The knife comes down—
A shadow engulfs us. My father flies upward, five thick green fingers wrapped around his neck. His feet dangle above the ground. The utter rage on Azmar’s face makes him nearly unrecognizable.
But before Azmar can crush my father’s windpipe, before I can pick myself off the ground, I see him. The soldier who restrained me, bleeding from his arm. Coming up from behind.
I don’t even have a chance to scream.
The soldier’s sword comes up, then down, slashing across Azmar’s back. Azmar wears only a tunic. He wasn’t given armor. Qequan wanted him dead.
Blue blood rains over the ground.
“No!” I scream, launching to my feet. “No!”
The soldier stumbles with his own injuries.
Azmar releases my father and drops to his knees.
I don’t know if it’s my ability or their own fear that seizes them, but they run. My father and the soldier. They flee for their lives.
Azmar’s palms hit the ground. His breaths come hard. Sweat drips from his nose.
Tears blur my vision as I rush to him. Indigo soaks his shirt. The cut is bad. Very bad. Bandages alone will do nothing to help him.
“Oh stars, oh gods.” My hands shake. What do I do?
Azmar’s elbow buckles and he falls onto his side. Falls, just like the star did last night.
Tears rush down my cheeks. I move in front of him, cradling his face. “Azmar? Azmar.”
He lifts a trembling arm. Touches my hair. “Lark.”
The sound of my name rips a sob from my chest. I pull off my shirt and crumple it in my hands. Hurry around him to press it into his wound. My breaths rip up and down my throat.
I rush to a fallen soldier and search his pockets and satchels. No medical kit. Nothing useful. But the belt, that might help. I unclasp it and pull it from his pants. Do the same to the next soldier before sprinting back to Azmar’s side.
He’s bleeding so much. It’s already soaked my shirt.
“Hold on,” I plead, threading the first belt around him, then the second, using them to put pressure on the wound and keep the wadded shirt in place. “Hold on, Azmar, please.”
I check his clothing. His pockets are empty, except for one in his shirt. I reach in to pull out a stone. A dark stone with a faint blue shimmer.
Time stops.
Azmar took only two things to the battlefield. The sword allotted him, and my bloodstone.
Tears drip from my chin onto the dust.
Azmar’s breaths grow weaker.
“No,” I whisper. Plead. “No, no.” I kiss his lips, and his eyes find mine. Their light still burns, but not for long. He will not survive without medical attention.
The sound of battle continues beyond the basin, yet has grown quieter. Is the end so near?
Azmar must return to the battlefield. To his people. But I cannot carry him.
It can cripple the strongest of men, I once told him as we sat on the bridge, gazing at the stars, and yet it can strengthen the weakest of them, too.
Strengthen the weakest of them.
I glance southeast, toward the battlefield.
“Fight or flee,” I whisper.
“Lark?”
Pressing my lips together, I cradle his face and press my forehead to his, my tears falling onto his brow. “Fight or flee,” I repeat. “That’s how all creatures respond to fear. Azmar”—I choke on my own voice—“I need you to flee.”
He meets my eyes. Confusion gives way to clarity.
There’s an energy to fear. A desperation for preservation. A reserve of strength that only true terror can tap into.
It’s Azmar’s only chance.
But to channel so much into him, long enough to get him across enemy lines and into Cagmar . . . it will warp his mind, and his heart.
Our relationship will never be the same.
Crying, I press my bloodstone into his palm. Kiss him one last time. Stand. Back away, and take his sword with me, just in case.
“I n-need you to f-flee,” I force out once more, sobs distorting my voice. “I need you to run back to the trollis.”
Only they can save him.
It hurts when I push it out. It eviscerates my heart and steals my air, cuts into my every fiber like shards of glass. I shake with it, and when it hits Azmar, his body tenses. His eyes widen. His skin slicks.
He rises to his feet, new blood seeping into the makeshift bandage and dripping into his waistline. His veins darken, breath quickens, like my skin’s peeled back to reveal a monster from the darkest depths of the canyon. His legs quake, like they’ve forgotten how to move.
I push harder, and my nails cut into my palms. I make him fear me more than anything else, even death.