‘There are still the traps in the woods,’ Rhyn said. ‘We’ve also got the warriors stationed in the trees and more on the other side of the rift. Have the fighters on the other side of the rift assemble to fight in the clearing, and send someone to tell the ones in the woods to keep their positions. We should fight.’
‘What if they set off another explosion?’ Elyx asked.
Sloane analysed the blast radius, locating its epicentre across the clearing. It was so close to where she’d been standing and the whole area surrounding it was covered in Unfaih bodies. As she stared at it, Sloane felt like she and Kai shouldn’t have survived. But that wasn’t the only thing she noticed.
‘Ash must have planted the bomb,’ she said. ‘It went off right where he was standing when he came to the rift the other day. If there were any others in the clearing, they too would have been triggered by the initial blast. I think we’re safe from them for...’
Sloane’s voice trailed off as she looked across the clearing. Through the dirt and soot that drifted through the air, she caught sight of two figures moving amongst the trees. The air was so thick with sparks of fire and ash that it was impossible to tell who approached, but she could tell they were heading towards the clearing. As they stepped beyond the edge of the woods, Sloane finally saw their faces clearly, and her heart leapt as Rowe and Jack came into view.
Sloane was already struggling with the torrent of emotions she’d felt in the last few minutes, but seeing her sister standing in the blood-soaked clearing nearly broke her.
She took off towards the two of them, ignoring the way her body ached as she ran. She didn’t slow as she neared her sister and she barrelled into Rowe, grabbing her up in a tight hug.
She couldn’t believe her sister was finally in her arms again after days of worrying about her. Sloane gripped her tightly, not ever wanting to let her go. It took her a few moments to realise that Rowe was weeping in her arms though, and even Jack’s eyes were wet with tears.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Sloane asked, pulling back to look Rowe in the eyes.
‘We tried to stop it,’ Rowe gasped, between sobs. ‘We tried to get here in time to stop the bomb from killing everyone, but we were too late.’
Rowe broke down into deep sobs, wrapping her arms around her body tightly as if she was trying to keep it from falling apart.
Sloane gently patted Rowe’s hair and made calming noises to try and ease her sister’s pain. But Rowe was unresponsive, and no amount of consoling seemed to help.
Sloane turned to Jack, who still seemed somewhat lucid. ‘How long until the humans attack?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he croaked. ‘We heard that they were planning to strike at sunrise, I guess after the bomb went off. But the Unfaih have the woods covered in traps. We barely made it here alive; that will certainly delay your father.’
Sloane slowly nodded, looking between the two of them. She wanted to help Rowe, but there was still a battle coming their way, and Sloane needed to turn her mind to it if any of them wanted to live through it.
‘You need to take her through the rift,’ Sloane told Jack. ‘I want you to find Orelle and see if she has anything that can help calm her down.’
‘Won’t you need my help here?’ Jack asked.
She sighed sadly as she looked at him. He could be of help, but he looked completely wrecked, and Rowe was barely holding herself together. She needed support and Sloane couldn’t bring herself to send her sister off into an alien world alone.
‘No, I need you to look after Rowe.’
Jack slowly nodded, and the three of them started to move back towards the rift. Sloane tried not to focus on the destruction around her as she walked, and she kept them moving quickly so Rowe wouldn’t have to look at it either.
They were almost to the rift when Jack stopped and pulled his bag off his back. ‘I’ve been working on a few things that might help,’ he said, passing her the bag.
She took it from him and undid the zipper to look inside. There were five of Jack’s homemade bombs resting in the bottom of the bag, and the sight caused a faint glimmer of hope to ignite within Sloane.
‘Thanks,’ she said, pulling the zipper closed again and looking up at Jack. ‘I’ll put them to good use.’
She didn’t watch as Jack and Rowe took the final few steps towards the rift. The moment she turned from them, Sloane pushed her sister from her mind and tried to come up with a plan. Now that she had Jack’s bombs, the Unfaih had a real chance to do some damage. But Sloane needed to figure out the best way to use them. She couldn’t afford to let any of them go to waste.
