What in Shaikar’s hells? I tried to see more; in response, Kiran sent a hurried jumble of memories that left me goggling in surprise and dismay. Cara and Melly—gods, one mistake against wards as powerful as those that must guard Alathia’s gate, and they’d be dead before the Watch could even pounce on them. And Kiran, his magic torn to shreds by demonic hunters—could he even fight Ruslan in this condition?
Don’t worry about me. With trembling fingers, Kiran eased the gag from my mouth. Tears leaked down his cheeks; he’d been sifting through my memories while I saw his. Oh, Dev. I wish I had come sooner. Or that I had better news. I won’t know if Cara and Melly succeeded unless I can get closer to Ruslan’s gate. For that, I need your help. He reached for the hilt of the dagger jutting from my shoulder.
Hold, the demon said sharply to Kiran. Did you not listen when he warned you he is bait?
It was worried that Kiran removing the knife would trigger some kind of trap. Fuck, it might be right. Ruslan had been far too careful to leave me alone, that knife just begging to be pulled out by an anxious rescuer.
Kiran was trying to look for any hidden spellwork, but something was wrong with his magic. He couldn’t focus right. Every time he tried, it was like plunging into a frothing cauldron of rapids, all noise and tumbling chaos—and worse, his illness got way stronger. His stomach was a churning mass of bile, darkness creeping over his vision.
Stop, I yelled at him. You collapse, and we’ll never kill Ruslan!
The demon added, The fire in your soul is no longer tame, your senses no longer dull—but your flesh limits you too sharply. Even were this house not reeking with poison, you could not sift the currents properly as we do.
Kiran relented, his mind ablaze with frustration. Then I’ll cross into the demon realm the moment I pull the blade. No spell of Ruslan’s can touch me there—and whatever he’s done, it will be aimed at me, not Dev. Ruslan dares not break his vow.
Triggering any spell will alert him to your presence, the demon said.
I know, but I see no way to avoid that. Kiran put a gentle hand to my face. If I wake the Taint in you, can you break your manacles?
I nodded, coughing, my tongue burning and swollen. His mouth tightened; he was wishing he had water to offer me. I shook my head in dismissal. All I wanted was for him to get me off this gods-cursed wall.
He drew a cautious trickle of magic that woke a bright spark in my head, so welcome that my vision blurred. Kiran slid his hand down to my chest to brace me.
Mother of maidens, it felt good to smash something. A few hard blows, and the manacles cracked apart. I didn’t move my arms despite my cramping, tingling muscles, not wanting to joggle the knife. Kiran gripped the handle, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
I knew how much this would hurt. I gritted my teeth, bracing.
He yanked the blade free and hauled me up and over the spikes. Pain exploded in my shoulder; I choked back a howl. Kiran blurred like he was about to vanish—but in the corner of my eye, I caught the flash of activated wards. The demon hissed something, dismayed. I twisted and saw runes wet with my blood glowing crimson on the wall.
Kiran’s outline solidified again, his eyes wide and dazed. He tumbled backward on his ass as if somebody had walloped him with the haft of an axe.
I tried to grab for him, but my shoulder, fuck—“What’s Ruslan done?”
Kiran staggered to his feet. “He’s made a barrier around the house—I can’t reach the demon realm! I didn’t know he could create such a spell without the labyrinth’s aid.”
My stomach sank to my boots. If Kiran couldn’t take Ruslan into the demon realm, how the fuck would we kill him? “Can you still pull power through me?”
In answer, he took my arms. Magic rippled between us, and we both shuddered in relief—especially me, as the wound in my shoulder closed and my pain eased.
I’ll smash those runes into gravel! I turned, ready to strike.
Won’t help, Kiran said. That was merely the trigger. He’s anchored the spell somewhere else. Probably in his workroom. That way he can keep watch over both the barrier and the labyrinth’s gate.
Ruslan had to have felt his trap spring shut. If he knows you’re here, why isn’t he casting at you?
Kiran stiffened, and his realization flashed through us both: Ruslan must be too close to a larger revenge.
My gut went cold. If he’s ready to use the labyrinth—Kiran, you have to cast—
Kiran thrust away from me. “Even with your help, I haven’t the strength to defeat Ruslan in a direct confrontation. I need another way, I need…” His head came up, his eyes dark with determination. “Dev. I must talk with the demon.”
