Demon Beast (Path of the Thunderbird Book 3)

by eden Hudson

  “You made it,” an older woman’s voice said. She was the source of that venomous almost-inhuman signature. “I was beginning to wonder if you would.”

  “Apologies, esteemed aunt,” Raijin said politely, “but I do not know where I’ve made it to.”

  “Of course, your eyes,” she said as if she had only just noticed them. “You are in the Eastern tower of the Sun Palace. You are lucky to have found such a skilled alchemist as me. I have a salve that will sooth the pain of fresh injuries such as those. Come closer, poor nephew, and let me apply it.”

  Killing intent flowed like a river beneath her words. She stepped toward Raijin, the deadly poison moving with her. He’d felt Ro like that before, a toxic, oily, sickening assault on the heartcenter. Lao and the two Water Lilies who had burned the School of Darkening Skies had all possessed life forces like it, though theirs had been nowhere near as powerful. Hers made him want to fall to his hands and knees and vomit blood.

  As she advanced, Raijin took a quick step away, hands raising instinctively to intercept any attack. The guai-ray flared to the surface.

  The woman drew back. “Is something wrong, dear nephew?”

  “I’m not in the mood to continue this game, aunt. If you insist on fighting, I will not die easily. Speak to me truthfully instead. Perhaps we can reach an understanding and avoid bloodshed.”

  Amusement radiated from her, lighting up the guai-ray senses, but her predatory intent remained.

  “I don’t plan to shed any of your blood, nephew,” she said. “I will simply extend my Taproot deep into your heartcenter and steal your Ro.”

  “You shouldn’t send anything close to me you wish to keep,” he said. “Do you know what I am?”

  “I know your name, if that matters to you,” she said. “You have been following me for years now. You were terrible at remaining hidden, asking after me at every wide spot in the road.”

  Raijin swallowed hard. It was her. The Grandmaster of the Water Lilies. Youn Wha.

  “My eyes and ears are innumerable, child, and they are always open,” she said. “I could have crushed you any time I wanted, but the threat you posed was too small to be worth the effort.”

  “Then your apathy is your undoing,” he said.

  “Spoken like a true Darkening Skies practitioner.” She was creeping closer again, attempting to cover the sound of her approach with her voice. She didn’t realize that the poisonous halo surrounding her was as loud to the guai-ray as a shout. “Boy, what looks like apathy to you is in truth the patience of a slowly strangling vine.”

  “While I’m still breathing, I will fight.” Raijin began to circle, backing away from her and easing around the hard edges of tables and the flat backs of wooden shelves.

  “Two Paths of Peace are already gone,” she said. “A third will soon follow, and then the last. You’re too late to save them. You may as well try to save yourself. I can be merciful. I can even be accepting of those who wish to turn to my Path.”

  Raijin’s lip curled with disgust. “I’ve seen what’s inside of you, Youn Wha. I couldn’t stomach that for half a second.”

  “What’s inside of me is inside of you, too, boy. The Water Lily takes root everywhere, even in the hearts of those who fight it, and that is why we will be the only remaining Path when all the others have shriveled up and died. Fight your nature all you like, but when you close your eyes at night, it will be there whispering to you in the dark. One day, no matter how hard you try to resist, you will give in.”

  She was preparing to spring. The guai-ray roared in his chest, sensing her imminent attack.

  Raijin smiled. “I didn’t train my entire life, die, and battle my way back from the dead to give in to my nature.”

  Before she could reply, he launched himself at her.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  MORTAL LANDS

  “I can take care of these,” Lysander said when Hush went to heal him. “Save your Ro for them.”

  Koida raised an eyebrow at him, remembering what he’d said about inji cycling their Ro to injuries. “Pouring water on a burn?”

  He smirked and held up his flask. “Pouring disinfectant on it.”

  Which he then proceeded to do to the astonishingly scarce number of scratches and bites that had broken his skin. He’d hardly been wounded at all.

  Hush turned to Koida and indicated that she should sit.

  All too happy to collapse, Koida found a place in the shade on the stone steps of the Great Library. The sun had risen with a fury during their battle with the corpse puppets, and now cast long shadows across the warming oasis.