As she stared at the decimated clearing, Sloane’s gaze kept drifting to where the bomb had gone off. She had been standing so close to the epicentre of the blast; she knew she should have felt the full force of the explosion. The area had been completely destroyed, and there were so many bodies on the ground. From the look of it, none of the Unfaih warriors who had been that close had survived the bomb—no one, but her and Kai.
‘What are you looking at?’ Kai asked, coming towards her. Sloane glanced at him, a lump building in her throat as she noticed the blood on his clothes from helping other Unfaih. He was also covered in ash and dirt, but there wasn’t a single scratch or injury on him.
‘We shouldn’t have survived that,’ Sloane said, looking back at the spot where the two of them had been thrown to the ground by the explosion.
Kai followed her gaze uneasily towards the spot where they had fallen. ‘I guess we were lucky,’ he replied.
‘Lucky?’ She let out a laugh of disbelief. ‘Us being alive is practically impossible.’ Her eyes dipped to the Oblivion Stone, which Kai had tucked beneath his shirt. The material didn’t hide the way the stone was glowing though—something Sloane had noticed it doing immediately after the explosion.
‘It was the stone, wasn’t it?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing as she stared a hole through Kai’s shirt.
He moved uneasily from one foot to the other, and she could tell he suspected the same thing.
‘I was touching you when the bomb went off,’ she continued. ‘What happened, Kai?’
Kai shook his head. ‘I don’t know for sure.’
‘But, you suspect something…’ she prompted.
‘Yes, I suspect something,’ he admitted. ‘We know that the stone has an ability to absorb different forms of energy. Since it started glowing, I can almost feel its energy flowing through me as I wear it.’
Kai lifted the stone from under his top and stared down at it. The bright green glare reflected in his eyes, almost eclipsing their usual ice blue colour. He let the stone fall back against his chest and looked up at Sloane again.
‘I’m just guessing,’ he continued. ‘But perhaps the ability to absorb energy extends to the host when they are in contact with it. Since we were touching each other, the stone must have absorbed any of the energy from the explosion that came in contact with our bodies.’
Sloane frowned, finally lifting her gaze from the glowing stone to look into Kai’s eyes. She didn’t respond straight away as she tried to understand what he had said. If the Oblivion Stone could protect them from an explosion, who knew what else it could do.
Her mind flickered back to the Braky that had been wearing a fragment of the stone in the creatures’ lair. Sloane had shot at it, unloading an entire clip into its chest, but the bullets had bounced right off it. She’d assumed at the time that the monster’s thick black skin was just hideously strong. But if Kai’s fragment of the Oblivion Stone worked in the same way as the Brakys’, then it might give the Unfaih the advantage they needed.
‘I want you to give me the stone,’ she said, holding out one hand.
‘What?’ Kai frowned. ‘Sloane, I still don’t know if this fragment will be able to close the rift. It’s too dangerous.’
‘It’s not for the rift.’
‘Why do you need it then?’
‘The only reason I s
urvived the explosion is because of that stone. I want to end this fight once and for all, and I think I can do that if I have the Oblivion Stone.’
Kai still appeared hesitant, but he was looking at her hand like he was considering her demand. ‘What are you planning?’ he asked.
‘Our only hope of winning this battle is if we take my father down. He’s going to be well protected, and the only way I’ll be able to get close to him is if I’m well protected too.’
‘We don’t even know how it works,’ Kai said. ‘You could get killed.’
Sloane shrugged. ‘It’s the best chance we’ve got.’
She could see Kai was struggling with the dilemma.
‘Trust me, Kai.’ Sloane’s face was completely unguarded and open as she looked at him. ‘I wouldn’t ask for it if I didn’t think I could help.’
His eyes stared deeply into hers, but she had no idea what he was thinking. After a moment Kai slowly sighed, before he pulled the stone from around his neck and placed it in her open palm.
