Marai

Marai lost track of how many soldiers she’d killed.

Dimtoir’s blade was so slick with blood Marai could hardly grasp its hilt. White hot rage consumed her. All thoughts but revenge evaporated from her mind, hissing like steam.

She didn’t register the slice of a blade across her cheek as it narrowly missed removing her head. Nor the gash on her right bicep. Marai’s body was numb, fueled by the ring’s desire for more blood, more death; if only to hide the aching sorrow and guilt that threatened to swallow her whole.

Across the sloping valley, Nevandian forces began to fall back and back, until their ranks had dissolved. Until golden bodies and men in rags gave up any sense of order. They turned and ran towards Kellesar in the distance. Tacorn rushed forward, a tidal wave of black, spurred on by the Nevandian’s weakening strength.

“Fall back,” Keshel shouted to Marai and the others, following the army’s lead.

Tarik and two other weres, one severely wounded, withdrew behind Keshel. Soon, the fae would be the only Nevandians left on the field. Aresti, Leif, and Raife were surrounded by blue scaled armor. Their movements slowed down. Their strikes became less precise, less frequent, magic all but spent.

Keshel rallied a brief spurt of power. He sent a flame into the masses of Varanese, granting enough time for Aresti, Leif, and Raife to dash back to his side. Nosficio appeared in a blur next to them, wild-eyed and drenched in blood. He snarled, but wasn’t too lost in his bloodlust to know friend from foe.

A hushed, spine-chilling voice stroked against her skin. Marai . . . Marai . . .

She slashed through the Varanese soldiers, fighting her way to Rayghast. She had to kill him. She must protect Ruenen and her people. She had to silence the voice and its magical allure.

As if it knew, dark magic raised the earth again. Without Kadiatu to stop it, a rolling, moving hill careened towards Marai. She dodged, but the dark magic wouldn’t relent. It wanted her. Its eerie call echoed inside her head.

Instead of rock and dirt, black smokey flames burst from the ground. Marai met the magic with Dimtoir, hoping to slice through or extinguish those flames.

But the magic was as solid as stone.

Marai watched in horror as cracks splintered up her father’s blade.

Dimtoir shattered into fragmented pieces, and Marai was knocked backwards. As her body slammed into the ground, air abandoned her lungs and anguish took over.

Dark magic chuckled in her ears in victory as it receded. She stared at the broken shards of Dimtoir, now bones of a once-great sword to be buried like the last remains of her own father. Dimtoir had been her trusted companion, a friend in the darkness, since the day her father had thrust it into her small hands.

Now, her hands were empty. Who was she without that sword?

Marai felt the sting in her eyes, the tightness of her heart, but she had to let it all go. As with Kadiatu, there was no time to mourn.

More Tacornians were moving to the left flank. They saw the opening. They knew they could rout the Nevandians; encircle them, cutting them off from their retreat.

She clambered back to her feet, and Marai stared down at the broken shards of steel as she tossed aside the worthless hilt of her beloved sword.

“Thora,” she heard Leif call. “Leave them, and get over here!”

Marai didn’t know if Thora did as Leif told. She didn’t turn. Instead, her fingers latched onto the handle of a sword from a nearby fallen Tacornian. It felt foreign in her hand, bulky and inelegant. But a weapon was a weapon—they all killed the same.

She rejoined the fray.

“Marai, fall back and regroup,” Keshel yelled.

The panic in his voice should have made her turn, but Marai wouldn’t listen. He didn’t order her on the battlefield. She wouldn’t fall back. She would not stop.

Not until I reach Rayghast and chop off his head.

She would have kept cutting through, a straight line right to Rayghast on the other side, if it weren’t for the cries behind her.

Cries of pain. Screams of shock.

Marai finally whipped around. She assessed the tableau before her as the world shut down.

A sword plunged into Leif’s chest. A black-armored hand was its owner. Leif’s arms stretched out wide, a protective stance. Behind him lay several unarmed, injured Nevandian men. Thora’s small body shielded a wounded man on the ground.

The Tacornian soldier twisted the blade and cut downwards.

Leif was skewered and mauled as the sword cut through his stomach.

Protecting Thora. Protecting humans. 

Marai staggered over as Tacornians began to flood the area. Nevandians rushed past, knocking into Marai as they fled towards Kellesar.

Not another. No, please, not another.

Leif’s legs crumpled. Raife was there to catch him.

“Brother . . .” whispered Leif through a cracked, far-away voice. He stared those vibrant emerald eyes up into his twin’s face. Marai watched the life leave them, a vacantness there, snuffing out Leif’s internal fire.

The last march of the fae, he’d said.

Aresti collapsed to her knees next to Raife. She took Leif’s hand and squeezed, bringing it to her heart.

In a mad frenzy, Thora leapt from the wounded Nevandian on the ground. With a simple paring knife, she roared and stabbed the Tacornian murderer in the neck, over and over again, with a feral scream to rival Marai’s. As blood gurgled from the soldier’s mouth, he fell, eyes wide with shock.

Thora stepped away from the body, heaving with adrenaline. Then she dropped the knife and flung her arms around Raife’s neck, breaking into a sob.

As Raife clung white-knuckled to his brother’s body, Marai met Keshel’s pale and frightened face.

Ruen is our Ruin . . .

“It’s up to you now, Marai,” he uttered. The wall of impenetrable stone had shattered. A ghost, Keshel wandered to Raife’s side with the others. Keshel closed Leif’s open eyes with two gentle fingers, then mumbled a prayer to Lirr.

But it wasn’t Lirr he should be praying to.

Laimoen, God of Destruction, was who Marai called upon. She dug deep inside the well. She pulled and felt the charge travel up her spine, igniting her.

Let them burn. Let them all burn!

As the air came alive with electric, volatile power, Thora looked up at Marai. Her tear-lined eyes blazed with ferocity.

“Do it.”

Marai unshackled her magic.