Page 145 of These Divided Shores
Vex hesitated, his body recoiling from another shattering block, and that pause sent Elazar’s broadsword slicing straight for Vex’s neck. He faltered back and the tip of Elazar’s blade sliced along his cheek.
“Coward!” Elazar screamed, eyes peeled wide, lips snarling spittle. “Just like your father!Coward!”
Elazar hefted the sword for an overhead blow. Vex caught it again, and the contact rang through him like the toll of a bell, each vibration darkening his vision more, more....
He’d crawled up to the Grace Neus Cathedral bell tower with Ben. They’d made a secret hideaway of the little-used nook there, giggling about how no one would ever find them—until the bell had struck noon, and the incessantdong, dong, donghad deafened them for hours.
Vex shook his head, forcibly clearing his mind. Damn it—why hadn’t the potion kicked in? Had it not worked on him? God, his body ached.
Blood gushed down Vex’s face, warm and thick. He gripped his sword with both hands and tried to run, to put distance between himself and Elazar. Maybe he’d get Incris, like Lu, and be able to bolt away—
A hand seized Vex’s shoulder and ripped him back. He slammed against the ground, something in his chest snapping in a burst of agony like a candle disturbing a peaceful night. Vex arched against the pain as Elazar loomed over him.
Elazar rested the point of his sword on Vex’s collarbone. The weight of the broadsword alone was enough to puncture his skin. Vex cried out.
“Pathetic,” Elazar snarled. “That you came from my line. Look at you! How your father would weep to see what a useless creature you’ve become.”
Elazar raised his sword.
At the edge of the yard, Vex saw the faint outline of bodies running toward him. Ben? Lu? He couldn’t twist to look, frozen on the ground in the heaviness of Elazar’s gaze and the intensifying tremors that spread from Vex’s torso, down his legs, out to his fingertips.
He shouldn’t have taken that potion. He could feel it warring with the temperamental state his body had been in, magic heaped on too much magic already.
The image of Elazar, lifting his broadsword for a death strike, slowed. The shadows on the edges of Vex’s eyesight, Ben and Lu racing for him, faded and rippled into the night.
Vex had been terrified during the first resistance meeting Rodrigu had brought him to. His father had noticed Paxben’s fear, dismissed everyone, and sat with him on his lap for hours, until they were both giggling about nothing, about everything.
“Papa,”Paxben had asked, his head tucked against Rodrigu’s neck.“What if I’m not as brave as you are?”
“You will be one day. You won’t even feel it happen—something will become more important to you than fear, and you will find yourself doing amazing things.”
The world smelled suddenly like Lu’s hair. Like salt and sun, warmth and honey. The hum of the battle sounded like the shushing wind when he’d been alone with Ben atop the cathedral, the whole of the world bowing before them.
Elazar’s eyes leaped to Ben and Lu, gaining on him. His grin was beyond demented—it came from the very depths of whatever hell he so feared. His lifted sword shifted course, and Vex knew it would strike one, or both, of the people rushing to his aid.
Vex’s body was broken. The muscles in his legs were unraveling, spasms stretching him thin and tremors coming one on top of the last. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t do anything but sit in that carriage and listen to his father burn to death—
Vex screamed. His soul cleaved in two, spilling the last of his strength.
He planted his palms and swung his legs in a spinningarc that hooked Elazar’s ankles. Elazar dropped to the ground, his blood-covered robes wafting around him as his head slammed back against the grass.
Vex panted, too high on possibility to let his momentum falter.
“Vex!” came Lu’s scream. She was nearly upon him.
He ripped Elazar’s sword from his grip, spun it around in both hands, and heaved all his weight into driving the blade into his uncle’s chest.
The crunch and spurt of blood shook Vex head to toe. He wondered if Incris had taken him after all, for speed; and Powersage, for strength; and maybe he was just all of it, Croxy and Aerated Blossom andeverything.He was flying and powerful, healing and destruction.
The world trembled. Beyond, defensors wailed, their words muffling so they sounded like “Our Eminence! The Pious God! Rise again, Eminence, you cannot be killed!”
Vex wavered, the hilt of the sword keeping him upright. He almost expected Elazar to obey the pleas of his defensors.
“Rise again, Eminence! Pious God, save you—”
Elazar’s eyes, staring at Vex, dimmed. He looked shocked—that his useless nephew had truly killed him? Or that he had died at all?
The defensors’ pleas faded. Faded more. Each second that passed without Elazar bursting up from the ground brought a deep, rippling sense of finalization across the courtyard.
