A puff of wind gusted down the slot. The trembling beneath Kiran’s feet became an audible rumble, swiftly rising in volume. Startled shouts rang out from the narrows.
Gavila whirled to look. She and Zadikah were still twenty feet away. Kiran broke cover and ran, hoping there was enough slack in the rope to let him reach Zadikah.
At the tunnel’s end, clanfolk scrabbled at the slot’s polished walls and pleaded with the demon for aid. It ignored them, yelling something harsh and guttural at Gavila.
She dropped Zadikah’s wrist and raced past Kiran, dodging wide around him. If the demon had ordered her to find and release the bone mage’s spell, she was too late. Returning the underground river to its regular channel would not stop the surge already flooding the canyon.
Kiran lunged for Zadikah. His fingers were mere inches from her outflung wrist when a vicious kick knocked him sideways into the sand.
“You won’t devour her soul,” Nasham snarled at him, standing over Zadikah’s prone body. “If she dies, she dies whole!”
The rope at Kiran’s waist yanked taut, dragging him backward. Dev and Cara were hauling in the slack. He screamed for them to wait. Zadikah was so close. There was still time to save her.
His plea was lost under panicked shrieks from the narrows. A cataract of water as thick and red as blood jetted into the tunnel. The clanfolk still clawing for holds were ripped free of the rock, disappearing under the frothing torrent.
The demon drew a blade and stabbed it straight up under its own ribs. Blue flames burst from the wound to spread over the scholar. The boy’s skin bubbled and blackened. Kiran staggered back, horrified, throwing all his concentration into his barriers, sure the demon meant to strike him with a casting fueled by the scholar’s death.
An atonal shriek of power ripped the aether asunder. For the barest instant, Kiran glimpsed the freezing inferno of the demon realm. Words lanced into his mind: Not so clever after all, child. If you had yielded to me, your fate would have been kinder. When your master takes you, assure him that we will not be cheated.
The rift closed and the flames died. The charred body of the scholar toppled, and the flood swallowed him.
The demon’s spell hadn’t been meant as a strike but an escape route. Savage triumph swept Kiran. The demon assumed the flood would likewise force him into casting, but it was wrong. The sharp pull of the rope was proof of his salvation.
But Zadikah had mere instants left to live. Nasham snatched at the shard in her daughter’s shoulder, but upon touching it, she crumpled beside Zadikah. The churning surge of water was almost on them.
Kiran couldn’t reach her, and he would not cast. He cried out in frustration and sorrow.
A sharp shock traveled down the rope. Gavila had jumped from the canyon wall to cling to the taut line like a spider, ten feet above his head. A bared blade flashed in her hand.
Kiran jumped, a desperate, futile reach, knowing with terrible clarity he couldn’t stop her severing the rope. This was why the demon had been so certain Ruslan would take him.
A crude lash of magic blasted out of the gap overhead and struck Gavila, ripping her away from the rope and throwing her down into the sand. A second coil of power arrowed past Kiran to shatter the spelled shard in Zadikah’s shoulder. The tendril of magic yanked her away from the onrushing water and her fallen mother, and thrust her into Kiran’s arms. Stunned, he clutched her tight, even as the rope jerked him off the ground.
Water slammed into Kiran with a force that nearly ripped Zadikah from his arms. If not for the fading remnants of magic that still pressed her body to his, he would have lost her. They were tumbling, the world all thundering darkness. His lungs burned for air, but that was nothing compared to the hunger of his ikilhia for the spark of Zadikah’s life, so easy to take, her flesh against his a tantalizingly open conduit.
The rope dragged him up into air. Kiran spluttered and gasped, Zadikah an iron weight in his arms. Scant inches below, red-brown water roared past like one of the confluence’s great currents. Thankfully, Zadikah’s paralysis had disappeared with the shattered shard. She clung to him with desperate strength. They were locked as close as lovers, his arms around her back, hers around his neck, their legs tangled together.
The flood had nearly filled the tunnel; he and Zadikah were dangling mere feet beneath the crack in the roof. The rope cut deep into Kiran’s midsection as it inched them upward. His muscles trembled under the strain of holding Zadikah, but he would not let go. Nor would he touch her ikilhia, though the battle to restrain his body’s instinct took all he had.