  The silent physician went over Koida and Cold Sun methodically, scouring and then sealing their deepest wounds with a burning Ro needle. Koida tried not to watch too closely. The worst were the wounds Hush’s cleansing current of Ro dragged foreign objects out of. A gash in Koida’s thigh with a ragged fingernail wedged in it. A child’s tooth protruding from a bite in Cold Sun’s shoulder. Seeing that tiny sharp white bone wash out of that torn red meat nearly made her lose her stomach again.

  When Hush was finished, the physician stood and turned to Lysander. She pointed up to the high window that the corpse puppets’ Ro had disappeared through.

  “The Paramount’s study,” Lysander said. “If our necromancer is an outsider, they won’t know the hidden passageways. We may be able to surprise them.”

  The glowing magenta woman appeared at Lysander’s side.

  “Gratitude for the warning, Kwai Un,” the foreigner said in an intimate spousal tone. “We know it’s a necromancer now.” He glanced around at the mutilated corpses. “Is this everyone?”

  The woman shook her head. For the first time, Koida realized the woman was translucent. She could see Hush on the other side, the silent physician’s dark almond eyes not on the magenta harbinger, but studying Lysander’s face intently. When Hush felt Koida’s gaze, she turned her attention to the woman.

  “The Librarians?” Lysander guessed.

  The woman—his wife—nodded.

  He took a deep breath, then stood up as she disappeared in the customary shower of sparks.

  Lysander turned to Koida and Cold Sun. “Do either of you know how to block your Ro pathways or shield your heartcenters?”

  Koida glanced at Cold Sun. His face betrayed a hint of confusion. As one, they turned to Lysander and shook their heads.

  “I’m going to throw them in the deep water, Hush,” Lysander said. “Can you show them how to hold their breath when the time comes?”

  The silent physician nodded.

  “This way,” he said.

  They crept into the cool shadows of the Great Library. Lysander led the way through the maze of bookshelves, Cold Sun on his heels. Koida kept close behind the hulking warrior, ready to use him as a shield and line-breaker again if it became necessary.

  Hush brought up the rear, her every move silent. Only the shadow thrown by the sunlight shining in the door let Koida know Hush was still there. Surrounding the dense shadow of the silent master’s small, lean frame was a haze of thinner darkness. Koida had seen it before, at times when Hush was infuriated or deeply troubled.

  Was the silent master afraid? Or perhaps she didn’t trust the magenta woman who kept appearing. Hush had been staring directly into Lysander’s face when Koida caught her. Perhaps Hush was worried that he wasn’t thinking clearly?

  Anxiety fluttered in the pit of Koida’s emptied stomach. She was following a drunk who was thinking less clearly than usual and might be under the spell of a hellfiend.

  A deep moan drifted through the room. Panic shot through Koida’s limbs, and her eyes darted around, straining to find the corpse puppet in the shadows.

  But it was only Lysander pulling a curved bookshelf away from the wall it had been fitted to. The opening revealed a staircase stretching up into a black void. The disused hinges of the hidden door had let out the moan, not a decomposing throat.

  Lysander turned back to
look at them. An urge to stay absolutely silent filled Koida, then a powerful desire to follow the foreigner into the lightless dark of that passage.

  She scowled. She knew to be quiet, she didn’t have to be forced, and she didn’t like Lysander meddling with her feelings. With something akin to an angry shove, she threw the urges off.

  Lysander glared at her. Her eyes widened, staring right back into his. The urge to yield gripped her like the jaws of some enormous demon beast. She tried to fight it, but its fangs dug into her very soul until finally she blinked.

  With that, Lysander swept silently up the stairs. Cold Sun followed. Koida gritted her teeth and went after the huge warrior. Though Hush didn’t make a sound, a glance over Koida’s shoulder showed the physician a step behind her, watching for threats from the rear.

  They traveled upward, following the staircase as it rounded the inner curve of the Great Library’s tower. With no light or landings to mark distance, Koida kept her flesh and bone hand on the backs of the bookcases and counted the stairs.

  She had just passed one hundred when a slice of daylight spilled into the passageway high above. A putrid breeze blew down the staircase, and the sounds of gurgling moans filled the air.