Before I could even reach my hand to Kiran, the demon rose up and pushed me under. I was drowning in darkness, sinking deeper—I fought for the surface, desperate to hear what Kiran was saying. The demon’s hold wasn’t so strong as it had been before. I clawed my way up as though crawling through thickened syrup.
“You risk much,” the demon was saying with my mouth. “But yes, what you suggest is possible. I sent word of our struggle to my former kin long before I ever touched your ratling; they await the least mistake on the part of the ssarez-kai. But should you succeed, are you prepared to pay the price?”
I didn’t like the sound of this one bit. I fought to speak, to no avail.
Kiran said, “So long as the price is mine alone to pay, yes.”
The demon retreated. I lunged for Kiran. “What price? What the fuck are you planning?”
“Not suicide, if that’s what you fear. I know how to kill Ruslan and make sure no demons can ever use the labyrinth. No time to explain everything, so listen…” Kiran slashed a strip of cloth from his shirt. “You and I must break into Ruslan’s workroom, stop him casting, and destroy the spell that blocks me from the demon realm. Ruslan will try to separate us. He knows that unless I take off my amulet, we have to stay touching for you to use the Taint.” He offered me the strip of cloth. “If we tie our arms together—”
“Got it.” I’d had plenty of practice tying knots one-handed. In a trice, I had our wrists bound together. I wanted to demand Kiran explain what price he meant to pay, but we hadn’t time to waste. He was already pulling magic through me.
I hammered invisible blows at the door wards and reached through the bond so he’d feel what I did: that whatever came of this, I was proud to fight by his side. That I’d never had anything like a mage-brother, but to me, he was that and more.
The demon stirred deep within, but I didn’t care. Let it eavesdrop, let it mock. The Shaikar-spawn could go fuck itself.
Kiran’s hand tightened on mine. Gratitude and love spilled through the bond, bright as sunlight breaking through stormclouds. “Thank you,” he whispered.
The door wards went dead. I yanked the door open and flashed Kiran a last, ferocious grin. “Let’s go stomp that viper into dust.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
(Kiran)
Kiran raced with Dev up spiraling marble stairs toward Ruslan’s workroom. The double doors at the staircase’s summit were so thickly laid with wardlines they appeared to be solid silver. In his mage-sight, the workroom was barred by a roaring inferno of blood-red flame. At least he could see the spell properly. The barrier blocking him from the demon realm had brought an unexpected boon: it deadened the riot of confusing sensations he’d previously suffered when he tried to reach past his barriers. His inner senses almost felt normal again.
The rest of him did not. The poison in the aether had grown thicker than ever; Kiran’s body ached with feverish pain born of the demonfire in his soul. The magic he drew through Dev helped a little, bolstering the fragile shell of human energies protecting his ikilhia. Yet his control over that magic was terrifyingly weak. He could pull barely more than a trickle before the energies threatened to explode free of his grasp and kill him and Dev both.
He didn’t want Dev to know how deep his fear ran. Thankfully, Dev was riding far too high on th
e exhilaration of the Taint to notice. A savage flood of anticipation poured down the bond.
Where should I strike to break the wards?
Kiran wanted to let that flood wash away the icy weight of his dread, but he dared not let Dev sweep aside all his caution as he had when they took Marten.
Let me scout first. Kiran threaded his senses through the spell’s weave. His altered ikilhia refused to behave as it should; he felt as clumsy as a child struggling to cast his first spell. The effort left him sweating and shivering.
But he saw past the wards to the workroom beyond. A stunningly intricate network of channels traced fire over his mage-sight. Quiescent channels—the spell was still not complete. The burning suns of Ruslan’s and Mikail’s ikilhias moved about the workroom, shedding ripples of magic as they cast to add more lines to the pattern.
Marten was a ghostly pinprick barely visible against an arch of twisted energies. The arch’s interior blazed with a coruscating fire that Kiran recognized in blood and heart and bone: Ashkiza’s labyrinth. But the soul-shivering thrum of its power had an odd discordance, as if harmonies were falling away from the whole, leaving the remainder ever more unbalanced.
Kiran’s heart gave a great leap. Cara and Melly made it to the gate chamber! They’re severing the labyrinth’s connection to Alathia.
