NOVEL NEXT 40
Hoeru stalked Kusa with the wary confidence of a hunter. Kusa stood tree-still watching the changeling with curiosity, not an ounce of fear in its posture. Raziel’s felt like a great heavy blanket was pressing him down, dragging him toward unconsciousness. He struggled to hold his head up, wavering unsteadily as he tried to keep his eyes on the fight.
Hoeru moved, too fast for Raziel to keep track of. Kusa dodged away from Hoeru’s initial rush. If Raziel had managed to hurt the spirit at all in their fight, he couldn’t see it now. But he could see that Hoeru was tired. The changeling fought bravely, with speed and strength far beyond that of an ordinary human. But his opponent wasn’t human. The two fought with ferocity that Raziel’s exhausted eyes couldn’t follow. But he could see the blood falling to the floor.
Raziel tried to scream for them to stop. All that came out was a soft unintelligible moan. His head dropped, but still he could hear Hoeru and Kusa’s scuffling feet, the dull thuds of falling blows, Hoeru’s grunts of pain and effort, Kusa’s deafening silence. Raziel had to stop them. He couldn’t let Hoeru die fighting. He had to save Kusa.
The noises slowed and Raziel raised his head just enough to look. Hoeru was breathing hard. His face had been smashed, his nose was broken, and there was blood on his hands. It wasn’t all his own. Kusa was on one knee clutching at its chest. Thick green blood oozed from dozens of cuts and gouge marks on its arms and chest.
The sight gave Raziel the strength to crawl forward. Hoeru stepped forward, exhausted but no less determined, and Kusa rose to meet him on trembling legs. The two struggled again briefly before falling to the ground, grappling with one another. Kusa sat on top of Hoeru, its fingers crushing Hoeru’s throat but Hoeru’s fingers were digging into its chest, reaching for its heart.
Raziel wouldn’t make it to them before one of them died. He couldn’t pull them apart even if he got there. But he reached out all the same.
A pale, skeletal hand fell on his. The girl from the egg was awake and in her sky blue eyes Raziel saw the same desperate sorrow he felt. She met his gaze for only a moment before closing her eyes in effort.
“Wha—” Raziel tried to say, unable to even get the full word out. Then the barest trickle of magic slid into him from her touch. Her hand slid from his, but the energy she’d given him still burned there like a blown ember. Her head drooped, and she lay still. There was no time to see if she was okay. Raziel pulled the magic through his body like sucking thick mud through a straw.
It gave him the strength to crawl forward first, then to stand and stumble toward Hoeru and Kusa. Hoeru’s face was turning purple, his hand slipping away from Kusa’s chest.
There was no time to think and Raziel had to chose. His best friend was dying. The creature killing him was innocent. The blank lack of emotion on Kusa’s mask pulled something from Raziel’s memory. Something Hoeru had said about the wolf spirit back at the fort.
It was wearing a mask. He’s corrupted it. We can’t save it now. I have to kill it. But I don’t know if I can.
Raziel let himself sink to his knees and pointed at Kusa. He pressed the borrowed magic back into his hand, concentrated at his fingertip. For a frozen moment he didn’t know if he could do it. Hoeru’s hand fell away as his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Burst!” Raziel sobbed and a thin beam of light shot from his finger. The beam punched through Kusa’s chest like an arrow through watermelon and green blood sprayed from it’s back. It fell off Hoeru and Raziel sank down into a sitting position, lacking the strength to even finish falling. He lay there struggling for breath. His eyes slid closed for a moment, and then he felt slow but strong fingers wrap around his throat. Kusa was on top of him again. Raziel wanted to fight but he had nothing left to give. All he was able to do was feebly push at Kusa with numb fingers. He grabbed at the spirit’s hands, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop them. Raziel’s head began to pound. He thought his neck would break before he suffocated.
And then the fingers loosened. They slid away from his neck and he was able to draw in a ragged breath. Raziel watch as the spirit reached for something that had fallen to the floor.
Kusa lifted Azariel’s book. It ran its hand over the cover. And then the book sank slowly onto Raziel’s chest. What was left of Kusa died.