  Corpse puppets swarmed the passage.

  “Lysander Foreign-Born,” Cold Sun rumbled, the barest trace of worry in his voice, “when you lived in the oasis, how many Librarians were there?”

  The burled steel dagger appeared in Lysander’s hands.

  “A lot.” The foreigner disappeared.

  Cold Sun remanifested his spiked armor and charged up the stairs toward the encroaching puppets. Koida darted up after him, blade arm held over her opposite shoulder, preparing to slash open a rotting heartcenter.

  Before they reached the shambling dead, however, the puppets’ heartcenters began to erupt, spewing congealed blood and glowing ruby Ro. The corpses dropped and tumbled down the stairs, squelching and shifting under unseen feet.

  Lysander.

  Alone and invisible, he felled corpses until the decaying fluids ran down the stairs. Koida stepped out of the way of the putrid rivulets, knowing her boots were already covered yet unable to stop herself. It made her feel somewhat better that Cold Sun did the same.

  Many minutes later, the final puppet lost its Ro to Lysander’s plunging dagger.

  He reappeared atop the hill of bodies, wiping his burled steel blade on the leg of his pants with a metallic hiss.

  “It has to be a Librarian,” he said, glancing up. “Scholars aren’t even told about the secret stair unless they make the transition.”

  They climbed up the shifting pile of bodies, Koida with her flesh and blood hand on the wall to stabilize herself. She kept one eye on the light at the top of the stair, ready for another wave of attackers to descend on them at any moment.

  None came. One by one, they made it to the top and stepped out into the highest room in the Great Library.

  Though there was a handsome desk and an enormous catalogue on a table all to itself on the far side of the room, Koida couldn’t help but be reminded of the alchemy tower in the Sun Palace. Tables and shelves were stacked high with bottles, jars, tubes, and tiny braziers. Rotting body parts had been scattered across the floor along with crumpled parchment, scrolls, and overturned ink pots.

  Beside an open balcony door stood a man in scholar’s robes stained with drying blood, ichor, and gore. A pair of multi-lensed spectacles were pushed up on his balding head. At his side stood another of the corpse puppets.

  Except, Koida realized, this puppet wasn’t bloated and soft like the others had been. The woman looked dried, leathery, as if her skin had been tanned on her bones. Long eyelashes shaded half-closed empty eye sockets, and her lips were shrunken back to reveal bright white teeth. Her hair was piled in messy ringlets on top of her head, faded and dried to a burnt orange-brown, and she was dressed in the brilliantly colored silks of funeral robes.

  “You!” the man spat. Koida flinched at the venom in his voice. He stabbed a gore-blackened finger at Lysander. “You dare to return to the site of your crimes? Time did not exonerate you, butcher!”

  “Greater Librarian Ja-Dan,” Lysander said, bowing politely. His blue eyes turned to the mummified woman. “What did you do to Kwai Un?”

  “I had to preserve her body while I learned to bring them back to life,” the man snapped. “It took every soul in this Ro-forsaken oasis, but I finally did it. I finally have my little girl back.”

  At this, the Greater Librarian reached out, and the mummified woman in the feasting robes stepped forward, her jerking motions making her ringlets jump and shake. She put her leathery hand in his.

  Koida tried to pull her eyes from the mummified woman’s long, awful fingernails. When she finally broke free of their hold, however, her gaze fell on the empty eye sockets, each with a fan of orange-brown lashes surrounding it. The sockets flared with magenta light.

  The mummified woman was looking at Lysander.

  The Greater Librarian saw the direction of her magenta stare and sneered. “She remembers her killer.”

  At Koida’s side, Lysander stepped forward, his face blank.

  “Before I was old enough to open a scroll on my own, I had killed more people than your whole insane experiment put together, Ja-Dan,” Lysander said. “I’ve ended more lives than your pathetic madness can imagine. But I only ever regretted one.”

  Lysander reached to his side and untied his jacket. He pulled it open, revealing a pair of crushed multicolored lenses hanging on a chain over his heartcenter, much of the glass broken and the wire bent. Except for the damage, they were identical to the ones the magenta woman had worn.

