He wished he had learned more about the spawn, though. Maybe he would have known . . .
Trains crashed in his head as he considered what he did know about Umber’s kind—specifically, as he recalled Umber’s warnings when Hansa had summoned him to the jail cell.
Hansa had demanded a third boon. He had sealed it. Just before they stepped into the Abyss.
Mm-hmm, Umber said. He excused himself from the others and returned to Hansa’s side.
“This . . . isn’t going to go away.” Hansa resisted the urge to look at Umber because he didn’t trust himself if he did, but he desperately hoped the other man was about to snicker and call him an idiot. Just as long as he told him he was wrong.
The third boon creates a bond, Umber reminded him. It’s permanent—or at least, as permanent as your life. I’ve yet to find anyone who checked to see if it carried over to the afterlife.
Much as Hansa hated having the spawn talk in his head, he preferred not to have Cadmia and Xaz overhear this particular conversation, so he responded the same way. So what does that mean, really?
It means . . . it means, in many ways you are lucky. Hansa snickered at the absurdity, but Umber continued undaunted. I wasn’t making idle threats before. I’ve seen bonds that destroy both parties. I’ve seen soulbonds where the submissive party weeps whenever his master’s attention turns elsewhere and would starve if his master didn’t force him to eat. I’ve seen bonds go so mad they had to be locked away. You’re obviously still capable of thinking, and just as obviously not terrified of my displeasure, so all things considered, you’re lucky.
Lucky.
“Bastard,” Hansa mumbled. “Lucky?”
“Yes, lucky,” Umber insisted, replying aloud in response to Hansa doing the same. “In addition to everything else I just said, you could have been flesh-bound to someone who didn’t find you attractive, or wasn’t attracted to men at all.”
He couldn’t help but notice Cadmia’s startled glance his way. She immediately looked forward again, but this time Hansa was too focused on his own concerns to follow her conversation with Alizarin. Umber hooked an arm around his waist, guiding them both further away for privacy.
“I’m not attracted to men,” Hansa snarled. “Doesn’t that matter at all?”
Umber lifted a brow, as if he might have the nerve to point out that there had been moments that brought that assertion into question. Hansa remembered once more the factious teasing with Jenkins that had once caused them both to be censured, and Ruby’s resigned—but unsurprised—expression as she walked out on him for the last time, saying only, I won’t tell.
Instead, the spawn said, “Power easily and often overrides preference. You should know that from all the mancers you’ve arrested.”
“You’re thrilled about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m not exactly weeping,” Umber admitted.
“I’m not an animal,” Hansa said. “I have self-control. I don’t care what power says. I’m not—” At that point, he remembered Umber’s arm around his waist. He removed it and took a step away. “I despise you. I will never sleep with you. Do you understand that?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Son of a bitch,” Hansa spat, though even the epithet lacked the strength of anger. Talking wasn’t what he wanted in that moment, and since Umber tended to read his mind, he had to know that.
“I’m not lucky,” Hansa said. “I can’t think. I can be useful—I should be able to be useful. I’m a trained soldier. But I can’t focus long enough to contribute to any kind of plan or even to . . . to . . .” He lost the thought. This would be easier if Umber had a shirt on. He had taken it off to use as bandaging for Cadmia’s wounds the day before.
Hansa remembered that moment, when he knew he should have offered help, should have been standing guard, should have at least cared that Cadmia was clearly dying—but could only stare at the skin Umber revealed.
“You sealed the bond over twelve hours ago,” Umber said, his tone conversational despite Hansa’s turmoil. “The fact that you’re still rational enough to notice you’re impaired is remarkable. I suspect you’re one of those people who has a natural potential for power. That would explain your success in the One-Twenty-Six and why Antioch found you an attractive replacement for his mancer.”
Hansa hadn’t thought to ask Umber about that confrontation, though he’d had plenty of questions at the time.
“Rational enough,” he echoed. “I can’t live like this. If we make it back to Kavet, how can I possibly function?”
“That’s an ‘if’ I’m not certain of at all,” Umber said, sounding concerned for the first time in the conversation. His gaze and tone sharpened and he said, “The four coins of the Abyss are blood, fire, pain, and flesh. Some of the bonds form in emotion or thought, which is what makes them so devastating, but a fleshbond is simple. It wants power. It will steal your reason if it needs to, but if you keep it satiated, it will leave you alone. Right now it’s starving, so it’s directing all your attention to the source of its desired meal.”
Hansa blinked at him, trying to decipher the long string of words, half of which had been lost in a vivid, unwanted image of what Umber had looked like sprawled on Hansa’s couch. He wanted to be angry, to yell and blame the spawn, but unfortunately he wasn’t yet stupid enough to believe this was anyone’s fault but his own. He thought he had understood the others saying his hysteria and demand for the third boon had been coerced by the Numini. Given the way their lives seemed to be going, he wouldn’t be surprised if someone said the Numini had even put Rose into that jail cell to give him information about how to demand a second boon. But he had to accept responsibility for what he could, and that many of the decisions he made were his own. He had started on this path willingly, despite every Quin teaching and Kavet law warning him that any step toward sorcery was a slippery slope to the bottom.
