Vultrel, Kitreena, anyone! Just . . . kill me! It's the only way to stop this bloody thing!! Finish me off before it's too late!
It was a voice Kitreena was not sure she'd heard and yet knew she had. It was Arus' voice—his true voice—and he was pleading for death. Her hands clenched into fists. If only her whip had landed on anything other than that wretched steel hand, Eaisan might yet live. Curse you, Sartan Truce. Curse you and your bloody kyrosen!
Damien stood not too far behind, the mini-terminal dangling from his hand as he stared at the fallen warrior. "Kitreena!" he called, his voice barely reaching over the battle. "We have to do what we came here to do!"
A part of her heard him, but she was no longer interested in whatever it was they had planned. Her anger rose, bubbled, boiled until it was a burning cauldron of hate, overflowing with a fiery wrath meant for at Sartan Truce and his kyrosen. Too many had died for defending truth and honor. Too many had died for being caught in the crossfire of the kyrosen. Too many had died because they wouldn't give in to Sartan Truce.
Too many had died.
A scream came from within, from the depths of her soul and beyond, built on an anger and hatred that could've rivaled that of Kuldaan himself. They'd taken her parents, killed countless, and gotten away with it. They waged war on the humans, lived by destruction, and thrived on terror. Dayne, Eaisan, Anton, the lifeless bodies surrounding her, and the many more that had fallen in the past, all lost for the sake of Sartan Truce's selfish ambition. And Arus, one of the most innocent, kind-hearted, and brave young men she'd ever met, was now mutilated for the rest of his life, destined to be an outcast from his own people, forced to murder his own master, all for the sake of the kyrosen. Arus was begging for death, something Kitreena had done privately more than once in her life, but she wasn't going to let his wish be granted if there was anything she could do about it.