But it was nothervoice any longer.
It was a male’s voice. Deep and horrific and rumbling like an undead spirit, risen again.
Her hands fell upon the hilt, where the miniature Hadru looked to be devouring the blade itself. “But so powerful. Not for its craft… for alone, it is just an ordinary king’s sword. The First King’s sword, ancient and hiding a secret.”
Thali’s fingers gripped the hilt.
“It is the stone inside of it that gives this sword its true power.” She smiled, then pulled the sword from her chest. With a sickeningcrunch,the bloody metal slid out past cracked bones and rotting skin.“The small piece of the planet’s heart that my father first removed, long ago, when he discovered the heart. I used it to destroy Eona, before. And I’ll use it now to destroy her again.”
Not Thali, then.
But…
“Eder,” Sonara whispered.
Eder smiled from inside of Thali’s body. His eyes had turned from Thali’s cold, pupilless white to a solid shadow black, as he looked from Karr to Sonara and back again. “Hello again, Eona. Or should I say, the two halves of Eona, come together once more.”
Behind Eder, the cave wall crumbled, the hole large enough now to let two people through at once. The first set of Cade’s Wanderer soldiers appeared, hefting their rifles.
“Many thanks, Wanderer, for leading me here,” Eder said to Cade.
“A traitor,” Rohtt hissed. “A worm that should be squished beneath—”
Eder moved like a wraith as he spun in Thali’s body, slicing the sword clean across Rohtt’s neck.
Rohtt’s head tumbled from his shoulders, a clean cut. Blood slung in raindrops against the tip of the drill as his torso teetered. Then it fell forward against the cave floor with a wetsmack,to fall at the prisoner’s feet.
“But you…” Cade sputtered. “You swore to be on my side.”
“Wanderer fool,” Eder growled. “Now it isyourturn to die.”
“Stop him!” Cade shouted.
The prisoners swarmed Eder like a wave, hefting their axes and shovels, their faces blank as they responded to Cade’s command.
Eder slashed out with Gutrender, so quickly Sonara almost didn’t see the blade swing.
Prisoners fell in his wake. The floor was littered with fresh bodies to mix with the dried bones.
All the while, Cade stood to the side, horrified.
Sonara had heard about Jira’s conquests with Gutrender, why they called him the Scorpion King. She’d wielded the blade herself in Stonegrave, but she’d never seen it in action with her own eyes… never truly understood it until now, as she saw Gutrender at work.
Little by little, Eder began to descend the gold steps.
The power he held, and not just from the blade…
It was dark magic.
A power Sonara had never beheld before.
“Stop Eder!” she shouted to Karr and Azariah, as Wanderer bullets fired in the background and resounded throughout the cave. Sonara felt them rumble in her chest, and sing in her blood. “Stop him and get the sword before the gets to the heart!”
The cave turned into a bloodbath, a blur of bodies dropping and bullets firing, the rest of the Dohrsaran prisoners clustered together in the back, waiting blankly for Cade to pull them into the fray.
Eder slashed with Gutrender, stopping the bullets,flattening thembefore they hit the ground with a plink.
“Wanderer weapons against the might of the planet.” Eder’s voice boomed over the chaos. “Against a mereportionof the heart. Imagine what the entire heart could do if it were mine.”