He was at the bottom now.
Umber gave up waiting for a response, and rephrased in simpler terms. “The bond wants its flesh. The more you try to ignore it, the more insistent it grows. Like this.”
He leaned forward; Hansa saw the movement, but had no will to pull away. Umber kissed him, almost chastely, but the brief contact was enough to derail any futile attempt at logic and make his knees weak. Umber had to catch him around the waist.
“Ruby,” he protested, though he knew it was stupid even as he said it. Even if they were able to bring her back, even if their relationship hadn’t been over before she killed herself, and even if she forgave him for practicing black magic to save her—doubtful—she would never accept his allying with the mancer and Abyssi responsible for her brother’s death.
“I know I’ve screwed up,” he whispered, “but I want . . . I do hope I can recover . . . something. I had accepted that Ruby and I weren’t going to work out before she—hurt herself, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the kind of life I wanted. It isn’t just the Quinacridone talking, saying that this, with you—” He broke off, and tried again. “Quin, Napthol, Order, mancer. It isn’t a matter of ‘religion’ or ‘morality’ at this point. I want a life. I want to be able to have a family. I want . . .” Numen, he wanted to wrap his arms around the Abyssi-spawn and kiss the line that had formed between his brows as Hansa spoke.
“Hansa . . .” Umber looked away. “I’m not a jealous lover. I feel no possessiveness over you, beyond the need to keep you safe because you are my bond. I am going, to the best of my ability, to try not to interfere with your life.”
“So, what?” Hansa asked. “You propose that I just roll over and leave your bed in the morning to go back to my wife?”
Again, that look. “No, I propose that, whatever I do, you are not going to have the perfect Quin life. Whether or not you were manipulated into it, the bond remains. At the very least you will need to take prec
autions to avoid sighted guards noticing Abyssal power on you. And as I said before, power will have its way no matter what you prefer. If you try to ignore the bond and the power gets desperate, in addition to me, you might find yourself drawn to subgroups like the spawn, maybe Abyssumancers or Abyssi outright. You can’t afford to respond to a call for the One-Twenty-Six and find yourself dazzled like a schoolboy by your target.”
Abyssumancers had given that as their excuse more than once when Hansa arrested them: the power needs this. It needs blood. It needs pain. Some of the younger ones still seemed horrified by the appalling things they had done in the name of their magic. Hansa had never understood.
He understood now.
“You’re right,” Umber said. “Part of what makes Abyssumancers so dangerous is that even the best-intentioned of their lot lose any moral compass when their power makes a demand. The boon has more specific needs, so it has no reason to push you to the kind of abuse a mancer may commit, but if you deny its demands, it can strip you down until you lose all reason. Maybe you would rather let yourself get to that state so you can absolve yourself of all responsibility. Personally, I hope you’ll make a decision early enough that you’re still capable of giving consent. As I’ve assured you before, I am not interested in rape.”
Hansa flinched from the coarse word, the last of a series of truths he wished he could refute.
“Do you want to go back to the others now?” Umber asked, leaving the other option gently unspoken.
Hansa fought to organize his thoughts, to exercise some form of logic.
I despise you. I will never sleep with you. Those words, spoken in anger and fear and defensiveness, now gave him a barb of guilt. How many men, half-Abyssi or not, would have disregarded Hansa’s countless jabs and insults and still attempted to be decent in this situation?
He couldn’t find the words he needed. He believed Umber, but didn’t know how to say yes. Especially here. Now. “I can’t,” he said, not answering the question Umber had asked aloud, but the other one, the implied one. “Not with Cadmia and Xaz only a few paces away and an Abyssi who might be inclined to jump in. I . . . just can’t.” There were so many other things wrapped up in that can’t, but Umber nodded, accepting either the reasons he had stated aloud or the dozens of others swirling scattered in his thoughts. “If we were alone . . .” If Xaz and the others hadn’t been around, the question would already have been decided.
“I can’t promise privacy anytime soon.” Umber didn’t sound like he was pushing Hansa to change his mind, just reminding him of one of the many complications they faced.
Hansa swallowed his squeamishness. “I’m not saying no to you.” The words heated his face, but he continued, because he hated that ugly word Umber had used and it was important to get this out in case he couldn’t say it later. “I’m saying no to the situation. If we ever get somewhere where we’re alone, or if I get to the point where I’m not able to make a decision on my own any more, you have a yes.”
Umber’s smile was wistful, with none of his usual cavalier derision. That was good; if he had made a smart quip in response to Hansa’s struggling to give him the consent he claimed to care about, Hansa would probably have punched him.
“We should get back to the others,” Umber said. Hansa tensed as the spawn reached for him, but Umber said, “Some touch is better than none. Little bits of power may tide you over until the situation changes. Being here in the Abyss helps, too; the power in the air isn’t quite what your body needs, but it’s close, like bread for a man who needs meat. It will fill your stomach a while.”
How long was a while? Long enough for them to get this ridiculous boon out of the way and get back to the mortal realm? Unless his luck drastically changed course, it seemed more likely a descent into madness would find him first.
