Of the Abyss

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  She released him, and replied to Umber’s offer. “Clearly not.”

  As she sauntered back to the fire, Hansa belatedly realized that her disappointment hadn’t been based on what she had seen when checking him out, but that he hadn’t returned the gesture. She stared into the roaring fire as she said with obviously feigned idleness, “I spent a long time with a beautiful man who would give me anything but flesh. I have no taste for that offer now.” She reached out her hand as if to pet the flames before her.

  “Then we will leave you to your recovery,” Umber said formally. Hansa needed no urging to follow him out.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Numini were displeased. Xaz could feel their disappointment in the needles of ice like frozen rain falling on her skin, and taste it in the salt of the air.

  We did not wish for anyone to be killed.

  Dioxazine had not wished to descend to the lowest level of the Abyss and witness a brutal sacrifice of blood. She had not wished to feel the Numini reach through her in order to act, as if she were nothing more than a tool, with no will of her own.

  She certainly did not wish to be here now, in this world-­between-­worlds, facing their condemnation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said by rote and habit, though frankly, she couldn’t care less. It was their magic holding her here, not hers. She was so tired she would have collapsed if only they would let her.

  We are not pleased.

  “Then maybe you should have done something,” Dioxazine suggested, the arrogant words escaping her.

  We disrupted the Abyssumancer’s power.

  “Long enough for Alizarin to eat him,” Xaz pointed out, too frustrated to be polite and obsequious. “What did you expect the Abyssi to do?’ ”

  Do you mean to chastise us?

  The world around her, a barely real plane much like a mancer’s temple but built by the Numini alone, shuddered with their anger.

  “No, I do not chastise you,” Xaz said, trying to regain her respectful tone. “I just want to know why you are chastising me. I did what you wanted, didn’t I? I helped bring Terre Verte out of his prison.”

  At the cost of a life.

  “The Abyssumancer was killed when he threatened a woman sworn to the Napthol, to one of you,” Xaz tried to reason.

  We had plans for him.

  Again, her temper ran away with her. “If you love him so much, get your witch to resurrect him. Terre Verte is supposed to be able to do things like that, isn’t he?”

  The Numen did not answer the question. Instead, they said, We do not care for your tone.

  Xaz drew a deep breath, which burned her lungs with cold. “I apologize if I gave offense. I am very tired, and my words are poorly chosen.”

  Mortal excuses are not within our purview.

  “Perhaps, but they are my limitation,” Xaz sighed. “If you allowed me to rest, maybe I would be better able to understand what you want of me.”

  She was so cold, the way only working with the Numini could make her. She had barely even been aware of the events that had transpired after she had cast her spell; it had taken all her concentration to maintain her tenuous connection to the Numen as she descended into the Abyss. She had been pulled partially from her trance when the Numini took note of Cadmia’s predicament, but even then she had not had power to act. The divine had acted through her, using her as a conduit.

  What we wish, the Numini said now, is your genuine repentance.

  “For what?”

  You have vows to us, Numenmancer, they reminded her. You have made agreements with our realm. And yet you scorn our will—­

  This time she snapped, she knew she snapped, and she made no attempt to reign herself in. “I have lived my entire life by your will!” she spat. “I never asked you for favors. You chose me. You made the decision before I was even old enough to walk, though I never in my life wanted—­”

  Your tone, Numenmancer.

  For a heartbeat she hesitated, but it was all too much. “To the Abyss with my tone! I have lived my entire life fearful of all three planes. I have been afraid to disappoint you, afraid to be harmed by the Abyssi, and terrified of coming to the attention of the Quinacridone. I have crawled into the deepest crevice of the infernal realm to do your will, and now you chastise me over something over which I had no control?”

  The world around her twisted with the Numini’s scandalized shock, and Xaz found herself savagely glad.

  Dioxazine, you should—­

  “Go away and let me sleep!”

  As she shouted the last, she pushed with all the power she could find. She made the words into a command, and threw it at the Numini who had held her here.

