He was a dead man. Just like Garren. Just like Linday. And, worst of all, just like Kullen soaring before him. The saint of all things broken, more grotesque than even the Hagfishes. Kullen was the Fury, through and through.
“I see you understand,” Kullen said, and though the words were lost to the tempest, Merik felt them rattling in his soul. “The explosion on the Jana killed you, but we are bound as Threadbrothers. The same weaving magic that keeps me alive has stretched into you. If one of us dies, though, the other one goes too. And so, what choice do you have but to join me?”
Light flared behind Kullen. So bright it sent Merik’s eyes snapping shut. His hands rising. Then came a boom to shatter the earth. By the time Merik had his eyes open again, it was to find Kullen staring below.
Through the clouds and chaos, Merik saw it too: the ship with seafire had exploded.
Kullen’s attention whipped back to Merik, his eyes pure black. No lightning now. Only ice and wind and rage. “Your sister might think she has won, but I will simply break the dam on my own. This city will be returned to its rightful ruler one way or another.”
Merik wasn’t listening anymore. Through watery eyes and storm, he saw figures plunging into the valley, specks of color amid a world of smoke and dark flame.
One person tried to pull water toward her. Tried to tow herself back to the water-bridge. Vivia. She fell to her death, leaving Merik with only two choices.
Save the city.
Or save his sister.
The answer, he knew, was obvious. One for the sake of many—he had lived his entire life by that creed, sacrificing himself, giving up Safi, and ultimately losing Kullen for what he’d thought would be the greater good.
It hadn’t worked, though.
It never worked. Merik had always been left empty-handed, with a darkness digging ever deeper. Soon, there would be nothing left inside him, nothing left to give.
Merik saw that now. What did he know of this city? What did he know of the vizers or the navy? He’d tried—Noden knew he’d tried to be what his people needed, but the payoff had only ever been ashes and dust.
Vivia, though … the sister Merik had never understood and forgotten how to love, the Nihar who could lead this nation to safety, to prosperity, who could—who would—stare down the empires as easily as she stared down a tide …
Vivia was meant to be queen. She’d been born to it; she’d been honed for it.
“Come,” Kullen commanded, summoning Merik’s attention. Winds and frost pulsed across the Threads that bound them. “It is time to remind men that I am always watching.”
The need to obey crystallized in Merik’s bones. The need to use Kullen’s cyclone, to succumb to the endless power. To break and scream and shred and ruin.
But Merik fought it. This time, he dug deep inside himself. Until he found the temper. The kindling of Nihar rage. That was his magic—weak and tiny but wholly his own. It would have to be enough.
Otherwise, Merik would never catch his sister before the hungry Hagfishes.
So with that thought, Meirk turned away from Kullen, using only his own magic, only his own will.
Many for the sake of one.
*
The escape from Baile’s Slaughter was a blur of steel and blood and magic. Safi’s steel. Others’ blood. Vaness’s magic.
Near the main exit out of the arena, they rejoined with Zander and Lev, who still had most of the Cartorran crew trailing behind them.
“Piss-pies,” Safi swore once they were outside—for somehow, the bedlam around the arena was even worse than what had warred within.
“Piss-pies,” Caden agreed. The single road toward the wharf overflowed with people, fleeing and fighting. Two bridges had collapsed from too much weight while three more were engulfed in flames.
The final kick in the kidneys, though, were the waters circling the arena. They foamed with blood and movement. With crocodiles writhing and rolling and snapping up any person, living or dead.
“There is absolutely no way,” Safi hollered, “we can reach the harbor.”
Caden tossed her a smirk of absolute smugness. “This is nothing,” he said. Then he shouted, “Hell-Bards! In formation! Everyone else, get behind! You”—he pointed at the empress—“We need three shields. Big ones.”
Vaness matched his smirk, and with the same control that marked all her movements, all her magic, she swooped up her arms. Three iron shields—big ones—gathered and formed from any iron nearby. Safi’s own sword wriggled from her hands before reshaping into a curved chest-high shield for Caden.
“Move behind!” Caden shouted.
Safi moved behind.
“Move out!”
Immediately, the Hell-Bards triangulated themselves. Zander at the fore, Caden and Lev just behind. Then they shot forward in a full-speed charge.
Followed by a pause.
Followed by a charge.