Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

Author:Jennifer Marie Brissett [Brissett, Jennifer Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250268655
Google: o6wvEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2021-10-11T23:00:00+00:00

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Gunfire often went off in the camp for no particular reason. The older boys liked to make noise as they pretended to be in combat. Sometimes they shot into the air to brandish their power and to laugh raucously when the new recruits jumped. Cora had learned to tune them out with daydreams. In her mind she would go home to the Outlands and be the girl she once was. She had never thought much of that girl. So awkward and unsure. Cora desperately wished she could be her again and wished she could tell that girl how beautiful and wonderful she was. Someone should have told her … The girls rushing out of the tent jerked her out of her daydream. Something new was happening. Cora put down her laundry and followed them.

Outside, a large fight involving many of the men played out in a scene of wildly moving arms and fists and splashes of blood. This was no game, though. The bloody body of a boy lay lifeless with his intestines oozing onto the icy ground, while Jessem and the Commander circled each other. The boy’s youthful frame, so small in contrast with the man, moved with agility. Jessem glanced quickly at Cora. For a fraction of a second their eyes met. He had done this for her. He had thought he could save her. He knew now that he had been wrong. The determined expression he wore also said that he wouldn’t take this back.

The Commander laughed and toyed with Jessem. He wore a huge grin that made the raised mole on the skin underneath his left eye animate in time with his joviality. “What, boy? You like her?” he said, sighting Cora.

Round and round and back and forth like vying bucks they went, crouched at the knees, facing each other with sweaty brows and balled fists and sharp cutlasses. It seemed to go on and on. When the end came, it was with a quick cut in the air like a whip. Only the wind spoke when the blow fell that cut Jessem down.

The Commander stood over his bloodied prey. “Do you see what will happen to you if you challenge me!” he shouted for all to hear. His large baritone resonated in the quiet. Then he said to no one in particular, “Chop the bodies.”

The children often did this to the fallen in the villages they raided to send a message to those who would dare to try to stop them. This was different though, and everyone knew it. Many had liked Jessem. They had even liked the boy who lay beside him. All those knives in the hands of children who hated the Commander … but fear is a powerful thing. The children slowly encircled the bodies and began to cut at them.

“You, too,” he said, “or you will join them.” The Commander handed his bloody blade to Cora. She took the cutlass, not daring to look at the Commander for fear he would see the murder in her eyes.

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