She was shuddering in great heaves and shouting something in his ear, over and over. He could not spare concentration to listen, but gradually, meaning penetrated.
“Why? Why save me?”
“I didn’t,” Kiran managed. “Teo cast.” He was dead certain of it, despite his astonishment. The crude, wild magic had felt nothing like Lena’s smoothly ordered spellwork.
That silenced Zadikah. Kiran’s back bumped the crack’s edge. Someone shouted, barely audible over the grinding rush of the water below, and a handline made out of a knotted, tightly twisted shirt dropped down in front of Kiran’s nose.
Zadikah used the makeshift line to haul herself over Kiran and into the crack. The relief of no longer having to hold her weight and battle his body’s need was so great that for a moment he hung limp, dripping and panting. At last he summoned the remnants of his strength, grabbed the knotted shirt, and pulled himself up into the crack a careful few feet away from Zadikah, helped by the steady tug of the rope still bound about his waist.
Teo was wedged right above them. As Kiran braced his back against one cliff and his feet against the other, Teo yelled upward, “Safe!”
An acknowledging call echoed down. Kiran couldn’t see Dev and the others, his view upward blocked by Teo’s body and the slanting angle of the crack. He sensed no sparks of life in the flood below, only the dark fire of the bone mage’s spell, fast fading. Once the spell died, its stored power expended, the water should abate as the distant river returned to its natural flow. Kiran hoped that would not take too long.
Teo seemed absorbed in the task of unknotting his makeshift handline back into a shirt, but his hands shook violently as he worked. Even diminished by his casting, his ikilhia was a seething roil in such disarray Kiran winced to see it. His bare arms and chest were scraped raw, testifying to the speed with which he’d slid back down the crack to help them.
Zadikah was staring up at Teo in equal silence, breathing in ragged gulps. She must be as shocked as Kiran, who could still hardly believe Teo had cast. He remembered Teo saying of his oath to his goddess, Should I break it, she will spurn me after my death, leaving my soul to fray into madness, trapped in the rotting remnants of my flesh.
Teo believed that without a shred of doubt, yet he had cast anyway. Maybe talking was a bad idea, but Kiran couldn’t let such a sacrifice go unacknowledged.
“You saved us both,” he said to Teo, pitching his voice to carry over the echoing roar of the flood below. “I know you didn’t do it for me, but still, I’m grateful.” He winced, wishing he’d found better words. Grateful sounded so paltry when set against Teo’s certainty that he faced an eternity of suffering.
Teo pulled his shirt on, his ikilhia seething wilder yet. “I have a price for my aid. One for both of you.”
“What price?” Zadikah’s question was harsh as a crow’s call, her voice shorn of all its former musicality. “What could possibly make you break your oath to save me, when you did not Veddis?”
“I need you to go to Prosul Akheba. Seek Raishal, and if she still lives, keep her and her child safe. And you…” His attention switched to Kiran. “You will let Zadikah do this.”
Teo had not saved Zadikah solely because he wanted her to find Raishal. Nor did Kiran feel comfortable letting her walk free after her prior betrayal, but he owed his life to Teo twice over. How could he refuse him?
“Raish
al was in the city?” Zadikah tipped her head back and keened, high and anguished. “Teo, I’m sorry. I was so certain I could kill Gavila. But the child of Shaikar had already come, and he stopped me when I struck. When Prosul Akheba burned—” She took a ragged breath and swiped a hand over her eyes. “Gavila told me how Kiran angered his master in escaping Cadah’s trap. The demon had forbidden her to take my life, saying I might prove useful, but she wanted to hurt me nonetheless. She knew I would see that my own choice had led to my city burning, my friends dying—and now you say Raishal and her baby might be dead with them, oh gods—”
Her guilt, dark mirror of his own, drove Kiran to speak. “I wish you hadn’t trapped me, but the dead in Prosul Akheba are Ruslan’s doing. No one else’s.”
Zadikah twisted to give him a scorching look. “Tell yourself pretty lies if you like. I do not cower from the consequences of my actions. I can’t change what I’ve done, but in the future I can make different choices. Teo, I’ll go to the city. I’ll turn over every last blackened stone until I find Raishal, and give aid to every survivor I can.”
“Good,” Teo said. “The city will need your strength.”
