Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
“Because I assumed I knew how. Obviously, I was wrong,” I mumbled to myself. The skin behind my ear tingled as my thoughts raced, and a sekya lunged toward a guard, avoiding the sweep of his sword, and another took to the air.
“I…I can’t kill them,” I whispered, my hands falling to my sides.
Kars cursed, darting to the side as I scowled. He glanced at me. “For real?”
“That can’t be right. I’m the fucking true Primal of Life.” Annoyed, I spun toward a sekya and summoned the essence. It responded in a hot rush, joining my will. “How can I not kill one of these things?”
A flash of eather funneled from my palm, slamming into the sekya’s chest, knocking it to the ground. I didn’t retract the eather as I stalked toward it. I kept the stream of power bearing down on it until I reached where it had fallen.
I closed my hand, able to see the charred edges of its now-split rib cage and the ground through the massive hole in its chest. “Let’s see you get up from that.”
“They shouldn’t be getting up at all.” Bele fired another blast of eather and then jumped from the boulder, narrowly avoiding a swooping sekya. “Hey, meyaah Liessa.” She crouched. “To your right.”
“Don’t call me—damn it!” I jumped to the side as a sekya dove at me. The thing swept back up, cackling as I glanced down to make sure the one on the ground wasn’t moving. The unblinking stare looked dead to me. “I think I got—”
The eyes changed.
It was barely noticeable, just a faint glow returning to its golden eyes. The sekya gave me a bloody smile.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted as the sekya rose, its wings spreading as it lifted into the air. “I can see Kars through your godsdamn chest! How is this possible?”
Kars turned, his head jerking as he blinked. “Well, that is not something you hear or see often.”
“Their head!” Rhain shouted as he rounded the side of the palace. “You have to destroy their heads!”
“Now, you tell us?” Bele snapped, the crackling bow dissipating as she reached to her hip and drew a shadowstone sword.
“I just got here.” Rhain skidded to a stop, his jaw unlocking as he saw me. “What are you doing out here?”
“Being unhelpful,” Bele retorted.
Lifting an arm, I extended my middle finger toward her. “The head, you said?” I grinned tightly. “All right, then.” My chin dipped as I summoned the eather. Thrusting out my hand, spitting and hissing eather streaked out.
The eather split the sekya’s head right down to its neck. My lip curled as it once more landed in a messy heap—an even messier heap. “I think I might vomit.”
Rhain rushed to my side. “What are you doing out here?” he repeated.
“Killing sekya.” I frowned. “Or trying to.”
“Yeah, I see that.” He stepped in, lowering his voice. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
I ignored him, not taking my eyes off the thing on the ground for more than a second. “I know. There’s no way this thing is going to—”
Rhain grabbed my arm, shoving me behind him as he rammed his sword through the underside of a sekya’s chin, catching it in midair. He grunted, taking its weight. Withdrawing his sword, he had already faced me as the thing hit the ground and shattered into ash. Rhain was speaking, but I wasn’t listening as I slowly turned back to the other sekya. That one hadn’t broken apart. I looked down, and my mouth dropped open.
Filaments of tissue stretched out from the two halves of the split head. The fibers connected and twisted around one another, drawing the two sides together.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted.
Rhain paled as the head stitched itself back together. “That is…” He swallowed hard, stepping forward and bringing his sword down on its head.
The sekya broke apart in a musty shower of ash.
Eather pulsed in my chest, warning me that death was afoot. “I really can’t kill them!”
His brows knitted. “Then you should get inside,” he instructed. “We’ve got this handled.”
A sword fell between us, bouncing off the ground. A body followed, smacking with a wet, fleshy sound.
I raised my brows.
“We’ll get it under control,” he amended with a wince. “Nyktos should be here shortly. Go inside.”
“That is not happening.” I dipped, not looking at the guard’s stomach or what was hanging out of it as I picked up the fallen shadowstone sword. “I can still use this, right?”
“I…I guess so.” Rhain frowned. “But I also don’t know why you can’t kill them with eather. That’s what Nyktos does.”
“Of course, he can kill them,” I muttered, turning around as my grasp on the sword firmed. The answer to why I couldn’t was somewhere in my head, but I really didn’t have time to figure it out.