“And she’s going to be your killer.” Standing, Jelza seizes both my shoulders and shakes me, my brain rattling around in my skull. “We can still catch her. We’re as Evolved as she is, and there’s two of us and one of her. But I can’t do this by myself, Kori. I need you with me. Even if ithurts.” Her dark eyes bore into mine with desperate purpose. “Are you with me, Kori?”
My stomach feels like a giant knot. I manage a stiff nod.
“Say it.”
“I’m with you.”
“Then start running,” Jelza says, and we lose ourselves together in the rush of wind and pounding boots on metal.
CHAPTER
30
ADRIA
Thaane’s army darkens the horizon in a whirl of warriors’ wings.
Aspect crouches far behind me, their makeshift body crumpled behind the control panel for the settlement’s only entrance. I’ve ordered them to stay there, as far away from the impending conflict as possible.
Between them and me, a line of brave dayfolk soldiers rapidly assembles, summoned by Aspect’s ongoing broadcast—which also warned them that a hulking nightfolk girl would be leading their charge. Many of them tense or tremble at the sight of me, but nevertheless, they form a phalanx of heatshot pistols and rifles at my back, even a few crude metal knives. This being practically the full force of the dayfolk military, we vastly outnumber Thaane’s rogue faction.
But I am the only settlement fighter with the planet’s power on my side. I may have instructed Isek via comms to send a contingent of the Shadowlands’ army after me as reinforcements, but there’s still no sign of them, and it’s impossible to confirm if they’re coming at all.
Perhaps even my loyal soldiers see my willingness to fight for the dayfolk as a step too far. Perhaps Azarii, despite supposedly seeking peace, remains so focused on me that he was willing to ignore Thaane’s offensive altogether, and my forces were delayed by Azarii’s rebellion. There’s no way to know, and no opportunity to wait.
Thaane’s army is on the horizonnow, black splotches interrupting the relentless sun. And if we don’t stop them, they could wipe out the dayfolk altogether … if Chloe doesn’t do it first.
Keen awareness of our disadvantage slithers beneath my skin. Thaane doesn’t even have to kill his opposing forces. One little slash through the dayfolk soldiers’ armor, and the planet claims them for itself.
Before long, though they were a distant inkblot practically moments ago, the nightfolk are almost within attack range—preparing their weapons, spreading out their forces. Several carry multi-limbed fighters on their backs; those without a mount are levitated by telekinetics, who strain to keep multiple bodies aloft. The ground rumbles like a quake beneath the crash of muscled mutants, some with as many as six fists upraised, others wielding freezeshot guns and freezeblades alike. Additional weapons levitate like halos all around the telekinetics, makeshift projectiles that move almost faster than the eye can follow.
Every breath feels like needles on its way out. I can’t see a single face of my newfound armored soldiers, but I turn to the closest one anyway: a woman likely Kori’s age, with a yellow bandana tied around one wrist.
“What is your name?” I ask.
She hesitates, fingers tensing on her heatshot rifle’s trigger. After a sharp breath, she answers, “Folina.”
“I know I’m a stranger to you, Folina.” I will my gaze to penetrate her helmet, to communicate beyond my words that I’m truly on her side. “I know based on what you’ve been taught, I’m a monster. But you know Kori?”
The soldier gives her head a little shake. “Nobody reallyknowsKori,” she says. “Chloe’s kept her locked away her whole life.”
There goes my only point of connection with these people. Aftera long moment, heart racing, I manage to say, “I promise you … she’s worth fighting for.” My hands curl instinctively into fists at my sides. “She showed me that you’reallworth fighting for.”
There’s no time to say anything else.
The nightfolk soldiers eclipse us. Everything is smoke, the stinging burn of heatshot, the shuddering cold shock of freezeshot, knives and freezeblades clashing, wings and arms locked in struggle, nightfolk howling. Bleeding.
I’m only one nightfolk. But for Kori, for the dayfolk, for her last chance at real freedom, I’ll be the fiercest monster of them all.
Combat sweeps everyone into frenetic mayhem as surely as a desert windstorm. Time is already a slippery thing on Pagomènos, sliding through the fingers like so much sand, but now I am truly lost to it, reduced to blows and blood, bones and bruises. I rip telekinetics from the sky. I beat a soldier senseless with his own freezeshot rifle. I know there’s blood splattered all over me, but not whose—some of it surely mine, but from where, I haven’t the slightest inkling.
Nevertheless, despite my fiercest efforts, the dayfolk are no match for a nightfolk assault. All it takes is one crack in the armor. Soldiers drop like so much ash around me. Those who aren’t immediately obliterated—windpipes crushed by a nightfolk foot, limbs torn free of their sockets, freezeblades buried in rib cages, skulls caved in by a well-placed supernatural punch—are brought down by fissures in their armor, writhing and shrieking as the planet slowly draws them into oneness with itself.
At some point, I find myself sprawled above a collapsed dayfolk youth, barely restraining a six-limbed, clawing, howling creature of a soldier with both arms—when a blast of azure energy, which could only come from one of our own, spears into the monster’s skull, and he sags into my hands.
I toss the corpse aside in a heap of empty flesh. I look up, and sure enough, it’s one of my own nightfolk soldiers who looks back. “My lord,” she says, inclining her head, her horns glinting in the violent sunlight.
Behind her, a line of warriors falls upon the battlefield like a scythe, cleaving a barrier between the struggling dayfolk and Thaane’s minions.
