seen this before.
Moments before he died as a human, Kira had looked exactly the same—
As if she was about to set the world aflame and watch it burn.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a massacre.
Sophia watched Dalair engage the swarm of enemy soldiers as if in a dream.
And perhaps it was a dream. It didn’t seem real. This couldn’t be happening.
Not again.
Past and present conflated in a blur of reality and memories. All she knew was that bad people were hurting her Dalair. Cutting into him with swords, daggers, spears and axes. Hitting and kicking him. He was coated in blood and sweat. Dirt-mingled black and red streaks slid down his naked torso. His trousers were torn, his bare feet shredded.
Every sound was muffled, as if she was submerged in a watery hell. Even though the fighters’ movements were almost too fast for the naked eye to track, she witnessed each action and reaction as if in slow motion—
An enemy attacking Dalair from his left, while another advanced in a frontal assault.
Dalair deflecting the swing of a sword that glanced across his side, opening a bright red line, while taking the downward arc of a heavy axe with one raised half-moon blade.
With two more moves, he dispatched both soldiers, only to immediately engage three more.
Sophia didn’t notice the flutter of ashes and dust Dalair left in his wake. Those fallen enemy soldiers didn’t matter. All she saw was the damage to Dalair’s body, how he sustained blow after blow, cut after cut. How his jaw was permanently clenched in pain he would not voice. How his muscles quivered with stress to maintain power and speed. How his skin was no longer streaked with blood but painted with it.
And she remembered.
She saw the present Dalair fight black-robed enemy soldiers at the same time that she saw a past Dalair fight one warrior after another in single combat before the Temple of Neith in Kira’s homeland of Zau.
There had been one hundred fighters that night, impossible odds. He’d harnessed extraordinary stamina and determination to conquer ninety-eight of them.
But then he fell.
He fell…
She couldn’t let it happen again.
She wouldn’t!
Even if the whole world had to suffer, Dalair must live!
As these thoughts and emotions overwhelmed her consciousness like a solar eclipse, she felt a ravaging coldness flood her body, mind and soul. It was as if ice flowed through her veins instead of blood. Her heart no longer thrashed and flailed with terror and anguish; it was deadly calm. She wondered if it beat at all. Her pulse slowed and her extremities tingled with electric awareness, as an ominous power surged through her.
They had to die, so that Dalair could live. And if he didn’t live, then no one else should.
There was no life without him.
No reason. No light. No love.
They all had to die!
But just when a blast of energy radiated from the center of Sophia’s body to the tips of her fingers and through her blackened eyes, something warm and soothing took her hand.
Don’t, Sophie, a small voice said.
Though she heard none of the commotion from the death match unfolding before her, this voice in her ear was crystal clear.
Darkness isn’t the only way. You have Light within you too, remember?
Mentally, she shook her head, though physically, she didn’t move.
No, she didn’t remember. She only knew bleakness and vengeance.
You also know love, the voice argued, as if the speaker could hear her thoughts.
And then, suddenly, the little boy’s voice changed into a deep, masculine rumble.
You have the best of us…choose wisely, my sweet Ninti…
As if in a trance, Sophia turned her head slightly and looked down.
Benji gazed up at her with his beautiful, angelic smile, his blue eyes bright like stars, his golden curls blazing in a halo of sunlight.
He was holding her hand, and where they touched, she didn’t feel cold. Only warmth. Peace. Comfort.
Love.
Sophia gasped as the energy churning within her transformed into something else and exploded outward from her body in a flash of white.
And then—
Nothing.
*** *** *** ***
“Where are they?” Tal bit out, trying in vain to rein in his impatience.
“We should be close. Any moment now, we should see them in the woods below,” Cloud replied.
They’d been circling in one of the two helicopters for the past ten minutes within range of the coordinates their team provided. They already passed the crash site, but thus far, scans of the topography below hadn’t yielded glimpses of either enemy soldiers or Sophia and company.
Cloud and Valerius served as his eyes as Tal