retreat.”
“We can’t leave him!”
“If we stay here, we’ll die, too!” Damian shouted back at me, tears in his eyes as well.
“We can’t leave him!” I repeated, my entire body shaking uncontrollably.
“You’re right,” he agreed with me, and then he bent forward and scooped Rylan’s body into his arms, even though he was severely injured himself. His wound gushed blood as he struggled to stand under Rylan’s weight.
“Your Majesty!” I heard a shout and turned to see Deron running toward us, a wound in his side bleeding profusely. He was intent on his king and didn’t see the soldier rushing toward him with his sword raised. I grabbed Damian’s sword from the ground and ran forward, barreling past Deron and swinging the blade up to stop the blow that was aimed at Deron’s head. The soldier spun to attack me, but I was so angry and hurt and devastated and ruined, I didn’t care. I just attacked. I killed him as they’d killed Rylan. And Tanoori. And Marcel and Mama and Papa. I killed that soldier, and then I moved on to another and then another.
And then I saw him, standing far back from the fighting, watching it all unfold.
King Armando.
With a primal scream of rage, I streaked toward him.
His eyes widened, and then he broke into a smile, as if welcoming my attack. Another sorcerer stepped in my way, blocking the king from me. Before we could start fighting, a voice unlike any I’d ever heard before sounded over everything else — over the clashing of swords, the burning of fire, the cries of the dying, and the sobs of the living left behind — a voice that was somehow soft and yet so loud at the same time that it shook the ground. The black sorcerer’s eyes widened, and he suddenly froze, dropping to his knees to stare at something behind me, horror etched on his face.
I spun around, to see everyone facing Sì Miào Chán Wù.
When I gazed up at the ledge where Damian and King Osgand had once stood, there now stood two men and a woman, all dressed in robes of white lined in gold and silver. All three of them had long, white hair, and even from here, I could see how bright their eyes shone in the darkness.
The Rén Zhsas had finally emerged from the temple.
The man who stood a little bit in front of the other two sorcerers spoke again, and this time his words pierced my heart with hope. Though I could hear the sounds of Blevonese when he spoke, for some reason I understood his words, as if their power transcended our languages, speaking directly to my heart.
“The people of Blevon have stayed true to the oath that the first sorcerer, King Mokaro, made to the God who granted us such power, and so the promise given him shall now be fulfilled.”
The man lifted his arms, and the other two sorcerers behind him did the same. At first nothing happened. But then, as I watched in awe, a beautiful golden light began to pulse behind them, almost as if it came from within the temple — perhaps even from the waterfall of golden water it hid. The light spread out to encompass the three sorcerers, wrapping around them like a shimmering cloak. And then it continued to spread, rushing forward, turning into a river of molten gold, encircling the Blevonese sorcerers, cloaking them as well, before moving on to Damian, who still held Rylan in his trembling arms. The glow eventually encompassed everyone from Antion and Blevon, even me, creating a grid of glowing, pulsing light around the black sorcerers and Dansiian soldiers who remained. When it wrapped around my body, I felt strangely light — and empowered, as if it was healing me, taking away my exhaustion and my pain.
Once we were all encircled, the golden glow grew stronger until it was a blinding, shining light. Suddenly, that light shot straight up into the sky above us. Every head was turned up to stare at it. And then just as quickly as it had risen above us, the golden-white light rushed back to the earth, hitting the ground with a massive boom. In the blink of an eye, it exploded around us, blinding us all.
When my vision cleared, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Every single black sorcerer who had still been standing now lay on the ground — dead.
“For their crimes, their souls shall be Dish forever