“She’s dead,” Dove said. “I don’t know where her body is, but I could feel her death in the room. She went peacefully . . . somehow. Peacefully, in blood and pain and—I don’t understand. I tried to speak to her, but it was even less coherent than what I could get from Helio.”
Celadon let out a deep, shuddering growl, drawing Dahlia’s attention back to him.
“It’s going to hurt him.” Dahlia couldn’t help but remember the blackened wounds like frostbite that had marred Helio’s corpse.
Maddy shook her head. “He’ll be fine. Celadon, it’s responding when you invoke the powers it knows. The Napthol, the Terre. Try—”
Celadon either wasn’t listening, or didn’t need to be told. “Open, damn you!” he shouted. “Open in the name of . . . in the name of the Numen and the Numini. Open in the name of Madder of the Order of Napthol. Open in the name of Clay, the child of Terre Jaune.”
Each name made the doorway glow, but Dahlia forced herself to return to Celadon’s side despite the blinding glare. If it seemed like the doorway was harming him, she could shove him away from the door, and hope that broke the connection.
Dove pushed to her feet as well and drifted next to Dahlia as if in a trance. She whispered, “I hear them now. They have been trapped so long.”
Instead of weakening, Celadon appeared to be gaining strength as frost wrapped his body and the doorway pulsed with silver light. His voice echoed, ringing like rain striking bells. “Open in the name of Celadon Cremnitz. Open in the name of Dahlia Indathrone. Open in the name of the Quinacridone and give me the Abyss-damned Terre or I swear I’ll—”
Lightning struck.
Dahlia cried out as she fell, the stench of ozone assaulting her nostrils. Somewhere in the aftermath of the blast, she thought she heard someone calling her name, but she couldn’t make out anything past the ringing in her ears and the spots in her vision. Then the darkness came.
Chapter 29
Naples
Again, Naples woke somewhere dark.
This time, though, there was pain. His joints felt full of hot sand when he shifted, his chest ached with each breath, and muscles in his back and shoulders twitched when he tried to push himself up.
Only the Terra’s training allowed him to push past the sensations and struggle to his feet, then lift a trembling hand to summon foxfire.
He managed only a sickly yellow glow, but it was enough to reveal Argent’s bedroom again. He was wearing pants this time, and someone had bandaged his arm where the Abyssi had taken a chunk out of him.
The door opened. “I thought I heard you moving around in here,” Argent said as he stepped through. With a pointed look to the foxfire, he added, “Hasn’t that gotten you in enough trouble already?”
“What am—” Naples started to cough and had to try again. “What am I doing here?”
Argent sighed. “What do you remember?”
“I’m not—I didn’t forget,” Naples said, too sharply, considering it was a perfectly valid concern after their previous conversation. “The Abyssi tried to kill you, and I’m responsible for its being here, so why am I not out on my ass?”
“You fought it, you healed me, you passed out,” Argent said. “I wasn’t going to toss you unconscious on the street.”
“I’m a danger to you.”
“You’re a danger to yourself it seems,” Argent replied. “There’s stew on the table, if you can eat.”
Naples’ head spun. Eat. He should try to eat. But not here. “I should leave before it comes back.”
“If you can walk without falling, you can leave,” Argent compromised.
Of course he could walk. He was standing, wasn’t he?
Naples took a step forward and his legs trembled. They gave out and his knees hit the ground hard. “Damn it,” he hissed. He shouldn’t be this weak.
Argent came to his side and hooked an arm around his waist to help him up, careful of his injured arm.
Despite his state, the touch of flesh to flesh provoked a response. Argent raised one eyebrow. “Your libido and your sanity aren’t even remotely linked, are they?”
Naples tried to shrug, but it was a sorry effort. This weakness wasn’t just blood loss, but lack of power. He had used everything he had to send the Abyssi away. And there was a source of power right here . . .
Argent dumped him in a chair at the kitchen table and shoved a bowl in front of him. “Rabbit stew,” he announced. “Eat. Then maybe you can explain to me what is going on.”
