“Do it,”I tell him, and before Tributin can take another breath, Leon slits his throat.
Despite Drisha’s protests, I drop to the ground to lean over Will’s body. His inner flame is already gone, and all I find is a cold, empty space where it should be burning brightly, as warm as his smile—as warm as him.
A deep, shattering sob rolls through me.
I have watched so many people die in this battle, but this brings it home a thousand times over. Every one of my fallen soldiers was a Will to someone—a protector, a mentor, or simply a friend. The Temple would claim that somehow this is the gods’ design. That good, ordinary people dying on foreign soil is justice formycrimes. Well, I’m done watching the Temple slaughter them.
I rise, wiping away the tears, and meet Leon’s gaze. He feels exactly what I’m going through, and seeing all my grief reflected in his eyes brings me back to earth.
“Let’s go find Caledon,” I say, climbing back onto my horse. There will be time to grieve later. Right now, if Caledon wants to play god, then I have my part to play too. Mithanas, goddess of death, is coming to unleash her power on the Temple.
Chapter 33
Damia
Ithrow myself to the side as a malevolent root tries to wrap around my ankle. Breaking the fall with my shoulder, I roll over and jump back to my feet. In the same movement, I stab my sword downward, pinning the root against the earth. It thrashes beneath the tip, trying to wriggle free as I look around me.
“Hey, dryad!” I shout at the Agathyrian hugging a tree a few feet from me. “Do you think you could do your job and calm this fucker down?”
“I’m trying,” the Agathyrian murmurs through gritted teeth. “It helps if you don’t stab them.”
I wrench my sword out of the ground, setting the root free. Rather than trying to attack me again, it slithers back toward the tree, disappearing beneath the soil.
“Thanks,” I say to the dryad, then feel a flare of fire blast past my cheek, a few inches away from singeing my whole face off. I yank a dagger from my belt, spinning around and flinging it in one movement, landing it in the throat of the incendi cleric who just tried to burn me to a crisp.
“I think you need a lesson in how to ask for things nicely,” Corrin says, stepping out of the shadows between two trees and pulling the dagger from my victim. He wipes it on the mossy earth before handing it back to me.
“I said thanks, didn’t I?” I shrug. “What more do you?—”
“On your left,” Corrin calls. I turn, seeing a flash of red. Then a wall of darkness consumes the Temple soldier attempting to creep up on me, making him yelp in surprise. I stab into the shadows with my sword until I meet resistance. When I withdraw my blade, it’s wet with fresh blood, and the shadows dissipate as the soldier’s body slumps to the ground.
“Thanks,” I say. Then turn to Corrin with a raised eyebrow. “See? Perfectly nice. I’ll even throw in a compliment and say that you’re pretty fast, for a human.”
I push forward toward a cleric shoving several Trovian foot soldiers back with blasts of air. It means they can never move more than a few feet before their enemies pick them off.
“I’m only fast on the battlefield,” Corrin says as I force the aesteri to his knees with a fit of laughter. “Elsewhere I like to take my time.” He disappears into a cloud of shadow around the aesteri. Seconds later, the darkness moves back toward me, leaving a dead body behind. Corrin reappears right in front of me, grinning wickedly.
“But you know that,” he finishes with a suggestive leer.
“On your right,” I reply with a raised eyebrow, and he ducks as a stone hurtles through the space his right ear was just occupying.
“Did I ever mention how good you look when you’re shouting orders at me?” Corrin calls as we both turn and charge the geostri who sent the stone.
“I thought you wanted me to ask for things nicely?” I counter as Corrin blinds the same geostri with shadow before he can take aim at us again.
“With other people,” Corrin clarifies. I dispatch the geostri and turn to meet Corrin’s gaze as he keeps talking. “With me, I know your hostility is just your way of dealing with how devastatingly handsome you find me.”
I roll my eyes. “Idiot,” I say.
“Handsomeidiot,” he corrects, nodding toward a pair of cleavers sneaking up behind us.
“Maybe,” I admit, and we both spin and charge.
We fight together like a melody, attuned to each other’s movements. He knows when I need backup, and I offer a quick spell or slash of my blade when he needs it from me. I’m in my element here, but I didn’t realize how alive I could feel mowing down my enemy until I had someone here beside me to share it with. I never knew anything could feel so right. It makes me want to have this forever.
And that’s the problem. Because I’ve been in hundreds of scrapes before, but I never worried about getting out of them alive. I’ve always thought it would either be my time or it wouldn’t. In the past, I’ve even thought maybe I was never meant to escape my family alive, and everything since then has been a bonus.
But now Ihaveto survive. I get an unfamiliar twitch of tension in my gut every time a blast of magic comes my way, or a soldier swings their sword at me. It would be very inconvenient if I died now, because then I’d never get to tell Corrin how annoyingly—and absolutely—I’m falling for him.