“But not your healing? I don’t understand, Teo. I’d have sworn you couldn’t turn away from anyone in need, let alone an entire city, and Raishal—if you love her enough to break your oath, what could keep you from her side?”
Teo’s tone turned acid. “Ask Kiran.”
Kiran understood the bitterness. He’d feel the same in Teo’s place, and he appreciated that Teo had left it to him to decide how much to explain.
He said, “Teo wanted to go, and I forbade him. I need his help to bring down Ruslan.”
Zadikah’s head cocked. “The mage who burned Prosul Akheba.”
“Yes,” Kiran said.
Zadikah said to Teo, sharp as a whipcrack, “Then you fucking help Kiran. Whatever it takes to kill that soulless murderer.”
“What in Shaikar’s hells is going on?” Dev’s yell preceded his arrival. He scraped and slid down to them, and upon spotting Zadikah, spat a curse. “You! No wonder Cara and I could barely pull the rope. I should kick you straight down into that flood.”
The threat wasn’t idle. Dev was braced right over Zadikah, his body coiled tight as a predator crouched to spring. Kiran hurried to speak, aware of Teo’s gaze drilling into him.
“Teo saved me. Again. We owe him, and this is what he asks as payment. She’s going to Prosul Akheba to look for Raishal.”
“Did the flood wash away your brain? She knows where we are! If she sells us out—”
“Our location is no secret,” Kiran said. “The demon ran back to its own realm. We have to assume the ssarez-kai will tell Ruslan where we’re heading. Our best hope is speed. I must discover how to reach Ashkiza’s weapon before either demons or Ruslan can strike at us again. I say we send Zadikah to the city so we need not worry over a prisoner.”
“This is crazy,” Dev said flatly. “We can’t keep traveling this slot. The next trap, we might not be able to outfox.”
Zadikah said, “I know the key to the ward spells. At the pool, I heard the demon tell Gavila what to say and where to touch. I’ll gladly share my knowledge with you if it helps Kiran destroy the nybadduk who burned Prosul Akheba.”
“You see?” Kiran said to Dev. “If we can pass the traps, we’ve a chance of reaching the temple before Ruslan can prepare another ambush. Zadikah, would you let Teo see your mind so we can be certain you speak truth?”
Teo recoiled. “Not me. Lena should look.”
“I’d rather it were you,” Zadikah said, so low she could barely be heard over the water still rushing through the tunnel beneath them.
But Teo said only, “Lena won’t hurt you. I give you my word.”
Kiran grimaced. He’d hoped that if Zadikah did regret her choices, the intimacy of mental contact would lead to a better understanding between her and Teo—a first step toward repairing the relationships that Kiran had inadvertently shattered. But it was true that Lena was far more skilled with mind-magic.
The leashed violence in Dev’s posture said he was still not convinced, though Kiran wasn’t sure if it was Zadikah or the temple he was balking over.
Kiran said to him, “We’re rid of demon and clanfolk both. Without them, Zadikah can’t do much to hurt us. Please—let her go, and let me try to reach the temple.”
“Now who’s optimistic?” Dev heaved a sigh. “You want this, then Lena checks Zadikah’s story right now. If she’s not lying, I’ll get her up to the slot rim. From there, she’s on her own.”
A high, thin voice called down, “If she’s leaving, I want to go with her.”
Dev twisted to squint upward. “Janek? I know you’re scared, but—”
“You don’t know! You have so many awful things chasing you and I can’t—can’t run fast enough, and I don’t want a demon to tear me up, the other boys and girls screamed for so long—” Janek gulped down a sob. Kiran’s heart ached for him; he knew what it was to feel so small and helpless. “I want to be safe. Please, Dev, please let me leave.”
Zadikah said, “No child should have to endure such fear. Send him with me, and I will keep him safe.”
Dev was silent for a moment, looking up at Janek. “Fine,” he said, not happily. “If Lena says Zadikah is speaking truth.” He glowered at Zadikah. “You harm one curl on that boy’s head, I don’t care what Teo wants. You’ll join your kin in Shaikar’s hells.”
Kiran said, “Maybe you should send Melly with Zadikah, too.”
“No!” Melly’s indignant yell ricocheted down the crack. “I’m not scared! Besides, you might need somebody Tainted if you’re fighting demons.”
