“From Jesral’s grove to the one on the coast of the southern continent,” I said, “then immediately to the one where Mzatal brought me when he was going to remove Rhyzkahl’s mark.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment and silently relayed my message while I fidgeted and waited impatiently for the reply.
It had only been a little over six months since Mzatal had succeeded in summoning me against my will from Earth, but the time before then seemed like a completely different life. And in a lot of ways it was. Back then I thought I had some sort of real agreement with Rhyzkahl, believed he had honor, even if self-serving. My eyes were forced open by his treachery—the evidence of which covered my torso in hideously beautiful scars, sigils Rhyzkahl had carved onto me with Xhan, his own essence blade.
Everything changed that day. I wasn’t the same person anymore. Couldn’t be. Not and survive to protect those around me.
Ilana laid a gentle three-fingered hand on my shoulder. “He is anchoring the strands in the plexus now. I will bring him.” She vanished before I could thank her.
The itch to do something intensified with the waiting, but I ruthlessly shoved down the impulse to make the transfer to the distant grove and do some preliminary recon. Instead, I pygahed—mentally tracing the soothing pygah sigil in an effort to gain calm and aid concentration.
Nope, still antsy. The purely mental version of the pygah was a great way to quickly chill, but I wanted and needed every scrap of focus I could muster. With fluid motion, I traced the glowing sigil in the air before me and breathed in the energy. Instantly, I felt my tension ease. Yeah, that was the good stuff.
Echoes of the four recent travelers remained, but attempts to sense beyond the boundaries of the other grove failed. Like reaching an island and being able to walk every inch of it, yet unable to see anything beyond its shores but foggy sea.
My scars tingled as I felt Xhan, and a shudder ran through me. I knew without a doubt that Rhyzkahl held the rakkuhr-tainted essence blade even now. Millennia ago, Mzatal created the three blades—Khatur, Xhan, and Vsuhl—for himself, Rhyzkahl, and Szerain. For ages the triumvirate held unshakable dominion over the demon realm.
Something happened to break up their little power bloc, but I had yet to put the pieces of that puzzle together.
Ilana appeared before me with Mzatal. Elegant and broad-shouldered, he had lustrous black hair woven into a thick complex braid that hung to the small of his back. His eyes—piercing silver-grey set in a face with an oriental cast—met mine, while both his expression and his aura radiated dark intensity.
“We have to go now,” I urged as he moved to me, but instead of agreeing he dropped to a crouch and wrapped his hands around my knee.
“Some repair first, zharkat,” he said, and I felt his focus like a flow of warmth over me as he assessed my injuries. “I have sent word to Elofir and await his confirmation that he has readied his plexus chamber for monitoring our activities and those of the Mraztur.” Elofir, another of the eleven demonic lords, was a frequent visitor and one with whom Mzatal was damn near friendly.
“I’m okay,” I insisted. “I can walk. We don’t want to lose them.” Though even as I said it, I had to admit that being mobile was way smarter.
Unruffled, he lifted his head, fixed his eyes on mine. “Precisely. With your information, Elofir may well be able to isolate Idris’s strand and lock onto it. Invaluable in the event we do not recover him now,” he explained.
It was what we’d been seeking for months, yet every time we grew close, the Mraztur used the vile potency rakkuhr to thwart our efforts, and moved Idris—much like how I’d used the arcane-nullifying cuff on Earth to avoid being summoned to the demon realm. For Mzatal to leave such an important task to Elofir spoke volumes of the trust he placed in the other demonic lord. Trust, or an airtight agreement.
Searing heat blossomed in my knee and thigh as Mzatal worked an intense and rapid healing. I sucked in a breath, bit down on a curse as he shifted his hands to my arm and eased the pain of the gash.
A syraza passed overhead, made a tight circle then swooped down to land gracefully. Steeev, whose name—with the drawn out eee sound—had quite amused me the first time I heard it. Slightly larger than Eilahn, he crouched beside her and waited silently for Mzatal to finish his work on me. A few seconds later Gestamar swept down and settled behind Mzatal. Our strike team, ready to go.