Eat. He had to eat. Food could also supply his body with energy, not the same kind of rich energy and not as fast, but it would work. He picked up the spoon with his left hand, regretting that he hadn’t thought to offer his non-dominant arm to the Abyssi.
He had to force the first bite into his mouth, force himself to chew and swallow something that tasted like dust and ash, but then his body remembered what food was. The scent of the stew reached him at last. His mouth watered, his stomach grumbled, and he began shoveling broth and chunks of meat and delicious vegetables down his throat as if he hadn’t eaten in—well, over a month, probably.
Dirt, the Abyssi called food like this, but Naples’ body had finally remembered that it was human. At some point Argent put bread in front of him and he downed it instantly, using the last bit to mop the remnants of stew from the bowl.
“More?” Argent asked when Naples paused, staring at the bowl like a dog at an empty dish.
Instead, Naples leaned back, shaking his head. His stomach was so full it was painful, but this was a good pain, not magic and fire, but a stomach stuffed with nourishment.
“So,” Argent said as Naples basked in the return of humanity. “You’re a sorcerer. I’m guessing Order of Napthol, not one of the smaller sects. Obviously powerful. I’m no witch myself but I know what a foxfire orb like the one you summoned last time sells for, and I know that’s because they’re rare, but you snapped it up like it was nothing. Also, you’re close enough to the Terra to have received a gift from her. You’ve lost time, a lot of it if I’m judging your reactions right. And—” At this, he drew a deep breath. “If I’m not mistaken, you got into a fight with a demon. I’m not sure you won, but I don’t think you lost, either.”
“That’s about the gist of it,” Naples answered. “You sound remarkably calm about all this.”
“I’ve had some time to mull it over,” Argent said. “You’ve been in and out for two days. I’ll admit I spent the first day mostly in shock. I might still be in it. But I had the sense to send someone to the city to bring one of your own people to help you. I know I am in way over my head.”
“One of . . . my people. You sent someone to the Cobalt Hall?”
Argent nodded.
Naples wasn’t certain how he felt about that. “Did you tell them my name?”
“Is that a problem?”
Quite likely, his mother was now racing toward this place full-tilt. He had been missing for—“Exactly how long has it been since the ice storm?”
“A little over six weeks.”
He had known, yet even so, the information rocked him. Six weeks; a month and a half. Just gone. And he knew if the Abyssi came back now, with him this weak, it could easily dispose of Argent—and anyone from the Cobalt Hall who showed up—before pulling Naples back into its web.
After that stunt you pulled, I’m not sure you deserve me.
Naples stood, drawing the knife from his waist and turning toward the Abyssi.
It stepped back, its tails lashing angrily.
“Argent, you should leave,” Naples said, keeping his eyes on the Abyssi as he spoke. “Right now.”
Argent didn’t question him; he was gone through the door in seconds.
The Abyssi meanwhile crossed to the stove, where it sniffed disdainfully at the last of the stew. You’re more than this, it said.
“Maybe I don’t want to be.”
It smirked. “You can’t help it.” When the Abyssi spoke in N
aples’ mind, it felt like warm breath on the back of his neck. When it spoke aloud, the words resonated in his bones. “You are your power and your power is you. If you try to turn away from it, it will devour you. Or the Numini will. Or maybe I will.”
It moved with impossible speed. The knife went skittering across the room and Naples was briefly airborne, until he slammed sprawled on the table. Crockery fell to the floor and shattered.
The Abyssi followed. Its eyes literally flashed, blue flame flickering in their depths, with anger and amusement.
“I gave you power,” it crooned. “I turned Kavet into your personal playground. And what did you do? You turned that power against me!”
“You stole a month and a half of my life!”
“Stole.” It snickered. “Listen to yourself, like time can be stolen. You have spent the time hunting, gaining power, learning your magic. You have spent the nights in lust and gluttony and the days sleeping deeply. I have taken nothing from you. Or do you think you could have fought me, as you did over the Quin, when first you called me?”