Sloane’s hand tingled with both warmth and cold at the same time as she grasped the stone, and she could feel strange pulses of energy throbbing away from her hand towards the rest of her body. She could almost feel a warm and welcoming energy coming from the stone—though she didn’t want to admit it out loud; it sounded crazy.
‘Whoa,’ she murmured, her gaze fixated on the stone.
She looked up at Kai, who was nodding in agreement. Without another thought, Sloane quickly looped the chain around her neck, so the stone lay against her chest. The throbbing sensation moved with it, and she tried to ignore how weird it felt having the warm energy pulsing over her heart.
She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing her thoughts to readjust as she worked the stone into her plans. When her eyes opened again, they were filled with determination.
‘What are you going to do?’ Kai asked, as she slung Jack’s bag over her back and started towards the trees.
‘First I’m going to plant these bombs,’ she said, jerking her head towards the bag across her back. ‘And then we’re going to finish this.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sloane took in a deep breath as she stared across the clearing that was covered in blood and ash. All the injured Unfaih had been moved to the other side of the rift, but there were still so many bodies left scattered across the ground.
‘Do you really believe we have a chance?’ Rhyn asked, falling in beside her to stare out at the bleak grey scene before them.
Sloane nodded, drawing her gaze from the clearing to look at him. His clothes were dirty, and dark smears of ash streaked across his face, but it was the expression in his eyes that showed how truly damaged he was. There was a painful mixture of sorrow and anger stirring within them, and Sloane worried about how he would get past what had happened, even once the fight was over.
She moved her eyes to look at the warriors who stood in front of the rift, back in their rigid lines on the same ground where their fellow Unfaih had fallen. Dirt and blood covered every one of them, but there was an undeniable fierceness in the way they stared out into the woods. Their silver shields shone brightly in the morning light, and each warrior looked hungry for battle in a way Sloane had never seen before.
They may have been hurt badly by the human’s cowardly attack, but her father had made a big mistake when he’d set the bomb off. The Unfaih had been ready to defend their home, but now they wanted vengeance, and Sloane knew they would fight without mercy.
‘We’re going to win, one way or another,’ Sloane said, looking back at Rhyn. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’
A noise in the woods caused them both to turn and face the tree line, as one of Rhyn’s warriors appeared from the shadows at the edge of the clearing. He didn’t pause as he raced towards them. ‘The humans are almost past the traps,’ the scout said. ‘Their leader has sent his men ahead of him, and they are setting them off. It’s carnage out there; it’s like he doesn’t care about losing them.’
Sloane pushed down a shiver in revulsion. She’d always thought her father was an uncompromising man, but she’d never realised quite how brutal he could be.
‘It won’t take long for them to get through,’ the Unfaih scout continued.
Rhyn dismissed him with a nod, before turning his attention on Sloane.
‘Are your warriors in position?’ she asked.
Rhyn nodded and reached up a hand to lightly touch her cheek. ‘Try not to do anything crazy, like get yourself killed.’
She rolled her eyes at him but smiled. ‘Unfortunately, I was born crazy, so not much I can do there. But I’m totally with you on the part about not getting myself killed.’
Rhyn’s eyes darkened at her comment, and he clearly didn’t like that she hadn’t promised to stay safe. A soft growl rumbled in his chest, and with one of his blindingly fast movements he reached out, gripped Sloane’s waist and pulled her in close.
He lowered his head and stared deeply into her eyes for the briefest of seconds before he closed the final gap between them and kissed her. Their bodies were pressed together so closely, and she could taste a mixture of sweat and charcoal on his lips. She could feel his passion in the way he gripped her tightly, and she could sense his fears in the desperate way he moved his lips against hers. The kiss had taken her by surprise, but it only took a moment for her to respond in kind.
Sloane wished they didn’t have to go into battle; the two of them had already been through too much. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, and she could feel worry, fear, anger and love all pulsing through her body at the same time. She lifted her hands to grip his arms tightly like she never wanted to let him go. When he finally released her, Sloane was breathless, and she almost felt raw from the surge of emotions that had swelled between the two of them.
