He shouts and slashes his sword, slicing the Otherworlder’s leather armor and cutting a thick gash into his shoulder. “Every one of you—” Kaide inhales deeply, his chest rises“—is for my brother.”
I launch myself in the air, bracing my palm against the pommel of my sword, and drive the tip of my blade into the back of the Otherworlder’s neck advancing on Kaide. It brings the giant Otherworlder to his knees as I land. Gaining my balance, I stand over him and push my blade through his neck. His gurgling cry is silenced by the blood filling his mouth.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I turn and see Kaide just as his blade connects with his foe’s chest. He belts out another battle cry as he follows the Otherworlder to the ground, driving the sword deeper into his chest cavity.
Kaide wrenches his weapon free and then stabs his enemy’s chest again. And then again.
This angry display is shocking compared to the quiet and reserved Kaide I knew in the Otherworld. But after his twin brother, Orion, was taken from him in the Cage, and our fight began above ground, a violence has been unleashed within him.
Stepping beside him, I say, “Kaide, that’s enough.”
His gaze is lost and unseeing as he strikes his dead foe, his arms trembling with rage. When I touch his shoulder, Kaide takes in a deep breath and yanks his sword free a final time. Then he turns toward me.
“It’s all right,” I say, before he apologizes, as he’s done in every battle we’ve fought together. I understand the rage boiling inside him. I know. Because I fear the day I have to face the moon goddess—and how I might lose myself destroying her.
“Come on.” I cock my head toward the Cury-craft rumbling in the distance.
He nods once and pushes his dark bangs from his tan face, revealing the swirled feather tattoo below the corner of one eye.
When we reach the Cury, I sheath my sword and place my bloodstained palms against the hull’s open compartment and lean inside. “What are General Corvin’s orders?” I ask the protector with the live transmitter held up before him. It crackles, an electric blue-green light domed above, and a distorted robotic voice just cuts off.
The protector’s head snaps up. “We’ve been ordered to pursue the Otherworlders to the southern border.”
My brow furrows, and I glance at the near-black sky over the barren field. Groups of the Cavan Army move through the battlefield, checking for survivors and mending the injured, and throwing Otherworlder corpses onto crafts to be discarded.
Why have the Otherworlders suddenly veered south? “Are they retreating?”
The Otherworlders don’t retreat for long. They always come back.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Are you coming with us?”
“No.” I look at Kaide. “We’re going back to the palace.”
I bang the side of the Cury and step away as it hovers off. Then I take out my own transmitter. “Lilly.”
A dome springs above my silver device, and the hologram washes her face in a blue tint as it appears. “Already fought-out and missing us?”
For a moment, I’m just happy to see her smile. After she lost Willa in the Cage fights, she’s been battling her own demons of rage and guilt. But recently, she’s been nearly back to her old, carefree self, and I thank the…whoever…for whatever brought on this transformation.
Thanking the goddesses for anything these days isn’t happening. But old habits die hard.
A thundercloud overhead pulses with light as a strike crashes in the expanse, and I’m thrust back into the present. The Otherworlders’ uncharacteristic, quick retreat, and now the coming storm that will obscure our army’s vision, fills me with dread. “Where’s the empress?” I ask.
“She’s safe, Kal. With us, as always.”
I nod. She can’t reveal Empress Iana’s exact location over the transmission, but I trust her every word. “The Otherworlders are trying to pull some…tactic.” I glance around. “Keep her in sight at all times. We’re heading back now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lilly says. Then she closes the transmitted link between us.
After I pocket my device, I sweep my long hair into a bun and tuck the end under. The wind is picking up, sending loose strands whipping at my cheeks. The weather here is so strange compared to the constant humidity and stillness, the never-changing climate of Cavan. I still haven’t
gotten used to the erratic shifts.
“Let’s go,” I tell Kaide.
Waving my hand in the air, I flag down another Cury-craft. One that’s heading back to Court to deliver the injured to the ward.
The Cury commander spots us and hovers the craft closer, then begins to lower it.