“Jax,” she whispered.
Then she was running towards him as if her own heart had sprouted wings and had taken flight, desperately trying to carry her across the sand to him. He slid down from Razor’s back, his boots squeaking on the fresh sand as they collided.
“You’re home,” she breathed.
He wrapped his strong arms around her, and Sonara couldn’t help herself—didn’t even want to stop herself—as the tears fell.
They pulled away from each other, hands on shoulders, eyes roaming one another’s face as if that shared glance could tell all the tales that had happened in their time apart.
“You’re okay? You’re unharmed?” she asked, eyeing his wounded arm at the same time he practically shook her and blurted:
“You faced a bloody Wanderer army to save me! I always knew you were a wild soul, Sonara, but…”
She laughed, and then they were hugging again, and Sonara swore,sworeto every single one of the goddesses that may have been watching, that if anything so horrific ever happened to Jaxon again, she’d tear them all down from the sky.
She’d rip them apart slowly, limb from immortal limb, if it meant she could keep him from harm.
“Ahem.”
They broke apart, both wiping away tears.
“Such a sweet family reunion,” Markam said. He knelt in the sand, shaking dust from his coat, a gash on his temple still oozing black blood. Somehow, his hat was still on his head. “I see you’ve returned my wyvern back to me safely, little brother. I’ll only charge you ten gold coins, for the rental.”
Jaxon chuckled, and helped Markam to his feet, gripping him by the forearm.But then after a moment, he pulled his brother in for a hug.
Markam wrapped his arm awkwardly over Jaxon’s shoulders, but accepted the embrace, before quickly backing away. He made sure to pull the brim of his hat low over his eyes, but Sonara caught the joy in them. “That’s enough of that, Jax,” Markam said, and cleared his throat.
“There’s so much to tell you,” Sonara said. “So much to—”
Several paces away, Duran snorted as he nudged a body in the sand.
“Azariah!”Markam yelped.
Markam stumbled, half-crawling across the sand until he fell at Azariah’s side. Sonara soon joined him, a sickness spreading through as she thought,Please, not now, not like this…
A Deadlands warrior did not deserve to die falling from the sky in a Wanderer pod.
Strange, lightning-shaped burns ran across Azariah’s body, stretching upwards towards her neck. Markam gently rolled her over and cradled her head in his lap, pressing his hands to either side of her face.
“Wake up.” He shook her gently. “Wake up.”
“She’s alive,” Jaxon said softly. He knelt and pressed his hand to Azariah’s wrist. “My power… it tells me her bones are not yet ready to call upon. There is still plenty of life in her.”
Something like hope grew in Sonara as she looked at the woman. Azariah’s collar scar, once a hideous mark of King Jira’s claim over her life… it was transformed.
Tendrils of lightning-shaped scars wound around her throat where that awful collar had once been, almost beautiful in its brutality.A work of art that was born of her own abilities. Her ownchoiceto press herself to the brink of life in order to set countless others free.
“She shut down the light-wall,” Sonara said to Jaxon, as she knelt by the princess and pressed her hand to Azariah’s forehead. “She did it, for all of them. All of us. She’s the one who deserves the credit.”
“Ah, but you all had a part in the chaos,” Jaxon said.
Now that he was kneeling on her level, Sonara could see the awful gouge marks where the mite had dug into his neck. Like whatever terrible Wanderer science it was had drilled four even holes into his skin and latched on tight, bruises and dried blood still plainly visible on his neck.
“It was a collar of its own,” Jaxon said, glancing at the princess. “A pain that could make any man beg for death.”
“Then it’s good we destroyed them,” Sonara said. “Good that we could set you all free.”
Jaxon paused, his gaze darkening.