CHAPTER 28
Cadmia sighed, momentarily luxuriating in the feeling of a full belly and a comfortable spot to sit.
Once she overcame her initial hesitation, the strange food Alizarin had provided proved satisfying. The odd, spiked fruit was a deep purple, segmented inside a little like an orange, but with a flavor more akin to whiskey. She expected it to leave her parched, but the juice soothed her dry throat. The meat—which they ate raw because even Alizarin could not make a fire from bare sand and the scattered shells let off a greasy, smoky flame that made them all cough—had the soft-grained texture of high-grade tuna, and was delicious as long as she could put the image of the slimy, sharp-toothed orange-and-yellow snake it came from out of her mind.
She ate lounging against Alizarin’s side the way she had once sprawled on the large throw pillows that filled her mother’s parlor—except this “pillow” was warm, vibrated with energy, and was firm underneath a layer of the softest fur she had ever touched.
“You would make a good Abyssi,” Alizarin declared, tapping her knee with his tail to punctuate his point.
When Cadmia had first woken tucked against the Abyssi’s chest, she had frozen, caught by too many dissonant sensations: the long-missed familiarity of having a man’s body next to her after a decade spent sleeping alone, the exotic feel of soft fur over hard muscle, and the trepidation that filled her as she remembered where she was and who—what—she lay against.
Before she could decide what to do, her stomach had rumbled. The sound woke Alizarin, who stretched unselfconsciously, seeming not to notice the way doing so made Cadmia’s breath hitch, and asked, “Do you need food?”
That brought them to here and now.
“Thank you,” she said, because the words seemed intended as praise. “Why do you say so?”
“You take pleasure in things when you have them,” he said.
“She thinks too much to be an Abyssi,” Xaz remarked.
Alizarin paused to consider the comment, which made Cadmia say, “Alizarin thinks a great deal, too.” It was not her first attempt to get Alizarin to confirm if all Abyssi were so different than she had been taught, or if he was atypical for his kind. Of everyone she had come to the Abyss with, he was most open to her curiosity, but he tended to deflect direct questions about himself.
Hansa and Umber returned at that moment, though. Hansa walked with an arm around Umber’s waist, but seemed unable to make eye contact with the rest of them.
Growing up with Cinnabar and other men in the Order of A’hknet who were open to male bed partners had left Cadmia jaded to such relations, but Quin were unequivocal in their opinion. Hansa would have been raised believing men were only attracted to other men out of some perverse, selfish obsession that focused their lust on others like themselves instead of “proper” partners. It wasn’t easy to set a lifetime of indoctrination aside.
But sometimes it’s worth it, she thought, considering the way she had once walked away from the Order of A’hknet, where education and study were generally considered a waste of time, and embraced a path of learning.
Umber joined their circle and helped himself to food enthusiastically, seeming undisturbed by its form. Hansa leaned against Umber, picking mechanically at what he was offered as if he didn’t see or taste any of it.
Now that everyone was accounted for, it was time to turn their minds to what they needed to do next.
“We obviously need a new plan,” Cadmia said once the men were settled.
She hated the thought of abandoning the lost guards in the Abyss, but it would be foolish to stay longer than necessary to try to save them. Assuming Antioch was the only dangerous foe they might face, or that he wouldn’t return, were gambles they couldn’t take. It also seemed clear that Umber and Hansa couldn’t afford to pursue any path that didn’t fulfill the boon.
“What exactly do we need to accomplish?” she asked. She thought she understood the gist of their need, but it seemed so silly that one way to accomplish the task was to decide it couldn’t be done.
Hansa and Umber exchanged a heavy look, the guard looking lost and overwhelmed, and Umber contemplative. “We need to either find someone who can resurrect Ruby, or find someone with the authority to say for sure that it can’t be done,” Umber summarized. “According to the Numini, that means finding this Terre Verte fellow.”
Cadmia’s skin crawled as she imagined another mancer, a stranger, walking in and restoring Ruby to life. Despite her current alliance with Alizarin, Xaz, and Umber, it was hard to picture raising the dead without horror. She couldn’t remember how she had justified it to herself during that surreal hour when she had gone to Hansa to get him to help his once-fiancée.
“And Numini can’t lie?” she asked. The others nodded, and Cadmia mentally checked off another bit of information she had learned via speculation and rumor.
“Could they have misled you about this man’s powers?” she asked Xaz. “I know Others can’t lie, but did they say outright he can do this, or did they just hint at it or tell you to tell us that?”
Xaz paused, seeming to run the conversation through her mind. “They said it outright,” she decided after a minute.
“Do we have any leeway?” She needed to understand this situation with the bond and the boon better in order to address the problem rationally. “How is this boon enforced?”
“Fighting against the boon is . . . unpleasant.” Umber’s words were dry and vague, but Hansa’s grimace suggested the magic’s reaction was fairly immediate. “I’ve tried to fight a sealed boon before. It’s a little like slitting a wrist then trying to row a boat.”
Dramatic image.
“You have another bond?” Hansa asked.
“Priorities, Quin.” Xaz’s cue wasn’t as sharp as usual. Cadmia could still see the tension of guilt in her face, probably as she considered her role in bringing them to this point.
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