A message sigil of glowing gold and amber appeared beside us, and I recognized a twist of potency at the bottom as Elofir’s signature. Mzatal lifted one hand from my arm and touched the sigil, but a heartbeat later his implacable intensity degraded into a dark scowl. He dissipated the sigil with a violent sweep of his arm. “He has isolated Idris, but there is interference again, and he cannot get a lock.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, flexing my knee experimentally. “We go as is?”
Mzatal stroked his hand over my arm in a final gesture of healing, then stood, traced out a message and sent it off. “We have no other option. If we can determine the source of the interference and eliminate it, Elofir may still be successful.”
“But if we get Idris back now, it’s a moot point, right?”
He took my hand, strode toward the center of the grove with long strides that made me thankful my knee only muttered now rather than screamed. “You are correct,” he said. “Having a link to him through a strand lock is valuable should he slip from us. Best to assure he does not.” He released my hand and prepared to make the potency offering to the grove, then stopped and looked to me. “It is more expedient if you make the transfer.”
Right. Other than myself, only the lords and the demahnk could activate the grove transportation. However, the grove required no offering from me—yet another part of my lord-confounding grove connection.
I gripped his hand again, found the destination we sought, then asked the grove to take our group there.
The trees around us shifted subtly in position. Different trees, different grove. Soft light of an overcast sky filtered through the purple and green leaves, and warm, humid air carried an acrid tinge.
Mzatal lifted his chin, assessing the area nearby for signs of activity. A heartbeat later his grip tightened on my hand, and he strode toward the tree tunnel, anger flashing in his eyes.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I tried to keep up.
Vehemence laced the word as he spoke it. “Ritual.”
“Wait!” I tugged him to a stop halfway down the tunnel while Eilahn, Steeev, and Gestamar continued on. “We need a plan,” I told him. “Or at least I need a plan since I can’t go in throwing potency spikes.”
Mzatal laid his free hand against my cheek. “Forgive me, beloved,” he said. “You are correct. Steeev has gone to gather what information he can, but while we wait for his return I can share what I have assessed of this.” He caressed my grimy cheek with his thumb. “Rhyzkahl and Jesral are with Idris, approximately ten miles from here, and are stationary. The other you sensed but could not identify is Katashi.”
Isumo Katashi. Once Mzatal’s marked summoner, and now a traitorous ally of the Mraztur. And no way had they walked ten miles in the few minutes since they arrived, which meant either Jesral’s ptarl agreed to provide transport or they had syraza with them. The demahnk could teleport multiple people long distances, while a mature syraza had the ability to make short teleportation hops with a single person. Now I understood why Mzatal had asked Steeev to come with us. “What kind of ritual?”
He took my hand again and continued down the tree tunnel. “It is odd. I sense a nexus that should not be here, and therefore suspect they have located a natural potency confluence and created a rudimentary nexus.” A nexus was a focal point of power—like a massive arcane generator that could supercharge a ritual laid atop it. Mzatal’s eyes went briefly distant as he continued to monitor. “A dual ritual.” His mouth tightened. “Possibly to conduct an Earth transfer.”
To send Idris to Earth. Far
easier to hide him there. “And they developed a nexus out here to keep you from finding out what they were up to,” I noted.
We stepped out of the tree tunnel, and the source of the acrid tang became apparent. The grove stood in the center of a charred area the size of a football field. Though verdant rainforest hugged the perimeter, not a single blade of grass or touch of color broke the blacks and grays of the sea of ash. Remnants of potency writhed on its surface like dying worms, and a graceful pavilion of pale stone columns glimmered at the fringe, as if uncovered by whatever had nuked the forest.
Could this be a remnant of the cataclysm? A few hundred years earlier, a summoner by the name of Elinor had performed a ritual with the demonic lord Szerain. For reasons still unknown, the ritual collapsed and global catastrophic destruction ensued—earthquakes, volcanoes, rains of fiery acid, tsunamis, you name it. Moreover, the ways between the demon realm and Earth slammed shut and had remained so until early in Earth’s twentieth century.