A silent cry of relief burst from Dev. His thoughts became a babble of alive alive they’re alive…
Kiran’s own relief died. Melly must be breaking wards as quickly as she could, but Ruslan was too close to finishing his spell. If he forced Marten to cast while any remnant of the connection lingered, countless Alathians would die.
Kiran shoved his urgency at Dev. No time to analyze the ward pattern—break every line you see! I’ll shield us.
Dev responded instantly, lashing out at the wardlines with that strange twist of his mind that Kiran could not duplicate. A blizzard of silver shards sprayed through the air as one line after another shattered. Magefire gouted in lethal, crackling arcs. The strain of holding a shield against the sizzling explosions left Kiran retching, dizzy. He sucked down a ragged breath and concentrated harder.
The wards’ inferno died. Dev yanked Kiran forward and kicked open the doors.
Ruslan’s workroom had become a glittering garden of silver. Spell channels were incised on the floor, the walls, even the domed ceiling. Mikail stood within a ring of channels that pulsed scarlet with contained power, his hands outspread and his face remote with concentration.
Marten was on his knees beside the great obsidian block of Ruslan’s anchor stone. His wrists were shackled to the stone’s smooth top. The flesh revealed by the tatters of his uniform was unwounded but streaked with clotted blood, the dim flicker of his ikilhia twisting wildly against the dark, cruel thorns of a binding spell. Ruslan crouched beside him, casting to lay the final lines of silver connecting his spell pattern to the labyrinth’s arched gate.
Get Marten away from the anchor stone! From what Kiran had seen of the channels, Marten must touch the stone to cast with the labyrinth.
Dev struck at Marten’s shackles, but Ruslan leaped forward to block the blow with his own body. Dev’s strike slammed Ruslan backward into the anchor stone; Kiran heard the crack of breaking bone. The channels surrounding Mikail burned bright as Ruslan pulled power to heal himself.
Kiran hastily scanned the lines covering the floor, comparing the pattern to the vision the ssarez-kai had shown him. The channels that shaped and controlled the demon realm barrier would have been added by Ruslan after the ssarez-kai’s last sight of the gate. He must identify the newly laid lines—
Ruslan jumped for Marten again. Dev struck first, sending Ruslan spinning aside. He broke one shackle open and focused on the other.
Mikail vaulted over glowing channels and tackled Kiran, knocking him to the floor and dragging Dev down with him. Kiran thrashed, desperate to avoid Mikail’s bared knife. He couldn’t strike with magefire, Ruslan’s old will-binding rising to inhibit him from casting so close to Dev, and Mikail brushed aside Kiran’s attempts to pierce his inner barriers as if Kiran were as weak as Teo.
Dev yelled and shoved. Mikail rolled with the blow and caught Kiran’s belt, yanking him closer. His eyes met Kiran’s, his knife poised to strike at Kiran’s heart.
“Don’t,” Kiran gasped. “Mikail.” With poison so thick in the aether, such a wound would mean his death when his barriers fell.
Mikail’s knife flicked out, stabbing not at Kiran but the strip of cloth binding his wrist to Dev’s. Kiran jerked his arm aside, but not fast enough. The blade severed cloth and sank deep into Dev’s forearm.
Mikail dropped the knife and hauled Kiran bodily away from Dev. Kiran snatched in a desperate reach. His fingers slid along Dev’s blood-slicked arm and caught Dev’s wrist. Kiran’s own arm burned with Dev’s pain; power poured between them, and Dev’s wound closed.
Dev’s next strike sent Mikail flying. But beside the labyrinth’s gate, Ruslan stood, channels finished. Scarlet fire raced over gleaming silver, turning the entire pattern a deep, vicious red.
Ruslan raised triumphant hands, and a shaft of brilliant white light stabbed from the anchor stone through the arch of the gate. A shock of connection blasted through the aether. The bridge of light turned the same midnight-dark indigo as the labyrinth’s heart.
Kiran frantically scanned the awakened channels. Where was the barrier spell anchored? Not there—not there, either—
Marten yelled, hoarse and desperate, “Dev, forget the shackle. Strike me!”
Ruslan cast a tightly controlled lance of magic at Kiran’s amulet, spearing straight through Kiran’s attempt to block him. The charm sparked wild on Kiran’s chest, its pattern weakening, energies about to fray free.
