Page 257 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Nura believed her own lies, her own false intentions. But I knew what it looked like when someone wanted power. I’d seen it in Esmaris, Ahzeen, Zeryth. Even Reshaye. This was Nura’s revenge against a world that had been cruel to her. She was lost, just like so many others, and there was no guiding her back home.

There was a long silence, filled only with a high, soundless buzz that grew louder and louder, somewhere in a world beyond this one.

Max took a step closer.

“Max,” I hissed, reaching for him, but he slipped from my grasp.

My heart was in my throat as he placed his hand in Nura’s.

“Max,” I said again.

A wobbly smile spread across Nura’s lips. “We always made such a good team.”

Max’s fingers tightened around her slender hand.

“I shouldn’t give a fuck,” he said, “but funny how even after everything, it still seems so important to me that you know I never wanted it to end this way.”

I’d watched Max fight countless times now, and yet the speed and accuracy of the strike still shocked me. Nura did not have time to react as the knife slid between her ribs the first time. Her body barely jolted.

The second time the knife entered Nura’s body, she started to fall.

Seconds, it seemed, became hours. Her army all moved at once, as if in a perfectly synchronized dance.

I had been waiting for this moment. I struck the first soldier, the one closest to Max, before he even had time to move.

Max did not release Nura’s hand as she collapsed, blood staining her white clothing. She gripped his shoulders as she fell, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows, as if, still, she did not expect him to do this.

I relished that confusion. I allowed myself to think,We got her.

Stupid.

Because then, a cruel, pained smile spread over Nura’s lips.

“It hurts to be underestimated by you, of all people, Max.”

My satisfaction soured to dread. The soldiers began to move for us. I stabbed one, and then the other, rot spreading over already-decaying skin.

We needed to get out. I knew, implicitly, that we needed to get outnow.

The heat on my face, the light, was not from Max’s flames. Nura had something in her hands. A stone—a stone of amber, with something inside. Whatwasthat?

A stab of pain through my palm. I looked down.

The wayfinder on my flesh glowed bright.

It was a Lejara.She had a Lejara.

“No, you stupid child,no!” Vardir wailed, from the ship. “You’ll doom us!”

But Nura just smiled. The stone in her hands floated from her grasp, its light now blinding. I felt the magic beneath our world slipping like sand through an hourglass.

I grabbed Max, and Stratagrammed away—

—Just as the explosion hit, and the world went white.

CHAPTERONE HUNDRED FIVE

AEFE

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