Page 156 of The First Scar
A sound escaped him—thin, high, animal. His hands flew to his own face, clawing at his eyes like he could tear out whatever he was seeing. His body jerked, spine arching, muscles seizing in violent spasms.
He was trying to scream. His mouth was open, throat working, but nothing came out. Just that horrible silence where a sound should be.
Dreadscale didn't blink. Didn't waver. Just held him pinned in that invisible mirror.
Three heartbeats. Four. Five.
Kaelen's legs buckled. He hit the ground hard, body curled inward like he was trying to fold himself out of existence.
When he finally lowered his hands, his eyes were open. Empty. The eyes of someone who'd seen the shape of their own soul and didn’t survive the view.
Chapter 35
AMARIA
The sounds of battle crashed back in: steel on steel, screaming, the wet heavy thud of bodies hitting the ground and not getting back up. The chaos I'd blocked out while watching Kaelen break was now washing over me.
"Hold the line!" Torin's voice, to my left. I glimpsed him through the fray—blood streaming down his face, Ryla pressed against his back, the two of them fighting like they'd rehearsed this particular apocalypse.
But there was no line left to hold.
The barricade dissolved under a wave of black armor. For every Enforcer we dropped, three more stepped over the corpse. Their movements were synchronized. Relentless.
A Hound took down a rebel ten feet from me. A boy. Young. I'd shared bread with him that morning, watched him laugh at one of Maxx's terrible jokes.
I didn't see him die. Just heard the wet snap of his spine and the silence that followed.
Bile surged up and I swallowed it back.Move. Keep moving.
"Back!" Eryndor threw his weight into an Enforcer, shoving him away from my exposed side.
But the shove lacked power.
He stumbled. His boot slipped in the mud—blood and dirt churned together into something slick and hateful. His breath came in wet gasps, and the black veins crawling up his neck pulsed darker with every heartbeat.
He was slowing down. The poison from the shattered Oath-stone was seeping into the wound in his chest—draining him faster than he could fight.
I killed the Enforcer he'd pushed back. It wasn't clean. It wasn't pretty. My elbow caught his wrist on the parry—the strapped blade severing tendon—and while his sword arm failed him, my dagger found the gap between helmet and gorget. A spray of hot blood across my face.
"Eryndor—"
"I'm fine." He wasn't. We both knew it.
A flash of black to my right—Maxx, his glamours flickering and failing, barely holding together. He had Serenya tucked behind him, one arm keeping her back while the other held a dagger that was doing more deflecting than killing.
"Not to pressure you, Flameheart, but we're running out of people to save! If you've got another reality-bending miracle up your sleeve—NOW'S YOUR MOMENT!”
Fresh out of miracles. Thanks for asking.
An Enforcer broke through. Maxx shoved Serenya down and took the blade across his forearm intended for her throat. He hissed through his teeth but didn't scream. Didn't stop moving.
Serenya hit the ground hard, scry-notes scattering. Her eyes went wide—locked on the blood dripping down his arm.
"Stay behind me," Maxx growled at her.
We were drowning.
My arms were dead from the elbows down. The leather wraps on my hilts had gone slick—sweat and someone else's blood—and my grip kept slipping, fingers re-clenching every other stroke. My breathing came in short, sharp pulls that never reached the bottom of my lungs. The fusion had hollowed me out and the fighting was spending what was left. My daggers felt like anchors. Every swing took effort I didn't have. The band on my forearm was empty—last star buried in an Enforcer's throat two waves back.