But I had a personal stake in all that ancient history. During the ritual, Szerain stabbed Elinor with the essence blade Vsuhl, killed her, and trapped her essence in the blade—again, for reasons still unknown. Yet somehow, a chunk of her memories and emotions latched on to my own essence, and during my first months in the demon realm I experienced a number of odd dreams and weird déjà vu experiences, all of which stopped when I retrieved Vsuhl. Perhaps coincidence, but still, another mystery amongst so many others.
I’d been around remnants of the cataclysm before. At Szerain’s palace a crater the size of a small city lay not far to the northeast, and a rift still spewed gouts of arcane flame. In Rhyzkahl’s realm, part of a mountain range looked as if a planet-devouring monster had taken a ragged bite. But the devastation before me now felt newer . . . and disquietingly familiar.
I licked dry lips. “What happened here?”
Mzatal’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly on my hand, but he remained silent.
I searched his face. “Mzatal? What is it?”
“It is a flash burn,” he said quietly, focus remaining straight ahead.
I swept my gaze around again. Freshly disturbed ash nearby marked where Rhyzkahl and those with him had passed. Centuries-old char would surely have settled more. “This didn’t happen all that long ago,” I observed.
“No. Not long. Months.” Mzatal’s gaze followed Gestamar as the reyza leapt into flight.
I took in the magnitude of the destruction, felt the ripples of arcane residue, unable to deny that it felt like . . . “Mzatal?” My voice quavered for an instant before I controlled it. “Tell me what happened here.”
He continued to watch Gestamar. “I caused it. I unleashed flash potency.”
I stared at him, shocked and baffled. “Why?”
Mzatal’s eyes dropped to mine. “Because when you escaped me and used the grove to flee to Rhyzkahl, I . . .” He paused, jaw tightening. “Rather than taking you by force from the reyza Pyrenth, I retreated. I lost you not only due to your cleverness, but because of my adherence to agreements subsequently ignored by Rhyzkahl.” Remembered pain flashed silver in his eyes. “I vented my rage.”
I shifted close and rested my cheek against his chest. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.
Mzatal wrapped his arms around me. “I cannot allow myself to lose control thus again.”
I sensed the turmoil within him, held him close. “I will try very hard not to be so unspeakably clever again.”
A quick laugh escaped him, and I felt some of the tension ease away. “Impossible,” he said, then cradled my face between his hands and kissed me.
I returned the kiss and did my best to conceal how gobsmacked I was at the amount of power it must have required to wreak this much devastation, pushed down the quick flare of Holy shit, I’m dating a demigod, what the hell?
“Well, if this demonic lord gig doesn’t work out for you,” I said with a smile, “I can hire you out to clear cropland.”
Amusement touched his mouth. “An interesting proposition, zharkat.”
“Just something to keep in mind.”
Chapter 2
A touch like a brush of leaves caressed me as the grove activated. “Someone’s coming,” I told Mzatal, then scowled. “Amkir.” One of the Mraztur. King of the assholes.
Mzatal growled a curse. “He will be a thorn in our side if we do not turn him away now.”
“Then we’d best kick his ass quickly so we can get on with our business,” I advised with a tight smile.
“Agreed.” His expression darkened with annoyance over the distraction. With me at his side, he strode toward the stand of white-trunked trees. Ten yards from the grove he stopped, took a wide stance and coalesced a glowing ball of potency in his right palm.
I prepared to trace the sigils and direct the flows that would augment his attack, should it come to that. I no longer traced a standard summoner support diagram to feed him potency. We’d become a team, unique, communicating without words or even direct thought, in more of a unified awareness. All of the qaztahl—demonic lords—lacked the ability to create portals, and so I was able to supply those aspects, along with touches of grove energy. As he formed either attack or defense, I wove in flows, added my tweaks, and together we created pure awesomeness.
Amkir emerged from the tree tunnel trailed by a syraza and a venerable-looking reyza. I knew—or at least was pretty sure—we didn’t have to worry about the two demons since they all tended to stay out of any direct conflict with the demonic lords. Sometimes the demons would fight amongst themselves for their “side,” though I had yet to figure out the dynamics, and their explanations of the rules left me baffled. It was easiest to let them do their thing and not try to make sense of it.