  The rift the divine creatures had formed shattered.

  Xaz knew she was awake and back in her body, but she couldn’t feel, much less move, her limbs. She struggled to open her eyes; the lids stuck together, the eyelashes fused by ice.

  She let out a moan and became aware of a warm, lightly-­furred hand touching her arm, and a tongue, hot and raspy like a cat’s, licking her cheek.

  Finally she managed to open her eyes and croak, “Alizarin.”

  “I was worried,” the Abyssi leaning over her said softly. “You were cold.”

  “Still cold,” she said, on a difficult breath.

  Alizarin responded by crawling on top of her and licking her cheek again. He lay down and rested his head on her shoulder.

  At first he was painfully hot, and Xaz had to clamp her jaws shut to keep from telling him to go away. Then her body started to warm and remember that it was alive. The feeling returned to her fingers and toes in the form of hot pins and needles, and her chest ached as her heart drew in the icy cold blood that rushed in from her extremities when the veins opened to accept the new warmth.

  At last she started shivering as violently as a woman in the midst of a seizure. Alizarin held her tightly, warming her and keeping her safe until her body lay limp, spent. Then he helped her sit up and handed her a cup of hot broth. She had no idea what was in it, only that it had obviously been sitting on the bedside in hopes of this occasion, heated only by its own power. It burned her tongue, but it thawed the knot of cold left in her belly.

  “How did we get back here?” she asked when she was finally able to look around. They were obviously in one of Naples’ and Azo’s guest suites, though she could remember nothing of the return trip.

  “I opened a rift,” Alizarin replied.

  “From the lowest dungeon of the lowest level of the Abyss?” she asked, skeptically. Then she remembered what had happened just before. “You absorbed Naples’ power.” Alizarin nodded. “How is Azo dealing with his loss?”

  “She is injured, but alive,” Alizarin said. “She refuses to see me.”

  “She won’t be a problem for you, will she?” Xaz asked.

  “Not in handling her, if I must,” Alizarin assured her. “But I do not wish to need to.”

  Xaz rocked herself to her feet and leaned heavily on Alizarin as she walked toward the four-­poster bed she could see through the nearby open doorway. There lay Terre Verte, the sorcerer they had saved—­perhaps.

  “The Numini say he may be weak for a long time, from his captivity,” she said, trying to remember everything the divine others had whispered to her while she was connected to them. “They had wanted Naples to open the rift back to Kavet so Terre Verte wouldn’t need to.” She added, “They wanted a lot of things they didn’t get. I told them off. You did what you did. It was the only thing you could do, and I think it was the right thing. Hopefully our guest will recover fast enough to get us home this century.”

  Home. She realized after she said it that technically, the human plane wasn’t home to Alizarin.

  “He’s stirring.” The man looked completely unconscious to Xaz, but she lacked an Abyssi’s senses.
Alizarin put a hand on Terre Verte’s chest, as if to draw attention to the very slight rise and fall of his breathing. “Maybe he is responding to the power you used to send the Numini away. He didn’t respond to Abyssal power, but yours is different.”

  Terre Verte’s skin was fair and his features were delicate, masculine but finely wrought. His nails were a bit long, but there was evidence that at some point they had been well manicured. Xaz reached out to touch his hand, wondering if she would be able to sense anything about his supposed power. Before she could focus to use her magic, Hansa and Umber walked in.

  “You’re awake.” Hansa sounded surprised but genuinely glad. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, now,” she said. She would tell them the details of her conversation with the Numini later. Right then, she wanted to know what else she had missed. “Is Cadmia all right?”

  “Cadmia is fine,” Umber said. “You saved her life, or the Numini did. She is with Azo at the moment.”

  “And how is the lady of the house?”

  “Azo is . . .” He gave a wry smile. “Her full strength will not quickly return, but she is recovered enough to wish we were willing to share more than blood.”

  “How does she feel about our helping her after we murdered her lover?” That word “we” just slipped out. No one protested. Alizarin had shed Naples’ blood, but they had all been there, and none of them would have stopped him even if they could.

