The Final Strife

“Jond, I’m your Akoma.”

He hesitated at the word, his jaw unclenching.

“I grow bored. Get to the main event,” Loot said behind them, throwing in a yawn.

She saw Jond’s eyes go flat as he swung the axe toward her neck. Sylah grabbed the pommel and threw her weight against it to counterbalance the axe’s swing.

The blade glanced her cheek, but she needed the blood to activate the runebombs. She dropped to the ground as Jond stumbled back, preparing to swing again. Sylah wiped her cheek and reached into her pocket. She withdrew the three prototypes she’d been working on and threw them. Triggered by Sylah’s blood, the runebombs burst into blinding light. It was the first time she’d tested them. She’d incorporated the rune Ru to push any nearby objects away from the bomb. But as bloodwerk doesn’t work on living things, Sylah had inserted shrapnel into the glass orb. When it burst, it burst with the destruction of a hundred runebullets.

In addition to pushing the shrapnel through the glass, the rune Ru also pushed inanimate objects away. That meant the sand around them burst up around the bomb, and the force pushed and picked at their clothing. Before the dust could settle, Sylah reached into the carriage to retrieve her sword.

Sylah ran into the crater that the runebomb had created and looked around. The knife Fayl was holding fell victim to the bomb’s force and embedded itself in the center of his body. Blue blood seeped into the sand around him. If he wasn’t dead yet, he would be in moments.

Sylah didn’t have time to mourn him, but she would. Fayl had always been kind to her. Except for the hunting-down-and-murdering thing. But that was only recently.

Sylah turned her attention to Jond. With his back to the blast he’d fallen forward, toward the carriage, as the axe was ripped out of his hand. He groaned and rolled onto his side. It looked like his shoulder had come out of its socket. She went to retrieve his axe, leaving nothing to chance as she stalked toward Loot.

“Oh, monkey’s bullocks, did you have to survive?” Loot had been the closest to the runebombs, yet here he was crawling through the sand toward her. His suit was in tatters, the shrapnel piercing the delicate fabric and embedding in his skin.

“Ach…huch,” he gurgled up at her. He collapsed on the ground by her feet, his back to the ground, his eyes looking upward toward the sky.

Sylah leaned down and unpinned the black diamond spider brooch on his pocket.

“Thank you for this. I’ve always admired it.”

His watery eyes slipped to hers, and she thought she saw a ghost of a smile on his face.

“See you around, Loot.” Sylah held the sword aloft, poised to make the killing blow. Anoor’s voice chanted in her mind, and she tried to block it out, had to block it out in order to save her.

“It’s not up to you to choose who lives or dies,” Anoor whispered.

No, Anoor, today Ido decide. I decide that you will live, and he will die.

Sylah brought the sword down on Loot’s neck. The blade crunched bone and cartilage, but it went clean through.

She looked at Loot’s body one last time, blinked once, twice.

If your blood runs red, go straight ahead.

If your blood runs blue, you’re not coming through.

Translucent hue, who are you, who are you, who are you?

“Who are you?” The words of the chant echoed in her mind. “Who are you?”

Because Loot was bleeding. And it wasn’t red or blue. It wasn’t translucent.

It was yellow.

“Curse the fucking blood.”