurt, in decades of abuse and hatred and disgust. When flames thrashed against the confines of my skin, my veins glowing like lava, I unleashed it all.

Roaring flames slammed into the wraith’s chest. A roar climbed my throat as I pushed harder, hotter. A wave of heat blew over the battlefield as the plume of fire turned white-hot.

The wraith stopped screeching. Cracks shot up through the bones like veins. Charred fragments fell, flakes of flesh drifting into the breeze.

I didn’t stop until my magic’s well drained dry, emptied to the point of no return. Just as Ewan had done to save the Marsh all those months ago.

The wraith stood motionless for a few moments, then crumbled into dust like crushed charcoal.

The world spun and tipped beneath my feet. My gut churned, and I hit the ground.

Ara’s power surged in my veins, a warm caress.

I promised her a thousand sunrises.

It was that image—Ara’s smile, cast in dawn’s light—that pulled me to my feet. I fought for that smile.

I fought for a life with her, one where we didn’t worry if the sun would rise tomorrow, or if we’d be there to see it.

My body ached, muscles burning, a deep throb in my head, but I gritted my teeth and gripped Severance.

I set my sights on the Puer Mortis, ripping through throats with teeth and claws. I locked eyes with a female, her face hidden behind a mask of sticky blood. She grinned, dropping the body in her hands, and I grinned back.

It was over in seconds. She still twitched on the ground when I moved on to the next.

Again and again, I lost myself in a blur of fire and blood. Pale bodies dropped and rotted.

When I finally halted, dizziness clung to my head. I blinked a few times, breathing heavily. Gore coated my hands and arms. Sweat soaked my hairline, the pain in my gut pulsing hot and angry.

I probed the wound with my fingers and hissed through clenched teeth.

Ara’s magic still held it closed—but it hadn’t healed it. It fought to reopen, to bleed, each movement tearing at the stitches her magic created.

I didn’t have a moment to dwell on that before another creature streaked across the field, teeth bared. I hurled Severance at him.

It struck him in the chest. He toppled to the ground.

Planting my boot on his gut, I ripped out Severance and scanned for more.

The battle between Fae and humans raged on. Swords clashed. Men screamed—begged. Cried out for their mothers and the Goddess. The thick stench of death clogged the air, metallic and acrid.

What I hadn’t noticed, however, was how many souls filled the gaps between the living. As the night went on, more and more appeared, glowing like the nonexistent moonlight still touched their skin.

They were everywhere—fighting each other, fighting with the living—but some weren’t souls at all. They were memories, either the land’s or a person’s.

Those were the most dangerous, it seemed, because they were emotionally charged, leaving the onlookers distracted and vulnerable.

Drakyth was one of them. In his dragon form, he intently watched two men fight—two Draigs. One man grabbed the other by the throat and punctured the delicate skin with his claws. Blood flowed. Drakyth flinched.

He didn’t notice the fool running at him with a spear. I launched Severance at the human. It sank into his thigh, and he fell to his knees with a cry of pain.

When he ripped it out and threw it to the side, I caught it and brought the hilt down hard on the side of his head to render him unconscious.

As I rose, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I spun and leveled the weapon at their throat.

“No.” My arm fell to my side. “Not you, too. Not again.”

Doran grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “It seems I’ve lost my knack for survival.”

His eyes weren’t white anymore. That familiar blue ringed his pupils.

He wasn’t Puer Mortis.

He was dead.

I sagged on an exhale, a heavy weight in my chest. With a sad chuckle, I muttered, “I never even taught you how to swim.”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been treading all my life, brother. I think… I think I’d like to rest now.”

My throat constricted, but I swallowed hard and nodded.

I understood that feeling all too well.

Sheathing Severance, I embraced my brother for the last time.

“Not before dawn, though. I can spare a few more hours.”

I let out a choked laugh. “How generous.” Glancing around, my smile faltered. “Have you spoken to Delphia? She and Thana have been gone for hours.”

“Hours?” He shook his head. “They were with Godrick. Has he not returned yet?”

Another human rushed Drakyth, one not wearing any armor.

I tore my sword from the scabbard and spun. The flat of my blade landed hard against his ribs, staggering him, then my pommel connected with his temple.

“Drakyth!” I roared.

He blinked and shook his head. When he turned away from the Draig sprawled out, gasping for air, the image dispersed into smoke.

To Doran, I said, “Godrick is dead.”

Doran’s mouth opened and closed. He scanned our immediate surroundings, then disappeared, his words hanging in the air. “I’ll find them.”

A Puer Mortis lifted his head from the neck of a corpse, bloodied and blissful. I caught his eye, and he rose to his feet.

Behind him, a gust of wind blew off the ocean, sending a storm of wildfyre embers swirling into the stars.

The ocean. Calypso’s deal.

My head snapped toward the horizon. It was too dark to see where the sky ended and the sea started.

She had said, “A whisper on the sea breeze.”

“It’s here,” I whispered to her. More wind howled. “The final battle is now.”

The Puer Mortis swiveled and leaped onto the back of another Fae. I charged forward and ripped him off by his hair.

He kicked her feet, gnashing his teeth as he hung in my grasp, tears of blood spilling from his eyes.

I plunged Severance into his heart, then paused.

A low rumble stirred, subtle at first. I tossed the man to the side and turned to the north as the sound grew closer, louder. The ground trembled beneath my boots.

Hooves, I realized.

Thousands of hooves.

A cavalry.

Through the rising dust, a banner emerged, and Auryna’s second wave crested the hill like a tidal wave.

I ground my teeth and braced myself to pour every ounce of strength I had left into a wall of fire, my jaw tight and grip on Severance tighter.

But then?—

Another rumble. Deeper. Vaster.

Not hooves.

Thunder.

I turned to the ridge, and there she was, standing over the battlefield like an angel of death, a luminous body of silver light.

“The storm bringer!” a human screamed. “She’s here!”

The warning raced across the battlefield, repeated by a dozen mouths. Tensions rose. The air electrified.

With a deafening crack , lightning cleaved the stars and struck the heart of that second wave. Bolts ricocheted in a thousand directions.

“She’s here,” I breathed, a smile on my lips—a smile slashed when a snake crawled over my boot.

I stepped back and squinted.

Not a snake.

A vine.

It continued past me. They all did as hundreds swallowed this corner of the battlefield.

My gaze shot to the ridge again. Behind Ara, Iaso stood tall in blood-smeared armor, arms hanging limp at her sides, and her eyes—her sockets churned with molten gold.