Free The Daughter Of Lava (#3 Reclaimed Souls Series) by Della Roth

to trip on bodies,” she says smoothly. “The servicebots are finding it difficult to clean it up.”  
    I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
    “How is it out there?” Roland asks after clearing his throat.
    “The mountain is on fire, as is Widow’s Lane. Patroxi have joined in, but not on our side of the fight, or, at least I can’t tell which side they are on. Maybe they are on their own side and see this as a chance to gain some power.”
    “Will they see you as a traitor?” I ask.
    “They won’t see anything but a blur from my swords,” she answers, one of her thinly arched eyebrows cocks, as if I would challenge her statement.
    The weapons master interrupts. “I be takin da folks upstairs now, mizzy.”
    I step away and find the group that will be going upstairs. Wren and her granddaughter, Gilly, and a couple dozen others are in the group. I shake their hands and murmur, “With Honor and the Goddess,” to each. Wren grips my hand harder than any other.
    “You may not be a mutie, but you certainly have guts, Rahda,” Wren says. “Go with Honor, Queen, and we will follow in Honor.”
    Mr. Underwood escorts them upstairs as Roland, Cat, and I lead everyone else into the courtyard.
    The mountain range glows bright orange and smoke billows angrily into the sky.
    Roland turns to me. “I don’t know how today is going to end, Rahda. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I need to… I have to…” he pauses, running his fingers through his hair with intensity. “You mean everything to me. If I could give you my very soul, I would. I’d give it to you right now so that I could spend eternity with you. I’ve already waited more than a decade to see myself in your eyes. I’d wait forever. A million lifetimes. Eons. So…” He hesitates again and I feel like hours go by before he continues. “I need you to know that I love you, that I cherish you, and that I Honor you to the Goddess. I will follow you in Honor, my Queen.”
    He pulls my hand up and kisses it longingly. Afterward, he cups my face in his palm and his eyes seem indecisive, unsure, though intense, before he pulls me in and kisses me on the lips. Hungry. Demanding. Unrelenting.
    He pushes himself away, his breath ragged, and runs away from me, out of the courtyard and out to find a battle.
    Cat stares at me a moment, as do the others, and then I shout, “Let’s go!”  
    Cat hands me one of her swords, and it feels wonderful in my hands. I push the numbness away, welcome the pain that normally settles around my heart, and rush out of the courtyard.

Seventeen

    H EAT RADIATES AROUND ME , in me, and through me as I finally see the burning mountain range. It’s spectacularly ablaze, as if the Goddess herself touched it with an angry hand. An orange glow bounces off everything.
    My shadow isn’t so much of a shadow anymore, but a short figure in brown robes, twirling two razor-thin swords at a pair of ghoulish, bald, troll-like beasts. In a matter of seconds, both beasts are cut down to the size of a mound of cut flesh.
    Clinks of metal on metal ping my ears as the sizzle of the burning mountains echo down. Everyone talks, yells, grunts. I see the threat before I can react to it. A tall soldier with a swinging, spiked mace zooms at me just as Cat pulls me back.
    “You’re a standing target, Rahda,” Cat hisses. She twirls around me, one of her arms pushes me back, and instantly, she slices through the soldier’s midsection and pulls out just as quickly. The soldier crumples sideways and lands unceremoniously on the cobblestone sidewalk.  
    But another quickly takes his place, a female solider, ready to battle Cat.
    I don’t have the luxury of becoming a dumb spectator. A thick, gender-less Patroxi warrior charges me. I duck the flying metal chain it swings at me and it accidentally hits someone else, thus stalling its attack on me. I stay ducked down, run in, pull out my dagger, and embed it in the Patroxi’s neck, upward,