“Merciful.”
She stabbed at him. He evaded. She spun and plunged her spear through his chest, impaling his entire body.
Chapter 45
Kiera
Relief buckled my knees.
Korvin choked and gurgled, then collapsed over Nikella’s spear.
He was dead. At last. And I was free. Alive. He couldn’t hurt me anymore.
Nikella let his body slide off her spear like a dead fish. She was breathing heavily, and her spear shook.
I clambered to my feet and stepped around Korvin’s bloody body. I pried the spear from Nikella’s grasp and laid it in the cold grass. Her eyes were wild, fixed on her dead brother. Sweat clung to her scars, carving silver paths on her face.
I clasped her trembling hands in mine. “It’s over, Nikella. You saved the world from a monster. He’s gone.”
Finally, she looked at me. “I had to do it. I had to be the one.”
I nodded. “Are you hurt?”
“No. But you are.” She pulled her hands out of mine and pointed at my leg.
I glanced down to see blood dripping down my thigh, a long sliver of wood stabbing through my skin.
My stomach rolled as the pain registered once more. “Oh. Right. From the explosion...”
“You set off one of my bombs,” Nikella said sternly.
I winced. “Couldn’t find any weapons.”
She sighed. “We should get back to the others and make sure the other explosives and logs are safe.”
She picked up her spear and led the way back up the hills to the burning camp. I glanced back once. Just to make sure Korvin was still lying in a dead heap.
Aiden, Maz, and Ruru met us on the edge of the campsite, weapons still drawn, chains flapping about their wrists and ankles.
Aiden’s gaze darted between me and Nikella. “He’s dead?”
Nikella nodded.
Ruru let out a tired whoop.
Maz clapped Nikella on the shoulder. “I would’ve liked to slice off a few pieces of him, but you deserved that victory.”
Aiden wore a look of savage triumph that turned to concern when he noticed the splinter in my leg. “Gods damn it, Kiera. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were a little busy?—”
He grasped my arm and pulled me into tent after tent—the ones that weren’t destroyed—until he found one with some healing supplies.
He sat me down on a chair and tore the hole in my pants wider. As he worked the splinter out, pasted my skin, and bandaged it, I tried to breathe the fear and pain from my body.
“Thank you,” he said, “for freeing us the way you did. We would’ve died without your quick thinking.”
I frowned. “You never have to thank me for that.” An echo of the truth he’d spoken to me out of anger.