Dev hesitated, torn: strike at Ruslan and protect Kiran, or go for Marten—
“Hit Marten!” Kiran shouted. The labyrinth’s connection to Alathia had thinned to a thread, but even a thread was enough to take thousands of lives.
Dev struck. Marten’s head snapped backward. His eyes rolled up to the whites, and he slumped against the anchor stone’s side.
Ruslan abandoned his attack on Kiran’s amulet. Magic burst from his ikilhia to crawl over Marten’s body. A healing spell; Marten gasped, his eyes flying open. Ruslan hauled Marten up and shoved him against the anchor stone.
“Cast!” he commanded.
Marten screamed in denial, but the black spines of the binding stabbed deep into his soul. His hands rose to grip the anchor stone’s edges, and his dim ikilhia reached through the anchor stone to touch the bridge—
Dev struck again with every ounce of force he could muster. Marten’s head slammed forward into the broken shackle’s jagged edge.
His body convulsed and went limp, his ikilhia collapsing down to the barest of embers. As he fell, the last vestige of the labyrinth’s connection to Alathia withered into nothingness. Melly and Cara had succeeded at last.
Ruslan spat a vicious phrase in his native tongue, his ikilhia flaring bright enough to blind. He kicked Marten’s unconscious body aside and turned, his hazel eyes locking with Kiran’s.
“Did you wish my full attention, akhelysh? Be assured; now you have it.”
Magic slammed into Kiran, wrenching him away from Dev. A wall of flame roared up to encircle him. Kiran’s amulet spat sparks, the metal searing his chest.
He tore at the circle of magefire, struggling to damp or divert the energies. Beyond, Mikail had recovered his bloodstained knife to stalk Dev with cold, patient dedication.
Ruslan planted his hands on the anchor stone. The bridge of light remained, though the song of the energies beyond the gate was quiet, the waterfall of fire faded to a pastel shimmer.
Strain marked the golden planes of Ruslan’s face, and the muted song of the labyrinth’s magic abruptly heightened. The ground trembled. The vast tides of the confluence erupted, seething and roiling in a way Kiran hadn’t felt since Vidai’s attacks on Ninavel.
Kiran understood the cause, all too well. Ruslan was casting to reanchor the labyrinth into Ninavel’s confluence. Sinking roots deep, preparing to draw on that enormous reservoir of magic without the need for the intermediary of channels to control it.
Fear rose in an icy wave to steal Kiran’s breath. With the full power of Ninavel’s confluence at Ruslan’s command, he would smash Kiran’s amulet’s warding as easily as cracking an eggshell. Kiran would be left utterly helpless, bound by the mark-bond’s imperative.
So he must use these last moments of freedom well. Kiran blocked out the roar of the flames surrounding him, shut his eyes against the sight of Dev narrowly dodging a ferocious slash of Mikail’s knife, and concentrated on the glowing channels spiraling over the workroom.
There. A knot of lines that pulsed with a darker, more dissonant energy than the rest, and had no match in his memory.
“Dev!” Kiran shouted.
Dev turned, even as Mikail leaped for him.
Kiran ripped the amulet from his neck. His bond with Dev flared into sudden life; Dev shoved back Mikail with a snarling laugh. Kiran drew as much power as he dared control and fashioned a wind in the aether that swept the room temporarily clear of the labyrinth’s poison.
But deep in Kiran’s mind, the mark-bond woke. Ruslan was still finishing his casting, his will bound up in the spell, but Kiran felt Ruslan’s startlement and triumph.
He had bare instants left to act. He sent Dev a single urgent image of the channels he’d identified. Strike here!
Panting, bleeding, Dev obeyed. Magefire boiled up from shattered silver. Mikail shouted in alarm, fighting to contain the energies before the entire pattern exploded into lethal backlash.
An avalanche of sensation blasted into Kiran’s mind. Ruslan’s barrier had fallen; the demon realm was once more only a step away.
Ruslan’s will crushed Kiran’s. Compelled by silent command, Kiran threw his amulet aside. The charm arced through the flames surrounding him to land beside Marten’s limp body. Kiran’s every muscle was locked, his mind cut off from casting as utterly as if he were nathahlen. He couldn’t even reach Dev; Ruslan had blocked the blood-bond.
The Labyrinth of Flame (The Shattered Sigil Book 3) Page 60