“Alright, Sonara?” Jaxon appeared beside Razor as she spewed a breath of green fire. The diamond melted like liquid starlight, pooling and hissing into the sand.
So fast, the prisoners rushed to freedom, shaking off their chains, not caring that their manacles still held. No one uttered a thanks. They were gone before Jaxon could offer to set them free of those, too.
Typical, even for prisoners heading to Deadwood. Nobody wanted to be near a Shadowblood. Not even one that had just saved them from certain death.
The wound on his back wasn’t as bad as she’d originally suspected. It was open, and bleeding, but he’d endured worse before. It was the use of his power that drained him far more.
“Next time, Jax,” Sonara said, relief flooding through her as he smiled and crawled into the wagon, “try not to get yourself killed when you’re saving me. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I don’t fear a second death,” he said with a wink. “I have a pretty close relationship with the Devil herself.”
Sonara cursed under her breath as he worked at her manacles, whistling softly to send tiny bones soaring into the locks of her cuffs. A twist, a sigh from Jaxon as he let the last dregs of his power loose, and the manacles fell free. He smiled up at her, exhaustion darkening his eyes. “If I remember correctly, you’re the one who knocked me out and left me buried in a pile of corpses outside Jira’s castle, leaving my fate to Markam, of all people.”
Sonara winced. Thatwastrue. “What did it take, to get him to fly you here to save me?”
Jaxon closed his eyes. “I agreed to another job.”
“Ofcourse,”Sonara said with a groan. Markam never did any good deeds, even for family, without demanding a prize of his own. “No rest for the weary. Did you ask him for details of this job, before you signed the deal in blood?”
Jaxon’s sudden silence, and the way his posture went rigid, was all the answer she needed.
He was helplessly,hopelesslyloyal. “Blast, Jax. What have you done?”
“I’ve saved you, for starters,” Jaxon said. “He wouldn’t tell me the details until you were present and accounted for. But whatever it is, Markam has promised a fine prize. The Lady is wealthy beyond measure.”
He glanced behind his shoulder, where the two strange new arrivals sat. The lady in crimson, who still had her hood pulled low over her eyes, stood in the sand beside Duran, staring down at the corpses.
Only the wind pulling at her cloak revealed that she was not made of stone.
Perhaps she’d never killed before. It changed a person; placed a coldness inside of their hearts that no other deed on the continent ever could.
“Come on,” Jaxon said. “One can see that smoke for miles and miles. Jira’s guards will be swift on their way.”
He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept in days. And perhaps he hadn’t… but Sonara knew a large part of that exhaustion came from using his curse.
Jaxon’s only worked with the bones of the dead. Beasts were far more common, for the bones of dead Dohrsarans were often buried far,far beneath the earth. To summon the bones of a person would be to call upon everyounceof power inside Jaxon, pushing him too close to a second death.
Every curse had its own twists, its own walls that couldn’t be broken. Sonara’s curse was the same. She could only sense emotions—never manipulate them. She’d only ended up with a massive headache when she’d tried.
The rest of the time, there was pain, a constant ache that just wouldn’t quit. The longer she held her curse within its cage, the more it plagued her. But once she released it, the world was hers to breathe in… until the after-effects kicked in, a dull throb that reminded her she was not entirelynormalin this second life.
There was a cost to every curse.
“Well. You’ve a story to tell,” Sonara said.Blast,it would take days to rid herself of the soreness. Jaxon helped haul her to her feet, despite his own exhaustion. His heavy breaths were warm on her cheeks. His aura, comforting as always.A hard, heavy drink after a long day’s ride.
“I need to knoweverything,”Sonara said. “Starting with her.” She glanced outside the wagon, where the woman wearing a bone mask had pulled the lady in crimson aside, speaking to her in hushed tones. “Shadowbloods don’t come out of hiding. And here out of nowhere, one of the strongest we’ve ever seen just rides into the sunlight to save the day?”
“That would be a side effect of knowing my brother,” he said, eyeing Markam, who was busy digging through the suits of the uncharred King’s Men, likely for any extra coin or bits of gold. Heartless as ever, Markam broke rules that Sonara never would.
She always let the dead lie still.
She still wondered what the afterlife would have been like, if whatever sent her barreling back to live a second life would have just left heralone.
“The sword?” she asked suddenly, still swaying a little on her feet.
Jaxon swallowed. “It’s safe. Stashed in the cache at Sandbank. But I do have this, to tide you over.” Jaxon lifted his duster, revealing a glimpse of a sword tucked carefully into a black scabbard.
Sonara’s heart practically sang at the sight of it. “Hello, gorgeous.”
