Gutrender swung left and right, arcing and twisting as Eder sliced through bullets, stopping them before they could hit Thali’s body.Somewhere in the fray, Cade was now standing with his soldiers, shouting commands for them to stop him.
One by one, they lost to Eder. The sword was too mighty, too full of the planet’s power from that one small stolen piece…
Eder’s boots were on the second step of the amphitheater now.
Prisoners continued to fall as he walked, spinning and felling them in his wake.
Save me,Sonara’s curse whispered as it picked up on the planet’s terror. It was ripe upon her tongue.Save me, my soul, save me.
Eder was halfway down the steps.
Sonara backed up, her heels scraping the heart. She could feel its pulse inside of her, resounding as her own heart hammered in her chest. She could not fight an unfightable blade. Not with a regular warrior’s sword, even if it had once been Soahm’s.
There were so few prisoners now. So few soldiers. Only fifty left, perhaps, but still, they came.
The golden sword swung as Eder turned and leapt the last few steps, aiming for the heart, almost in slow motion.
Sonara lifted Lazaris, ready to take the hit. Certain that she would die trying to defend the heart.
But before Eder could cut her clean in half…
A jolt of electricity struck the sword. Gutrender smashed into it with a resoundingring,pushing the blade off balance.
Sonara looked to her right. There Azariah stood with her palms outstretched, a smile on her beautiful, lethal face, as she walked to join Sonara.
“I shared everything with this monster,” Azariah said, her eyes sparkling. “It’s time for it to die.”
Eder swung, but Azariah’s lightning struck the blade again.
“Shadowbloods,” Eder growled, whirling to take out two more of Cade’s prisoners before he faced Azariah again, and readied for another strike.
But next a set of bones rose to life, as Jaxon lifted his hands andscreamedinto his power. All around, the skeletons began to rise from the steps. They slunk across the amphitheater like an army, holding back Cade’s prisoners, creating a wall so that none could pass.
Cade howled as he stood at the top, shouting for his people tofight,to find a way through the dead.
But Jaxon’s army of bones was too strong, his power surging from him as he held his hands in the air like a conductor. The bones wove together like a wall that stood, ever-strong, around the bottom few steps of the amphitheater.
There was only Eder now.
“Worry about Eder,” Jaxon said, as he looked over his shoulder at Sonara. “I’ll handle the rest.”
More bolts of lightning lanced from Azariah’s palms, forming shields of blue that appeared in midair to meet the blade as Eder growled and came for them again.
The cave was filled with the crackle—theboom—of Azariah’s power as she pulled at something deep inside herself.
Eder swung and sliced through the bolts with Gutrender. But when the electricity faltered, when Azariah didn’t get a shield up in time, breathless and bleeding shadows from her nose… a boulder shot into the path, knocking into Eder. Karr shouted in victory.
Eder rolled sideways, Gutrender still in hand.
The fight continued.
Sonara’s blade clashed against Eder’s, and when she faltered,she felt the jolt of Azariah’s electricity pushing Eder back. Azariah,her sister,and Karr, who carried part of Soahm inside of him.
Sonara fought alongside them, but Lazaris would not be enough. Soon it would break beneath Gutrender’s power, and then what would she have left to defend the heart?
Magic,Sonara’s curse whispered.
She closed her eyes.