Hard-faced, with dark eyes and a slightly olive complexion, Amkir came to a sharp halt at the sight of Mzatal. His confident smirk slipped into a scowl, but then he lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. “I have no business with you, Mzatal.”
Mzatal’s aura flared with menace. He swept his hand up to send potency in a scintillating veil to block the entrance to the tree tunnel. “If you travel with your syraza to your allies,” he snarled the word, “I will hunt you, and I will hurt you.”
The native potency flowed around us, appearing in my othersight as rivulets of varicolored light that spider-webbed through a faintly luminescent mist. I chose the strands I needed and called them to me, then wove them into enhancements for our shield, smiling in fierce satisfaction as the arcane barrier settled solidly into place. Mzatal wasn’t about to let Amkir retreat only to return once we’d gone for Idris.
Amkir glowered and clenched his fists at his sides. He knew Mzatal could and would carry out his threat. “Why block the grove then? Do you wish to entertain yourself and your slut by attacking me with no provocation?” His disdainful gaze slid to me, then back to Mzatal. “Or does she revel in carnage? Do the screams of others make her wet?”
Mzatal slowly opened his right hand. I felt the power build. “You will agree to depart and not return to this hemisphere for half a day,” he stated.
Amkir dropped his eyes to Mzatal’s hand and he took a step back, fear marring his expression for an instant before Totally Pissed Off took its place. “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “I will depart for half a day if you agree to stay any attack on me.”
“You will depart via the grove within fifty-five heartbeats,” Mzatal pronounced as he continued to draw power. “You will not return to this hemisphere for half a day. Unless you take aggressive action, I will stay any attack on you for fifty-five heartbeats, beginning . . . now.”
“Agreed,” Amkir snapped, clearly not happy that the countdown had already begun. “I will depart and pass my time imagining myself deeply buried in your chikdah.”
Oh, dude, did you ever say the wrong thing. Mzatal was already in a pissy mood, plus he had a few minutes to kill while we waited for Steeev.
Looked like he was going to kill more than time.
Okay, maybe just damage. A lot.
“Well worth imagining,” Mzatal said, “and a pleasure you will never have.”
Amkir didn’t seem to notice that Mzatal had yet to drop the shield, and I allowed myself a silent chortle. I knew damn well Mzatal had fully intended to allow Amkir to leave—right up until the point the scowly-faced lord made his chikdah comment, a word which translated best as “cunt.”
Feeling safe for the remainder of the countdown, Amkir turned his gaze on me and licked his lips. “When you are with Rhyzkahl again, I will have my time with you, little whore.” I gave him a bored look, which served nicely to rile him up more. “You will beg for the mercy of my cock in your throat rather than all else I have planned for you,” he sneered. With a final smirk, Amkir turned to depart then froze as he realized the shield still blocked the grove entrance. He glanced over his shoulder, a hint of panic in his eyes. “Drop the barrier, Mzatal, and I will depart as agreed.”
“As it is not an attack, it is not included in our agreement,” Mzatal informed him, then narrowed his eyes. “For utter clarity, that which you speak to my zharkat, you speak to me, Amkir.” He uttered the name with dark menace. “Kara Gillian does not beg. Nor do I.” He shaped the potency already gathered, drew in more. “Two heartbeats.”
Amkir spun to face us again and hastily traced protections, but the Oh Fuck look on his face told me he knew they’d be woefully inadequate.
Moving faster than thought, Mzatal swept his hands in a complicated pattern that stripped Amkir’s weak shielding, then followed it with a dazzling blue net of potency that blanketed the hapless lord in crackling arcane bindings.
The syraza stepped back and the old reyza pulled his wings in close as Amkir gave a strangled cry and dropped to his knees. Face contorted in pain, he collapsed to his back, jerking in the glowing net. It was meant to simply hurt him and not damage him, I knew. Well, not long term damage at least. Dumbass. If he’d kept his mouth shut, he could’ve left unscathed.
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