He seized her mind in a viselike grip. Black metal snaked down his right arm, forming a wicked blade. He stabbed her in the chest.
Ysira coughed up blood. It spurted against her palms as Rakalem pulled the blade free and she tried to plug the hole above her left breast. Her heart flopped like a fish on sand. Iyelekirin spasmed, and if she could have understood its language, she knew it would have been screaming. It wasn’t healing her it wasn’t healing herit wasn’t healing her?—
Despite all the dangers at hand, since what she had survived in the canyon, Ysira had not seriously considered that she might die. She had been more preoccupied by all the ways she mightlive,in endless torment that would have made oblivion a mercy. But now, faced with her end, she found she was not ready. She wasn’tfuckingready.
She was leaving her body, head lighter and lighter as darkness closed in, her consciousness evaporating into the ether.
Then—
OUT.
Another presence swept through her head, anchoring her to her body and pushing the demon god back. Iyelekirin seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, its power coursing through Ysira once more. Clarity returned.
As the world sharpened, the first thing she saw was Jacen. The priest stood with both arms outstretched, sweat beading on his forehead. Seth was frozen on his knees, his face a rictus of agony. Rakalem’s ridged brow furrowed.
I can hold him.Jacen’s defenses bolstered Ysira’s a hundredfold.Shield you.His mental voice was short, pained, his focus split too many different ways.Ashek.
Ysira’s gaze darted toward the red smear that was Mondral. His ashek had cut through steel, but could it harm a god? It stood to reason that if only the possessed could wield it, its edge might be some form of extradimensional energy.
Fucking hurry,said Jacen.
It wasn’t as if Ysira had a better idea. She staggered to her feet and readied her glaive once more.
“Delightful.” Rakalem’s eyelids clicked together twice in rapid succession. “Most of my peers prefer not to get their hands dirty, but I often test myself against the Harvested.” He licked his pointed canines. “It’s been some time since I faced worthy opponents.”
He beckoned at Ysira and hissed, “Come, then. Don’t bore me.” The god moved like this was a dance he had already rehearsed, always one step ahead. Ysira could not land a single blow. She could only lure him, half-fleeing, away from Jacen, away from Neri, toward Mondral’s remains. She couldn’t see what Neri was doing but prayed he’d find it in him to dosomething.Anything.
She skidded on blood. Dropped to one knee. She grabbed hold of something—part of a liver, maybe—and threw it. Rakalem was surprised enough to duck. She fumbled one-handed through the gore, finding nothing but guts and bone fragments.
Rakalem’s next blow slammed into the juncture between her neck and shoulder. She screamed. He wrenched the blade out and, as she healed, prepared to bring it down in a shallower arc. “I wonder what happens if I cut off your head.”
At last, her fingers closed around something hard. It warmed at her touch. As Rakalem’s blade descended, the ashek flared to life, extending like crystal shattering in reverse. Ysira rolled sideways and swung with all her might at the only part of him she could reach.
The ashek made contact in a shower of sparks. A film of blue light rippled over Rakalem. A shield, fracturing. The ashek sliced through metal and flesh, biting into his ankle. The god dropped, heavy as a felled tree. He landed on his knees. The strange blue film of his shield rippled again and sputtered out.
But Rakalem waslaughing.He backhanded Ysira and the world flipped on its axis. For several seconds she was weightless, then collided with solid rock. Her back crunched.Blood fogged her vision.
She tried to sit up, eardrums vibrating, ashek and glaive both gone, but found she could not move her legs. Iyelekirin struggled valiantly to repair whatever impossible number of injuries she’d sustained. She could only see out of one eye. Rakalem was still laughing, limping toward Jacen. His left foot dragged behind him on threads of sinew, leaving a trail of black liquid. Hisblood.She’d made the god bleed.
Not that it would matter if she couldn’t surprise him again.
Three sharp cracks quaked her body as her spine straightened back into place. With a strangled yell, she managed to climb to her knees. She turned, searching again for Neri.
A red glow built behind his eyes but faded. “I can’t,” he whispered. “It’s not mine. I can’t.”
Jacen’s nose was bleeding. Seth stood, slowly, and raised his broken sword. He took a step. Jacen cried out. His shield around Ysira’s mind slipped. Rakalem wormed his way back in. He’d somehow gotten his hands on the ashek.
With inhuman resolve, he limped toward Ysira once more. She tried to stand. Her right knee buckled.
“Neri!” Ysira screamed. Desperation forced the words from her lips, even as she knew she would regret them as long as she lived. “Get up and fight! Or are you utterlyworthless?”
The Lord of Fear ignited the ashek. He drove the shining golden blade toward her chest. Ysira acted on the basest ofinstincts. Nothing else to do. She trapped the blade between her bare hands.
She pivoted, momentum wrenching the weapon from his hands as it sheared her left arm almost completely from her body. But she still had her right hand, and her reflexes were true. She caught the hilt of the ashek and drove it through Rakalem’s heart.
He had not stopped grinning. He leaned toward her, gripping her shattered body, coughing up black blood. That horrible smile broadened. Long, insectile legs protruded from between his teeth, reaching for her.
And then a scorching wind blasted them both. The air rippled like a heat mirage. Red light seeped out of the liminal folds of space and snapped across the area in a wave. It radiated out from Neri with breathtaking violence.