‘Don’t do anything crazy,’ Rhyn repeated, before allowing his hand to drop from her waist and the hardness to return to his eyes. Before she could respond, he turned and moved away. He began stalking along the lines of warriors and shouting orders to prepare them for the imminent battle. Sloane was still reeling from the fierceness of his kiss, but Rhyn had quickly turned his attention back to the task at hand, and she needed to do the same.
Sloane turned towards the woods again, drawing her sword as she spun. She could feel the Unfaih readying themselves at her back, and she knew more warriors were watching them from the trees, but she still felt completely isolated. She was a lone human on an already bloodied battlefield about to face down her own people. She didn’t want to hurt them, but she knew she was the only one who could stop her father from taking the Liftsal. It was up to her to end the war before it destroyed two worlds.
She watched the perimeter of the clearing closely as she waited, becoming tenser still as Rhyn and Elyx came to stand on either side of her. The sweat building on her palms made it difficult to grip her sword, but she clutched the hilt as tightly as she could to stop her hands from shaking. In her other hand, she held the detonator for Jack’s bombs and at her feet lay a large Unfaih shield, which glinted a dull blue colour in the morning light.
As she began to hear the crashing rumble of feet making their way through the undergrowth, Sloane’s eyes focused on the trees and her nerves spread to her heart as it began to beat erratically.
She let out a long breath in an attempt to steady herself for the battle that was thundering towards them. She may have been the only human standing in the clearing of ash and cinder, but she was far from alone.
As one unit, the humans appeared amongst the trees, slowly making their way to the edge of the woods. Their large guns were all lifted and pointed at the Unfaih, and the soldiers moved in perfect unison as they drew closer and closer.
Their mottled green uniforms were a stark contrast to the burnt out trees around them. Not one of them appeared to look guilty for the damage they’d caused. The men were grim-faced, and determination filled their eyes, but there was also a hint of fear in the way
they eyed the warriors at Sloane’s back.
As she looked more closely at the human soldiers, she could see that some of them were already dirty and others had ripped and torn uniforms, as if they had already been through a battle.
There weren’t quite as many humans as she’d expected. Her father had been recklessly throwing his men at the Unfaih traps, and Sloane wondered how many of them had been lost. Any feelings of guilt that threatened to rise up within her were quickly quashed as she remembered the charred and blackened clearing she stood in. It had once been filled with so many brave Unfaih warriors who had wanted nothing more than to protect their people from harm.
A twinge of rage coiled in Sloane’s gut as her thoughts strayed to what Ash and her father had done. She tried to dismiss the anger though, knowing she needed to remain collected and calm if her plan was going to succeed. It was much more difficult than normal though. She usually felt so relaxed in the moments before she was about to launch into a fight, but right now she didn’t want to be calm. She wanted to fuel her anger.
Sloane surveyed the group of soldiers for her father and brother, but she couldn’t see them anywhere. Her eyes narrowed as the first line of humans paused by the edge of the woods. She needed them to venture a little further out of the trees where her bombs would do the most damage. Her finger hovered over the trigger on the detonator she grasped as she watched for the perfect moment.
‘Fire!’ a bellow came from deep within the trees, and the soldiers didn’t hesitate as they started shooting at the Unfaih.
Sloane dropped to the ground, let go of her sword and grabbed the shield lying at her feet for protection. She may have had the Oblivion Stone around her neck, but she wasn’t about to risk getting shot. Rhyn and the rest of his warriors did the same, all crouching behind their huge metal shields. Rhyn wasn’t far from her, and she could see his face creased with worry as he waited out the assault.
The bullets pinged as they hit Sloane’s shield, but they didn’t even slightly seem to dent the metal. She could hear them ricocheting off the Unfaih shields behind her, and they almost sounded like heavy rain twanging against a metal rooftop.
The Oblivion Stone (The Liftsal Guardians Book 3) Page 23