Page 125 of Damned and Broken Gods
“I didn’t…I wasn’t…”
“We must admit it,” she said. “We failed, but we won’t fail again. We will protect them. Die for them. That is our purpose now. Because if we cannot be a martyr then what are we good for?”
The truth of that echoed inside me. The need to protect. To give everything no matter the cost to my own life.
“Would you die for them? Die to bring them all back?”
“Yes…” Tears burned my eyelids.
Vines slipped around my throat and tightened.
I closed my eyes, sobs clawing up my throat. “I’m sorry, so sorry…”
Leela…
“Araz?”
Oh, Leela, your pain…it cuts deep. I feel it. It holds you back. Your guilt is shackles that keep you from your true purpose.
His voice cleared a little of the fog in my brain. This was a test. There was no bringing back the dead, and if I died, then all the people relying on me would be doomed.
I couldn’t be a martyr. Not now. “I have to save myself before I can save anyone else. I need to be my own savior.”
The vines fell away, turning to ash which vanished before it hit the ground, and my reflection faded.
Once again, a soft, androgenous voice filled the chamber. “The Devoted One rests.”
Silence fell, and I reached for Araz in my mind. “Araz, you’re here?”
His voice bloomed in my head, deep and gravelly and mine. Yes, Leela, I’m with you. In your mind. We do this together.
The mirror in front of me flickered to life with another version of me. Flames licked at her body, and an inferno burned in her eyes. She didn’t speak; instead she stepped out of the mirror, a flaming sword materializing in her flame hands.
“You’re going to burn them all,” she said. Then she attacked.
Chapter 46
Fire And Shadow
LEELA
My fiery reflection wore no crown, but she had a huge fuck-off flame sword, and she attacked with a vengeance. I dodged and ducked, reaching for my axes to deflect and parry.
My body moved on autopilot to fend her off, but the more I defended, the stronger she got, hitting me harder, faster. Her fire rose to cover her whole body until she was walking flame and rage.
My eyes burned. Heat singed my skin before seeping into me.
Fuck, she was too strong.
You can do this, Leela.
But I was weakening, melting when faced with her fire.
“You fool!” she screamed. “They will never accept us. Never understand what burns inside us.”
She swung at me, and I caught her blade with my crossed axes, arms aching with the effort to hold her there.
“They’ll never accept us if we burn, and they’ll call us weak if we dim. We can’t win. We can’t!”
