She lunged forward before she could stop herself, bounding down the golden steps and into Markam’s path. His eyes were wild, as if he wanted to hunt the heart. Capture it and keep it for his own. His aura came to her, eager and desperate.
A monster on the prowl.
“Get out of my way, Sonara.” He said her name like a hiss.
Her boots slid as he tried to move her aside, but she pressed against him, unrelenting. “What are you doing, Markam? Stop it!”
She slid Lazaris from its sheath, holding it before her.
“Imust have it,”he hissed.
A warning aura flickered at the same time Markam lunged at her with his blade.
Sonara lifted Lazaris, blocking the hit with a clang that echoed up the amphitheater and around the massive temple cave.
But he recoiled and slashed again, eyes wild with the need for the heart. She slung Lazaris around, jamming the pommel into his nose.Shadow blood leaked out, but he didn’t seem to feel the hit. He slashed again, aiming not for a wound, but for akill.Something he’d never done, in all their years fighting together.
He aimed for her throat.
Jaxon shouted and ran down the steps towards them, while Azariah and Karr simply stood staring, in shock.
Sonara dropped to a knee as Markam’s blade slashed the air. When she came back up, he’d lunged away, leaping sideways across the steps at the very same time his limbs began to fade from existence.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Sonara growled. “You’re not going to disappear this time.”
Behind Markam, Jaxon lifted his hands.
And one of the skeletons on the steps began to rise.
It was horrific, the sound of those rattling bones as Jaxon pieced the ancient dead back together. A clean skull bobbed atop shoulders that were bare of skin, and a rib cage that was broken at the chest—as if someone had stabbed it right through its long-gone heart—connected to long arms and splintered wrist bones. But the skeleton wrapped its unfeeling hands around Markam’s arm, stopping him before his curse could render him invisible.
Sonara took the opportunity and dove. Her shoulders slammed against Markam’s stomach as she knocked him to the ground, the skeleton cracking beneath them.
The blade flew from his hand, and his curse fizzled, his limbs solidifying again.“I need it,”Markam groaned.“I need the heart for myself.”
He rolled, heavier and stronger than Sonara, until he was on top of her, her body pressed beneath his. He grabbed her hair, lifted her head and slammed it back down against the golden steps. Her vision sparked, flecked with white for a moment.
But she rocked and used her momentum to launch him upwards, driving her knee in between his legs. His eyes never wavered from the heart, hands stretching down the steps towards it, his aura reeking ofwant.
“A little help here!” Sonara called out.
At the same time, Markam’s teeth found her throat.
He bit.
Hard.
Sonara screamed and dug her nails into the back of his neck. But then another pair of skeletal hands closed over Markam’s throat, and began to squeeze.
Jaxon stood behind him, shaking as he held out his own hands and commanded the bones to obey.
The heart’s aura kept pulsing, the dark death-wind sighing, and Sonara knew that each time Markam breathed it in, he fell deeper into its temptation. The power that it promised, the song that it continued to sing.
She heardsave me,but some part of her knew that Markam heard a different set of words.
Take me for yourself.
Use me for your gain.
