The Ippos King (Wraith Kings #3) - Grace Draven Page 0,55
She closed her eyes and turned her head. A flash erupted across her eyelids and silence fell.
Anhuset dared a squint. The world remained a flare of outlines without details, only imprints of brightness. She felt Serovek close beside her. He asked a question, a single word, a single name.
“Megiddo?”
She strained to see, cursing under her breath at the struggle. Another voice broke the silence, a far echo where the distance between life and death was the span of a breath and the measure of eternity. A voice familiar, but also strange.
“Run.”
She was lifted off her feet, set down on dry ground just as abruptly and yanked forward so hard, she thought Serovek might tear her arm off as he launched them both into a dead run. “I can't see!” she cried out, trying not to stumble.
“Keep running! I won't let you fall.”
He was true to his word, guiding her along clear paths as they sprinted through Haradis. She only stumbled once, and he caught her, hand on her waist to keep her upright, never slowing in their dash to safety. Her vision slowly recovered from the flash-fire brightness that blinded her, and by the time they splashed into the first canal, Anhuset could make out the true shapes and colors of her surroundings.
They stood knee-deep in freezing water, Haradis a gutted carcass behind them. She prayed she might never revisit it and suspected Brishen prayed for the same thing in the privacy of his thoughts or in the arms of his devoted hercegesé.
Serovek pressed his hand to her shoulder, coaxing her to face him. His eyes no longer held the ethereal glow, though she found them just as disconcerting with their movements as he scanned her features. “Stop that,” she said.
He blinked. “Stop what?”
“Moving your eyes so much. I keep waiting for them to jump out of their sockets and run off.”
He burst out laughing, and the hand holding her shoulder squeezed in an affectionate grip before he let her go. “Seems your sight is returned without issue.”
“It is.” She offered up a faint smile, enjoying the sight of his amusement and the fact she was the one who'd amused him. “You're almost not ugly when you laugh, margrave.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Only you can wrap a compliment inside an insult and present it as a gift with all sincerity.” He bowed. “I thank you, madam. Stay with me a little longer, and soon you'll find me breathtaking.”
She sniffed. “The Kai don't live that long.”
More laughter, and this time she joined him, a delayed euphoria singing through her that had little to do with their ridiculous banter and everything to do with the fact they'd survived an encounter with the galla. No small thanks to an arrow of ethereal lightning and a one-word warning from a heretic Wraith king trapped in a world of demons.
Once their laughter faded and they waded across the canal to solid ground, she spared a quick glance at Haradis. “What happened to the galla? I was blinded right as the light spear struck. I only saw flashes behind my eyelids.”
Serovek's gaze followed the same path as hers. “It grew from a spear to a net and swallowed the galla whole before disappearing.”
Anhuset recalled Serovek saying the monk's name, a question full of hope, of uncertainty, of regret. “Do you really think it was Megiddo?”
He shrugged. “I have to be careful to see what is there instead of what I want to be there, but yes. At least a manifestation of him. He found a way to cross back into this realm and save us.”
If that were so, then she and Serovek owed Megiddo a life-debt, one she hoped she might one day repay, though such a thing seemed impossible, at least in her lifetime. And after what she just faced in the broken city, she'd discourage anyone from trying to access the galla's realm for a rescue mission. Too many had suffered too greatly in order to shove the horde back into the cesspit from which they'd spawned. Even now, the idea that there'd been one running free in Haradis made her skin crawl and her chest tighten.
“Do you think there are more galla free in there?”
“No.” His answer surprised her. “I think however it landed on this side, it was alone. Galla don't split off from one another. They're more like a hive. If there had been more than one, we'd have faced them as well.”