Naples remembered fighting the Abyssi. He also remembered the foxfire on which Argent had remarked. And he knew that no, he never could have done those things before, even after the Terra’s instruction.
“Argent was good to me. I don’t want him hurt.”
“I have no reason to hurt him. He’s barely better than dirt, anyway. I prefer richer fare.” Very deliberately, it let its claws pierce the skin of Naples’ chest. As always, with the pain and the beading of new blood came a rush of magic that made Naples’ breath catch. He had lost power earlier, fighting the beast, but now as it leaned down to lick blood off his skin, its power—pure dark Abyssal magic—wrapped around him.
No. He wouldn’t let himself be lost like this again.
He pushed against the demon. In response, it encircled his wrist with one of its tails.
“I believe you made an offer,” it said.
“I did what?”
It licked his lower lip, and then ran its cheek along his like a cat. Lips close enough for Naples to feel smoky breath on his ear, it said, “You made an offer. And you’re strong enough now you might even survive the follow-through. You probably will.”
“I didn’t—” Naples broke off with a yelp as its claws pierced his pants, and the thigh beneath.
“You pressed your body and your lips and your power against mine. And then you ordered me away. Did you think I was going to forget that?”
“You know I was just trying to—aah.” It bit him, not hard enough this time to take flesh, but enough to steal his breath. It left a near-perfect circle of tiny dots from its pointed teeth, low on his stomach just above the waist of his pants. It licked the new blood away as it had the last, and this time the rasp of its tongue brought different blood in a rush. Hard, breathless, and sweating and shivering simultaneously, Naples nevertheless tried to push himself up.
The creature caught his other wrist, and then slapped his shoulders back down on the table.
He tried to push back with any power he could summon, but the Abyssi only shivered and rubbed its body against his. It moved upward and covered Naples’ mouth with its own, while its fingers wrapped around the back of his neck to hold him in place. With the tips of the Abyssi’s claws at his throat, Naples had no choice but to let it part his lips and turn the kiss into something full of possession and hunger.
When it pulled back, Naples sucked in droughts of air, filling desperate lungs.
“You do not,” the Abyssi said, very clearly, very deliberately, “tease the Abyssi. You make an offer, you keep it. Now . . .” Its claws cut through the waist of his pants, slicing cleanly through the fabric down to his knee. “Let’s see what a mortal body can take.”
Chapter 30
Henna
Henna accepted Lassia’s ministrations, but despite the healer’s admonitions, she couldn’t keep still. She spoke with Gobe, who had custody of the letter from the Osei, had already ordered the fretting Kegan out until Dahlia returned, and threatened to do the same to Henna if she asked him questions he couldn’t possibly answer because, “I’m not Dahlia Indathrone—or hadn’t you noticed? I don’t discuss her business when she’s not around.”
Henna pointed out this was Kavet business, and therefore council business, but Gobe maintained his loyalty to Dahlia above anyone else.
Another messenger arrived, a woman young enough that her face didn’t show the exhausted wear Henna would have expected given the quantity of travel-dust staining her rumpled clothing and tanned skin.
“I’m supposed to deliver this to one of the leaders of the Order of Napthol, and see you open it before I go,” the messenger said. “It’s urgent.”
Actual Cobalt Hall business? Henna wondered, accepting the letter. “From where?” she asked, pressing a coin into the messenger’s hand as she broke the seal. This kind of urgent message was usually a plea for help after a young person suddenly discovered a talent for sorcery in a disastrous way.
“Brockridge Farms. I rode most of the night to get here.”
“Make sure you get some . . .” Henna was in the middle of offering food and a place to rest for the exhausted messenger, but she lost all coherent thought as she recognized the name in the first sentence of the scrawled, hasty handwriting: Naples.
I have a young man named Naples in my care. I believe he is a member of your order. His injuries are not life-threatening but I fear he may be in a more mystical danger, which I am not capable of assessing or protecting him from. I’ve enclosed directions. Please send someone immediately.