  “It is hard to say.”

  “You two lost a lot of power down there, too,” Xaz said, remembering that Naples had started feeding on them when his own magic wasn’t enough. “Are you all right?”

  Umber raised one brow. “We have ways of raising power.” Hansa blushed. “We’ll be fine. Are you—­”

  “Is he waking up?” Hansa interrupted Umber unapologetically, drawing their attention back to Terre Verte. “I thought I saw his eyelids move.”

  Umber edged forward and put the back of his hand on Terre Verte’s brow. “There is more color in his cheeks, and he’s warmer.”

  Xaz hadn’t seen Terre Verte’s eyes, but she felt his fingers twitch under hers. Remembering what Alizarin said about Terre Verte possibly responding to Numen power, she reached out with a tendril of magic.

  Magical shields slammed up around the rousing sorcerer, knocking Xaz’s breath from her lungs. Umber wrenched his hand back with a start and Alizarin drew away with an instinctive snarl.

  His eyes opened, focused first on Alizarin, then half shut in a momentary flinch. Given where he had been for the past however-­many years, Xaz could only imagine what Terre Verte expected when he opened his eyes and saw an Abyssi hovering over him.

  He controlled himself quickly. As his expression smoothed into one Xaz could best describe as calm arrogance, a soft silver glow returned to his eyes.

  “You’re a Numenmancer?” Xaz asked. Naples had called Terre Verte a Gressumancer, but in that moment the only Abyssal power she sensed on the strange sorcerer was sloughing away from him, remnants of his time spent imprisoned.

  “A what?” He pushed himself to his feet, leaning for a moment on the edge of the bed before he seemed capable of standing on his own.

  “Do you need help?” Hansa reached forward to offer a hand. “You’ve been—­” The cool look Terre Verte gave the guard made it perfectly clear that he knew perfectly well where and how he had been, that he didn’t want to talk about it, and that he equally did not want to accept any help Hansa might give him.

  Then, once again, the expression cleared. He drew a deep breath. “We’re in the Abyss?” he asked.

  “On the surface, in the home of one of the spawn connected to the court,” Umber said.

  Terre Verte looked around, then moved toward the invisible doorway as if he could see or sense it. Though obviously weak, he moved with an authoritative stride, his gaze never lingering on the elegance of the room but rather focused on some goal. When he touched the wall and it opened, he did not seem surprised.

  “How did we get here?”

  “We rescued you,” Xaz said.

  Terre Verte turned around, his gaze searching, penetrating in a way that made Xaz feel as if she were wearing far less than she was.

  At last, he said, “Thank you.” Another moment went by, and he asked, “And who are ‘we’?”

  “Myself,” she answered, “and these are Alizarin, Umber, and Hansa. An Abyssumancer named Naples was with us, and Cadmia, who’s a Sister of the Napthol.”

  She watched him as she spoke the names, wondering if he would recognize any of them, or show surprise that an Abyssi, Abyssumancer or Abyss-­spawn had helped him, or . . . anything. He only looked contemplative again. “And your name?” he asked.

  “Dioxazine.” It was nice to be regarded as a person by someone, instead of “a Numenmancer” who was therefore less important than anyone else in the room, but she wished she knew what was going on behind that carefully controlled expression.

  Despite her unease, his response was the epitome of courtesy. “Dioxazine, I am honored to make your acquaintance. I am Terre Verte. You may address me as Verte, if you like.”

  He said the last bit as if she should be flattered by it.

  “Are you the mistress of this household?”

  A snorting laugh made it out of her before she could try for something more dignified. “Sorry, no.”

  He looked at the others, clearly dismissing Alizarin as someone—­or something—­that could run a household and considering Umber. Before he could ask, Umber said, “I believe Azo and Cadmia have just gone hunting.”

  Xaz’s brows lifted. Cadmia? Hunting? With Azo?

  Hansa of all ­people saw the expression and gave a half smile, half shrug.

