106: WHEN LUCK RUNS OUT

(Talea’s story)

Almost as soon as the fighting started, a giant crack in the ground separated Talea and her companions from the others. Xivan held up Urthaenriel and pushed Talea behind her, just as a giant fireball tried to form on their location. Before the spell could hit them, some force or wind pushed it away, so it exploded high overhead.

“Xivan! Talea!” a familiar voice called out. “Over here!”

Talea looked over to see Queen Khaeriel—former queen Khaeriel, she supposed—lowering her hands from spellcasting. Next to her stood High Lord Therin D’Mon, not exactly one of Talea’s favorite people. He didn’t have any weapons, but Talea could assume he was a healer.

Xivan seemed to welcome someone she recognized. Twisting vines tried to grow from the ground and wrap around their feet, but Xivan sliced Urthaenriel through them and they fell away.

The ground shook violently, and all four fought to keep their balance.

“We’re going to work triage!” Therin shouted. “Cover us?”

Talea exhaled in relief when Xivan said, “Of course. Let’s go.”

It’s not that Talea feared fighting, but some battles could be won and others only survived. And then only if one was very, very lucky. Talea knew exactly where she stood on a battlefield with gods.

Helping the injured would be dangerous enough.

Despite the miraculous close calls that many on the battlefield seemed to be experiencing, there were plenty of injured to be found. And also plenty of enemies willing to add her to the list.

Talea found herself fighting off a lion with a scorpion tail and a snake-headed man while Xivan at her back was dealing with a Thaenan priest who had died earlier and was now apparently being possessed by a demon. She was starting to feel mildly concerned about the outcome when one of her foes tripped on a piece of rubble created by the remains of a stone pillar Ompher had been tossing around. She speared him, spun up and over his corpse to kick the lion and then used that moment to free her weapon and bring it down on the animal’s head.

“Nicely done,” Xivan said as she finished dismembering her attacker.

Therin gestured over to a clear spot. “This way!”

They all ran. Khaeriel used the winds to blow away some opportunistic arrows, while Therin broke bones and made enemies bleed if they came too close.

When they reached the clearing, Talea realized that it wasn’t perfectly clear of people. A light-skinned vané woman stood there, watching the fighting. She had silver curly hair and wide, white wings, and she looked exhausted.

“Taja,” whispered Talea.

“Don’t distract her,” Khaeriel said. “This is no shelter. Therin, we need to leave! If another god shows themselves—”

A loud, grinding noise filled the air, and a second later, several dozen large razor-edged wheels rolled through the clearing. Xivan pulled Talea to the side a second before she would have been slaughtered. Khaeriel lifted herself and Therin into the air.

A brown-robed man with a circle of spinning razors rotating around him landed in front of Taja. Symbols, shapes, numbers made a similar, if less lethal, halo around his head. He held an open book in one hand and wore wore a small but satisfied smile on his face.

Taja sighed. “Argas.”

“—then we shall be in trouble,” Khaeriel finished.

“Taja, why are you doing this?” The smile slipped a little, but Argas didn’t take any notice of the rest of them; his attention focused purely on the goddess he’d known for millennia. “There’s no reason to let Vol Karoth go free.”

“No reason?” Taja murmured. “My people are no reason?”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that. Damn it, stop twisting my words!” Argas’s expression turned ugly, hurt, the frustration of a thousand years of conversational barbs pricking against his souls. “Isn’t humanity’s survival worth the cost? We sacrifice a small percentage to save the whole. This math is easy, Taja.”

“That’s the problem, Argas,” Taja said. “One of the people you’re going to kill is standing right in front of you, and you haven’t even looked at her.” She gestured toward Khaeriel, who seemed rightfully terrified. “But all you can see is the math. Did you ever see the people?”

He pressed his lips together in a tight, thin line. “I fixed the crystal, Taja—”

“Ah, did Thaena have to show you how?” Taja’s voice mocked.

He abandoned whatever he’d been about to say, whatever he’d been about to do. Rage filled Argas’s eyes, but his voice remained calm and even. “Help me satisfy one more curiosity, then, would you, Taja?” He said it with a tone Talea knew too well, from long experience. A voice that comes just seconds before “lessons” and fists and the red-blood fury of terrible violence.

“What is it, Argas?” Taja’s words were resigned, tired. She already knew the answer to her question.

Talea grabbed Xivan’s arm. “Get down.”

“What does it take to kill you?” Argas asked. Without waiting on her answer, the weapons spinning around him stopped moving, paused, and then all flew at Taja, all at once. A second group immediately replaced them, but this set exploded outward—not just at the Goddess of Luck but at everyone nearby. Including them.

Talea heard screaming as she felt the projectiles hit the ground all around them, a slice of pain across one leg as a razor didn’t miss, another one in her side. She realized the screaming was hers.

And the screaming was Taja’s.