Dev squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain. Kiran could imagine his dilemma. He wanted Melly safe, but he must also want to be certain of that safety, not send her away with someone he didn’t trust.
Cara said something indistinct. Melly’s answer was fiercer yet. “I said no. I’m not going. Only way you could make me is to cast on me, and Lena doesn’t do that sort of casting.”
Dev let out a breath of a chuckle. “Stubborn as I ever was. Sethan must be laughing at me right now.” He called up to Melly, “All right, I won’t fight you on this. You stay, Janek goes.”
He beckoned Zadikah. “Get up here so Lena can look in your head.”
Zadikah hesitated, looking at Teo. “Will you sing for my kin’s souls? Gavila deserves to be left lost and wandering, but the rest—their only fault was in believing she spoke the god’s truth. My mother—” She stopped, swallowing hard.
“I will sing for them,” Teo said, such sorrow in the words that Kiran’s own throat closed.
Zadikah said, “When you finish helping Kiran, I beg you, come to the city. Don’t run as you have before, and don’t you dare die. I don’t ask you to forgive me. But if Raishal lives, you should give her the chance to forgive you.”
Teo bowed his head, his body rigid, and said nothing.
Dev said to Kiran, “Don’t wait for us. You and Teo start working your way along the slot. Untie from the rope—I’ll need it if I have to reach the rim—and shuffle sideways along this crack. If the walls start to widen out so much that you can’t stay braced tight, then stop and yell for Cara.”
Kiran unpicked knots and got the rope free of his waist while Zadikah grunted and heaved her way up the crack after Dev. Water continued to churn along below in a turbulent, deadly froth, but the flow had already subsided enough to expose several feet of the tunnel wall. Obedient to Dev’s instructions, Kiran shuffled his feet and hitched his back sideways along the slot.
Teo followed, his motions even more awkward than Kiran’s. The violent turmoil of his ikilhia bore silent witness to the depth of emotion he fought to suppress.
Words burst from Kiran before he could think better of them. “You would’ve saved Zadikah even if you knew Raishal was dead. Why didn’t you tell her you still love her?”
After a fraught sil
ence, Teo said, “When Veddis fell, I was a coward. Yet the pain of his death proved worse than my fear. I couldn’t endure such agony doubled. Yet now my oath is broken, I dread what I might become at Zadikah’s side. She doesn’t understand that some paths should never be walked.” He released a jagged laugh. “So you see, I am still a coward.”
“It doesn’t have to be the way you fear,” Kiran said. “People can change, and not just for the worse. Zadikah said she meant to make different choices. Maybe together, you and she would find a path far better than either of you would walk alone.”
For long moments, all Kiran heard from Teo was the scuffling of his feet and his back scraping against the slot’s cliffs. At length, Teo said, “I know what you did before I cast. You tried to save Zadikah even though she had betrayed you.”
Kiran might have tried, but just as with Veddis, he hadn’t been willing to risk casting. “She’d be dead and I’d be Ruslan’s, if not for you.”
“But you surprised me. I was so certain I knew what your soul had become.” Teo’s voice sank to a murmur. “It’s easier to cling to certainty. Yet that leaves no room for hope.”
Kiran’s certainty that Ashkiza’s weapon would let him defeat Ruslan was his only source of hope. But this was the first time Teo had spoken to him without fear or bitterness. He didn’t want to bring up anything that might break their fragile rapprochement.
Cautiously, he said, “I find hope is something I can’t do without. If not for myself, then for others.” He still could not imagine surviving Ruslan’s defeat. The mark-bond made that too improbable. But the idea of Dev, Cara, and Melly founding a new life together free of fear—that was a goal he would fight toward so long as his ikilhia burned.
Chapter Twenty-Three
(Dev)
Lena said Zadikah spoke truth, which meant I had to haul Zadikah and Janek up a hundred feet of cliff to reach the canyon rim. I didn’t enjoy the climb one bit. I wasn’t happy about sending a proven backstabber like Zadikah off where I couldn’t keep an eye on her, and even less happy about handing her Janek. Zadikah was too smart not to realize the connection between him and Yashad once she saw his necklace. But Janek would be safer even in Yashad’s hands than he was with us, hunted by Ruslan and demons.
The Labyrinth of Flame (The Shattered Sigil Book 3) Page 42