Page 262 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Vardir looked offended. “Well I’m not amadman, Maxantarius. I’m a man of science. I don’t want theworldto end—”

I saw the strike coming before Vardir did—Vardir, shockingly oblivious, didn’t even recoil when the axe came for him.

I struck down his attacker, one of Nura’s death soldiers, a split second too late. By then, Vardir was twitching on the ground, nearly decapitated, lips moving as if even in death he still had more to say.

Slowly, even those movements ceased, and he became just another corpse.

I thought of the surgical scars that now adorned Max’s body and wished that Vardir had suffered more. But there wasn’t time to feel satisfaction in his death. Max and I had to fight our way out of the enclave fast, and by the time we cut through enough bodies to stop and catch our breaths, my hand was burning.

We pressed our backs to a wall. I knew we were thinking the same thing. What Vardir had suggested sounded at worst ridiculous, and at best impossible. And yet... the man, as much as I hated him, was undeniably a genius when it came to magic. If he was right— if therewasa way to simply end the connection of deep magics to this world—

A stab of pain in my palm jerked me from the thought. I looked down to see the wayfinder was glowing again, brighter than it had even before, specks of gold trailing fast from my wrist to my ring finger.

My head snapped up. A new spark of light arced to the sky—further inland, now, than the one that was at the coast.

“Her,” I murmured. It was all I had to say.

Nura.

CHAPTERONE HUNDRED NINE

MAX

Tisaanah and I cut through legions of corpses, her magic and mine coupling to cripple them with flaming decay. The hordes grew denser as we pushed closer to Nura. Soon, in every direction I met a wall of decaying flesh, going on seemingly forever. I no longer could tell where we were. I lost sight of Tisaanah, even though we’d been so careful to stay together.

“Tisaanah?”

I frantically looked around to see nothing but dead faces.

I reached deep for more power, my depleting magic burning brighter.

“Tisaanah,where the hell are you?!”

Did I imagine the distant answering cry? I couldn’t tell. I cut ferociously through one, two, three more corpses and—

I stumbled into open air, nearly tripping over the debris-laden ground.

The Towers. We had fought our way all the way to the Towers.

Standing in the middle of the ruins, surrounded by red and gold smoke and the familiar shudder of shadow, was Nura. She stared out over the city, her back to me. Darkness and light wrapped her in a ghostly embrace, sputtering around her form.

I let my flames snuff out, giving my magic a temporary reprieve.

Nura did not move. I chanced taking my eyes off her for just a moment, just long enough to glance over my shoulder at the sea of soldiers, searching for any sign of Tisaanah—

Too long.

Unnatural terror skewered me, so sudden and intense that it left me gasping. The image of Tisaanah’s throat opened and the country burning and—

Nura. I’d know that fear anywhere.

I opened my second eyelids, and flames engulfed me, just in time for me to block her first move. The world rushed hard around me when I was in this form, my thoughts slippery and difficult to grasp. But I knew how to fight Nura. We fell into an old pattern quickly. There was a time when we could have sparred for hours with no victor, because we just knew each other that well—we could anticipate each other’s movements, dodge, adjust, reframe, on and on until we were forced to draw out of sheer exhaustion.

But something was different today. Yes, we threw ourselves into the same relentless rhythm that we had fought a million times before. But her movements were more jagged now, more openly controlled by her anger. All while mine had gotten more decisive, more precise, more powerful. Before, we could have gone forty moves before one of us even nicked skin. Now, we only made it five before my blade skimmed her shoulder. She flinched away, fire reflecting in the whites of her eyes.

I realized, in that split second, exactly how afraid of me Nura was. I didn’t know why it still surprised me. She had nearly burned alive in Sarlazai, after all. I wasn’t the only one scarred by my past.

She buried that fear fast, but the hesitation was all I needed. I sent fire down the length of my staff. When I pinned her down in the rubble with the blunt edge of my weapon, she snarled.

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