Henna didn’t hesitate.
If Maddy and the others found the king, queen, or prince, alive or dead, Henna trusted them to deal with it without her help. As much as she wanted to be there, for closure if nothing else, Naples was alive—for now, anyway—and he did need her.
Henna left a note for Gobe telling him she had to attend to urgent business, and left the letter from Brockridge Farms with Lassia as further explanation. Then she packed a bag with some basic tools, took two horses from the stables at the edge of town, and rode as hard and fast as she could.
The trip took her a good part of the day. As she finally approached the long dirt driveway leading up to the main farmhouse, the lingering power buzzed around her like a swarm of gnats. Some of it felt like Naples’ magic, but there was also another, more foreign power—a power she knew immediately did not come from the mortal realm. She had felt it only once before, when the Terra had summoned a demon to protect her son.
This much hot power should have been enticing, like a fine wine, but something in Henna quailed to accept it. Instead, as she pushed forward, she instinctively put up her shields, strengthening them with what cold magic she could evoke.
The front door was ajar, so she stepped inside, then followed the viscous ropes of magic through to the kitchen.
Henna almost screamed as she stepped into the room. I’m too late.
There was blood everywhere, the worst of it sprayed across the table like some obscene sacrifice, the congealing fluid nearly black with Abyssal magic.
Naples’ power was like Henna’s, magic of fire and blood—and that was what it had wrought.
Looking at it made the burns and slashes across her back sting anew.
She scanned the room desperately, searching for Naples, but almost missed him at first. He glowed with power, so intensely it was hard to focus her eyes and look past the magic to the man beneath.
He was curled on his side in a fetal position, blood slicking his skin. Claw marks dragged down his back and across his chest, and Henna could see trails of savage bites made by something sharper than human teeth across the meat of his shoulders. They were the same kind of wounds she and the other hot magic users at the Cobalt Hall had suffered, but more extensive than any she had seen.
She jumped with a yelp as the door banged open behind her, admitting a man she didn’t know. He took one look at Naples and went p
ale, clutching at the doorway to steady himself.
“Who are you?” Henna demanded.
“Argent. I live here. I—you’re from the Order? Is he . . .”
“He’s alive.” It seemed a miracle, but the steady pulse of his power was proof. “Can you get water? I need to clean him up before I can tell if anything is still bleeding.” Henna had learned from personal experience the mystical wounds didn’t bleed as long or as much as they should, but the deeper ones could still be dangerous if not attended.
Stay with me, Naples, she prayed. While waiting for Argent to return with water, she tried to examine him with her magic, but the power in the air was too thick for her to make out any details. All she could tell for sure was that Naples had not been alone here.
Again, her mind flashed to the beast the Terra had summoned. Was it a coincidence that she could feel the remnants of the Abyssal realm here so soon after forcing open the palace doors?
Argent retuned with a bucket of well-water and a handful of cloths. “Do you want me to warm it?” he asked.
“I’ll do it.” There was so much power in the air she didn’t need tools; she put a hand to the tin bucket and focused her will on heat; it took only seconds to warm it to body temperature.
“How did he end up with you?” Henna asked Argent, as she knelt and began to carefully wash the blood from Naples’ skin. The claw marks across his chest looked the deepest, but his power seemed to have successfully stopped most of the bleeding, and the skin around them showed no burns or blisters.
“We met a few nights ago,” Argent answered. “He seemed fine the night we met. The next morning, he said he had lost time. He couldn’t remember our meeting or coming back here, or coming to this town. Or anything, back as far as the ice storm.” He started to shake as he continued, his gaze going distant. “And then . . . then . . .” He trailed off, locking his jaws shut around a whimper. “I didn’t know what to do, except send that message.”
Henna tried to imagine what Argent must have seen. Most of the Order’s members had been struck while sleeping; given what Henna knew of Naples, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine Naples in bed with Argent, and waking in a panic when the blood began to flow.
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