Page 163 of Godbound
I blink hard, forcing my sight to steady. The first thing I see is the blood-slick ink on my arm. A flash of memory hits. Kaelzar’s shadow wrapping around my forearm, his vow echoing through me:my life for yours, when the time comes.
I don’t know what that promise truly means. I don’t know how his death could ever buy my life at this moment. But I know I can’t let the Red Hunter end me now, not if it means Kaelzar dies because of it.
Zyrel doesn’t strike again. Instead, he spits, the glob landing by my cheek.
“She died screaming for the choices she made,” he snarls, speaking of the girl who must have rejected him and ignited his hatred for the rest of us. “And so will all of you.”
Then he turns and starts toward his throne.
Tears sting my eyes. I try to push myself up, but my arms shake so violently I can’t make them hold my weight. I claw weakly at the stone, hoping to drag myself forward, but my legs refuse to help, too heavy and spent to push me forward. The world trembles and blurs, blood loss turning everything distant, slow and unreal.
All I can do is turn my head toward the sound of the roar behind me and force my eyes to focus.
Kaelzar is pinned beneath the dragon’s massive paw, holding it back with both arms, trembling under its weight. His shadow-tentacles coil around the beast’s neck, squeezing, pulling, barely keeping its snapping jaws from his face.
He shifts as if he feels my gaze, turning just enough for our eyes to meet. If I die, he dies, bound by the link he forged. If he dies, I lose my Godbound status by default. If neither of us dies, but I lose the Trial, he still returns to serve his cruel goddess.
I could have stopped all of it. And yet, by the measure that matters, I wasn’t worthy. I wasn’t worthy at all.
Kaelzar reads something in my face. For all the unfathomable strength in his massive body, his expression softens and he closes his eyes for a breath, just as a wave of tears blurs my vision again.
Then a gentle, shadowy hand cups my face, warm and surprisingly tender. A voice, thin and feminine, speaks out loud like an echo. “When evil seeks to break you—remember this. Darkness wedges itself where you give it room. Don’t surrender. Guard the fissures in your courage. While a single breath remains, you have the power to rise, rebuild, and refuse to be broken.”
The words pierce me. My heart swells until I fear it will burst. I know what this is, who this is.
The shadow of Kaelzar’s mother: her last words, the fragment of her voice that had kept him going through the worst moments of his life. His most sacred possession, and now he has given it to me.
He will never again hear those words spoken to him. He has handed her last encouragement—meant for him alone—to me.
It is a gift beyond measure. A sacrifice that sears me with grief and gratitude at once.
Warmth surges through me, pushing back the cold weight of surrender. Her words—his gift—ignite something I thought already dead.
Strength gathers: raw, trembling, but enough. My legs quake, but my body answers.
I force myself up, breath ragged, fingers unsteady as I reach for my whip. The coils snap free, the bladed tips catch the sun.
Zyrel reaches for his throne.
I lash out. The whip wraps tight around his neck, blades digging into his skin, and I yank.
He crashes to the ground, his god’s magic just out of reach. I drive my heel into the stone, twisting through my hips and shoulders as I throw the whip over my shoulder.
I pull not with my arms alone, but with hips, spine, planted feet—all working in brutal unison to drag him away from the throne, toward the edge where the stone platform gives way to sand. To where the wires are still lurking under the ground.
I don’t know if they’ll bite into the wood of my whip’s handle the way they bite into flesh, but I have to believe they will. If they do, they’ll drag Zyrel back just enough to give me the leverage I need to move forward.
So I pull—praying, shaking, pouring the last of my strength into this single, desperate act.
He snarls and claws at the ground, nails tearing at the stone as he tries to reclaim the distance I’ve stolen.
I pull harder, knowing I have only seconds before my strength gives out. Once I let go, he’ll be on his feet, tackling me to the ground and no surge of adrenaline will save me from the weight of him then.
A sound splits the air before I can think further—an unearthly, bone-deep scream. The dragon’s shriek echoes through the arena, followed by a sickening, wet crunch of flesh and bone severing.
Zyrel freezes, his face draining of color as he turns toward the noise, terror flashing in his eyes—the fear of losing his dragon, and with it, his Godbound tether.
Another distraction is another gift from Kaelzar.
