Page 49 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Dark.

Darkness replaced the glow of the hot springs, and the acrid stench of burning metal and plastic struck me like a fist.

I didn’t care.

I only wanted to go back. To feel her in my arms again, where nothing but her echo remained.

Moving.

I was moving.

Or… being moved.

My legs slid limply across the ground, my head lolling as⁠—

As I was dragged.

“I swear to God, between the two of you.”

That voice. That rumbling bass, forced through gritted teeth as though his jaw were locked.

Anger roared to life in my blood even as my numb hands scraped over silt and grime.

I fought the weights fastening my eyelids shut and tried to look up. Tried to move.

Failed.

The starless expanse of sky tilted into view as I was dropped onto the ground like a sack of grain.

“Bloody fucking hell,” came the next rumble. “Erase everything we’ve done, why don’t you, you thoughtless brute.”

Fingers.

I could move my fingers. My toes, too.

A cough rattled through my chest, sending damp splatters across my face as pain consumed my ribs. My stomach.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. But my eyes rolled upward—to a cloudless sky for the first time in months.

No.

Groaning, I burrowed inside myself, reaching for my power until, somewhere in the distance, I wrapped a hand around it and pulled.

Pulled from deep inside that well of energy and yanked it upward.

Forward.

The sky growled as boots crunched over the earth, and all I could do was watch as a churning torrent of livid black clouds spun into existence above us.

“Oh, good. He’s awake,” Adrastos grumbled, his annoyance palpable. “So help me, if you destroy such a carefully laid plan for your own comfort, princeling, I will yank you from the grave by your jugular merely to send you back myself.”

The motherfucker stepped into view.

My eyes locked on his grim face as an inhuman rage rippled through me.

Something like panic crossed his features, his brows pinching as he scoured my broken body.

“Move, damn you.”