  “I can’t repay the years you lost with your daughter, but I can offer you revenge.” Lysander knelt at the man’s feet and bared his chest. “Strike me dead, and finish what no one else has been able to.”

  Koida opened her mouth to object, but a wave of insistence that she remain motionless and silent flowed over her, so oppressive that she nearly stumbled backward. She tried to fight it, but it only intensified.

  The Greater Librarian eyed Lysander and then the rest of them as if this were some sort of trap.

  “You submit to your rightful punishment?” he muttered almost as if he were speaking to himself.

  Lysander nodded.

  Gathering himself, the Greater Librarian manifested a hooked Ro sword and stepped toward the kneeling foreigner. Lysander didn’t move.

  At the sight of the deadly blade, Koida threw off the foreigner’s stifling influence. She raised her moon broadsword and lunged toward the Greater Librarian.

  The tower room plunged into blackness. Someone slammed Koida to the floor, pinning her blade arm high above her head.

  Hush’s Ro brushed against her heartcenter, followed by an urgent impression of doors slamming, the sensation of held breath, of crouching behind shields, and finally of Ro pathways. Hush was showing her how to close herself off.

  Then the silent physician’s weight was gone.

  Koida stumbled to her feet in the lightless black as she closed her Ro pathways. It was a crude imitation of Hush’s instructions, but she managed to seal them off.

  Something powerful grabbed hold of her and Raijin’s Ros as if the pathways were wide open, tearing at the life forces like it was trying to rip them out of her heartcenter. Koida clutched her chest, cursing her stupidity. Of course closing her pathways wouldn’t work—her Ro had never followed them. When it wanted out, it simply tore through her muscle and bone, leaving however it pleased.

  Desperate to protect her betrothed’s Ro, Koida reached out to the living lavaglass, imagining that horrible, burning pain flowing around her heartcenter in an unbreakable orb. The moon broadsword shrank as the lavaglass seared up the bones of her arm, through her shoulder, over her collarbone, and swirled around her heartcenter, hardening like cooling lava. The dual Ros were trapped within the solid orb.

  That clawing, tearing feeling at
her heartcenter stopped.

  Had Cold Sun been able to protect his Ro? She strained her eyes looking for his shadow, but she could see nothing through the black shroud. She tried yelling for her friends, but no sound came from her mouth.

  Without warning, the blackness disappeared. In its absence, the harsh morning light made her eyes water. Cold Sun stood nearby, one huge hand clutching his heartcenter as if to hold it in.

  As Koida’s eyes adjusted to the light, they fell on the body of the bald Greater Librarian sprawled on the floor. His eyes and mouth were open, his face faintly confused. A pool of blood spread over the floor, flowing from the second gaping mouth that had been sliced into his throat.

  Hush stood over him, Lysander’s burled steel dagger in her hand.

  Purple-black radiance flashed, a howling void at the center of Lysander’s chest. That screaming abyss consumed the Greater Librarian’s glowing ruby Ro, then disappeared.

  “You can unblock yourselves.” Lysander stood and tied his jacket shut. “It’s safe.”

  Without the fear of losing Raijin’s Ro, it took Koida a lot longer to figure out how to send the lavaglass back to her arm, but eventually it went. Her heartcenter ached like a fresh burn.

  “I’ll take that back, mistress thief,” Lysander said, holding one blunt-fingered hand out to Hush.

  The silent woman slapped the dagger back into his palm, her dark almond eyes challenging.

  “You didn’t actually think I’d let him do it,” Lysander said, disappearing the dagger into his robes.

  Hush raised one black brow, clearly unimpressed.

  Lysander snorted a laugh, but to Koida it seemed as if he turned away a little too quickly. He went to the pile of corpses bulging from the hidden staircase.

  “This, Princess, is what you will get if you try to stuff Raijin’s Ro back in his body,” Lysander said, gesturing at the rotting puppets.

  Koida scowled. “You were on your knees submitting to death half a moment ago, and now you’re trying to turn this back on me?”

  “Don’t buy into Hush’s nonsense,” he said. “What never existed can never submit to death. I’m trying to teach you a lesson before you do something we all regret and learn it the hard way.”