  Alizarin started toward the door as if to join Azo and Cadmia, then hesitated in front of Terre Verte, just the tip of his tail twitching with what Xaz recognized as indecision.

  Terre Verte cleared his throat. “I apologize for not greeting you sooner, or thanking you for your role in my release. When I first saw you, I assumed—­it doesn’t matter what I assumed, suffice to say it was based on the experiences I’ve had with Abyssi before now. I am in your debt.”

  Alizarin seemed mollified by the words, but still apparently decided he would stay with the newly risen sorcerer rather than go to his lover.

  “Do you think we could catch up to the ladies before their hunt?” Terre Verte asked. “I would like to introduce myself to the mistress of the household, and express my gratitude that she has opened her home to me during my convalescence.”

  “I would let her hunt, then choose if she wants to introduce herself,” Umber advised. “She may not want to speak with you at all. She was bonded to the Abyssumancer who planned your rescue, and who was killed in the process.”

  If Xaz had expected to see guilt on Terre Verte’s expression, she would have been disappointed. Instead, he paused thoughtfully, then asked, “Since you’ve used the term twice, pray tell, what is an Abyssumancer?”

  He had seemed confused when Xaz asked if he was a Numenmancer, too. “How can you not know what a mancer is?” she asked.

  Terre Verte simply regarded her with polite curiosity, clearly waiting for an explanation.

  “A mancer is—­” She stopped. How to summarize everything she was?

  “I think the term mancer is only used in Kavet.” Hansa spoke carefully. Xaz could hear him mentally editing what he was going to say, which was probably based on what he had been taught. “When we’ve had to speak to foreigners as part of an investigation, most of them know the word sorcerer. I’m not sure if they’re completely interchangeable, but it’s a close enough match they normally know what I’m talking about.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Xaz that Terre Verte might not be from Kavet because his power felt so much like hers. “Are you not from Kavet?” she asked. “Did you
come from somewhere sorcery isn’t condemned?” It was hard to imagine such a place.

  “These . . . mancers . . . aren’t respected in Kavet?” It was the first time he had allowed them to see his surprise. “Why not?”

  “Respected.” Xaz wished it was that simple. Her gaze slid unwittingly to Hansa. “A mancer faces automatic execution if identified and caught.”

  Terre Verte’s lips twisted with disgust. “I think I need to know a bit more about the world into which I’m being rescued.” His hand played idly over the back of the couch, drumming thoughtfully. “And, if sorcery is so reviled, I believe I need to know what desperation drove you all to risk so much to bring me out. Suddenly I doubt it was done out of the kindness of all your hearts.”

  They each glanced to the others, clearly trying to decide where to begin.

  “The Numini arranged it,” Xaz said, trying not to let Terre Verte hear her anger in case he thought it was directed at him. “They—­” She hesitated, not from fear of her masters, but shame as she considered what they had done. “Between multiple Abyssi and Numini fighting to do different things, it didn’t work out exactly the way they wanted.” The Numini had wanted her to appreciate the lengths they had gone to “for her,” so they had shared some of the challenges and setbacks they had faced. Xaz grinned at Alizarin, remembering their irritation, as she added, “You were apparently not part of the plan.” So, after Baryte threw the knife at me, they sulked a while that their plans weren’t perfectly followed before they decided to help again. “But they did admit to arranging Ruby’s death and to manipulating Hansa into taking the third boon and Naples into going after Terre Verte—­um, you.”

  Hansa, Umber, and Alizarin were frowning and nodding, their theories confirmed, but Terre Verte rubbed at a knot at his brow and said, “Can you begin earlier?”

  So they did. They described what life was like for a mancer in Kavet, and then Hansa told about his time in the 126. Umber, who had been least involved, picked up the story from Baryte’s arrest to Hansa’s, and then Hansa haltingly described why and how he had demanded the two boons. Xaz filled in the blanks whenever a mancer’s power needed to be explained, so she was the one who described their first steps into the Abyss, and how they had made their way to the prison where Terre Verte had lain, “not quite alive,” for so many years.