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“Thank God you’re okay,” she gasps.
“I’m not going anywhere, baby girl.”
“Fall back!” Dessin guides us away from the heavy smoke.
“How much time will this buy us?” I ask as we run into the open desert.
“I’m not sure.”
The rain morphs into thin waves of mist against the sun rising behind the East Vexello Mountains. We’re almost there. It’s so close, and hopefully the army will see our signals like a smudge of charcoal in the sky.
It isn’t long before the army strongarms the wall of shadows, forcing their way through in numbers far greater than anything I could have ever imagined.
“If we don’t make it through this…” Ruth speaks close to my ear as I run with her.
“Don’t.”
“Warrose, I need you to know—”
“Ruth!” I bark, losing my temper. “I told you that once we’re away from all of this, we can go to pieces together. You’re going to tell me whatever you feel when you’re ready, when we’re free.”
She nods with a sniffle, wiping her eyes.
Although there’s that doubtful part of me that fears the worst. I may die today without ever hearing what she wants to tell me.
66. At The Darkest Hour
Dessin
A mushroom cloud of fire bulldozes into us from behind, cracking the earth with its grumbling impact and sending us flying.
The explosion is bigger than the last, closer perhaps. Except this time, we don’t roll down the side of a dangerous hill. We land in front of a gooey swamp and a bald cypress tree. The woody projections of the roots bulge from the black waters, giving us something to hold on to as we try to lift ourselves from the earthy rubble.
Using my elbows to hold myself up in the swampy gunk, I twist my body toward the haze of everyone dressed in matte black armor, bearing their swords in our direction as their mouths gape open in a battle cry.
Through my aching ribs, brittle spine, and brain throbbing in a nest of burning embers and shards of glass, I wobble to my feet. It isn’t a choice whether or not I should let the stampede of these vast numbers run over my family in a brutal killing. I will stand against thousands of men without giving it a thought.
To my right, Warrose rises with me, having already handed Ruth off to Niles. Marilynn steps up to my left. She doesn’t look afraid staring into the sea of murderers. The harrowing image of the angel of death sweeping the land to find us waiting. She watches patiently, taking a deep breath and nudging my hand with hers.
“I’ve waited my whole life to see this,” she whispers.
Is this how her prophecy predicted our deaths? How could she possibly look so calm about this? Where is the fear that should wrinkle her forehead?
“How do you like these odds, Dess?” Warrose asks with a paling face.
I smirk with unease knotting my stomach. “It’s not fair to them.”
“Let’s not make it easy on them.”
I nod, appreciating my oldest friend standing by my side in the face of imminent death, never failing to rise against greater numbers with me.
The earth quakes around us as the army speeds up, flooding the open lands with stomping hooves and beasts sprinting ahead as they plan to end our lives first. And though I can feel time pushing against us with an iron fist, it also slows. A moment spread wide, bearing itself to face me as I realize…the earth quaking under my feet isn’t coming from their angry mob of an army.
The faces of the many soldiers closing in on us stare over my shoulder, losing the fierce look on their faces. And as we follow their frightened gazes, I finally see what’s shaking the core of the very ground we stand on.
Appearing like a god of death and hell in the distance, DaiSzek sprints with the force and speed of a world-ending meteor.
And Skylenna stands on his back, riding him as she bears her sword.
