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Sana’a wheeled to face Killen, rage contorting her face. ‘Damn you, Killen! Don’t stand in the way of my oath.’
‘Enough,’ he murmured with surprising gentleness. ‘She’s wounded.’
‘That’s the whole point,’ Sana’a hissed.
A voice broke through her tirade. ‘It is you. You’re not just a myth.’
The couple rotated around.
Kalila floated before them, only one appendage keeping her in the air. Bloodied and beaten, she stared at Killen with disbelief.
He let out a muffled grunt. ‘Naam, Kíntí. I’m real, and I am here. To stay. I can’t wait to get to know you. We’re family, after all.’
Kalila gawped, her mouth working in outrage. ‘You’re no k?st member of mine. You’re not even of the right blood. You’re tainted, and I will summon all manner of power after you should you continue this charade. You cannot and will not take the crown—not if I’ve anything to do with it.’
With a roar, wind and rain grew even more vital, the darkness coiling around the wounded creature. She flung a koya in Killen’s direction.
Killen’s hawkstone blazed for a moment, then he feinted to the side, and it whistled past him.
Still, Kalila persisted, pulling out more koya with her free arm and flinging their deadly barbs at him.
He moved with such speed he was a blur as he dodged each blow. The storm raged on, its fury unabated. The air was filled with the crackle of lightning and the roar of thunder. The sand whipped up by the wind created chaos around them.
As Kalila fought Killen, the koven came for Sana’a, and she matched them strike for strike.
Her swords, a whirlwind of light and shadow, carved through the darkness, cutting down two of the koven and giving her a direct path to Kalila.
Sana’a advanced and flicked her daggers, rotating them in her hand.
Just as she was about to cut her last kill in half, the remaining five attackers surrounded their damaged leader, lifted their wings, and stilled their koyas midair.
‘We surrender,’ Keb said through a voice tainted with weary anger. ‘Let us take her away. She is wounded. Have mercy.’
‘No mercy,’ Sana’a snarled, flinging herself forward to finish her mortal enemy.
Suddenly, the air was rent with the high-pitched whistle of more swords coming their way.
Not just one, two or ten.
A multitude.
Time slowed as Sana’a and Killen whirled around, sighting the white-hot koyas slicing through the sky towards them.
With just seconds to spare, Killen pulled her into the safe folds of his rachís.
In seconds, he transmuted into his giant eagle chrome form that arched its body over hers, even as the bladed missiles struck.
His metallic wings were a shield and rampart against which the weapons clattered as their íkan power was drained from them and absorbed into Killen.
When Killen’s grasp finally eased away, Sana’a lifted her head out. To the view of a multitude of K?str?l hawks surrounding them.
These were not warriors from the army of Kainôs but a rabble of mercenaries.
Her eyes widened as she recognised a few faces in the half-transmuted quorum, from Kiho to Kysin. Most of them were k?thi fighters—cohorts in Kalila’s employ and many she’d defeated in the Sab?r Arena.
They glowered at her, their loathing for her contorting their semi-transformed features.
Mid-air between the opposing groups was a phalanx of quivering chrome and gold sab?rs that belonged to Killen. They vibrated with an energy far more lethal than their adversaries.
