by Lisa Shearin
The yellow demon picked up a desk and hurled it at a knot of watchers. They scattered, the desk shattered, part of it flew out a window, and a chunk the size of my fist hit Carnades in the temple. He went down like a rock, and the blue demons rushed him.
I dove between them and Carnades before I could think what I was doing. But I knew what I was doing. I didn’t like Carnades, but if those demons shredded him, guess who’d get tossed in the deepest prison pit the Conclave could dig?
Besides, it’d gall the hell out of him if I saved his life. I grinned at the demons and bared my teeth.
“You hungry?” I yelled over the chaos. “You want a piece of this? You want a piece of me?” I had a ball of blue fire in each hand, and the demons were circling me. There was one of me, two fireballs, and three demons.
And a whirlwind of searing flame curling and twisting in the center of my chest.
The Saghred.
Oh no.
Not now. Not here. Please, no, not here.
The whirlwind turned into a tornado. My breath hissed in and out from between clenched teeth. My chest was on fire. The fire and the Saghred’s power that fed it blazed under my breastbone, white-hot and raging.
Take the power, or the power will take you.
It wasn’t a voice; it was the Saghred’s desires manifesting itself in my head.
It was also the truth.
I shoved down the fire and my fear. I swallowed them hard and held them down. The fire flickered and writhed, trying to get around my will. I pressed harder and it just increased its struggle, wild and untamable. It knew it was stronger. It knew it was going to win this time. I was its instrument, its bond servant, and I would do its will, surrender to its desires.
No!
The sounds of battle faded until all I could hear was my own breathing, and the sibilant words of the demons who had backed off a step or two, but no farther. I couldn’t tell if their words were death spells or demon-speak for “You first” and “No, you go first.”
It didn’t matter, the Saghred didn’t care, and no one had asked me what I wanted. Those demons just thought they were hungry. The Saghred hadn’t had a decent meal in nearly a thousand years. And as I’d discovered a few days ago, I was the Saghred’s bond servant, and part of that job was accepting soul sacrifices to feed the Saghred. And right now, the Saghred had a hankering for blue demons.
There was no way in hell demon souls were flowing through me to feed that rock.
The demons knew, and one of them moved in a blurred flash to snatch up Carnades’s quasi-conscious body as a hostage, the mage’s bared throat clutched in talon-tipped hand. It looked at me and bared dozens of needle-sharp teeth in a smile that told me Carnades was about to be the second elven mage to die today.
Not going to happen.
Time slowed for me until the demon’s fingers constricting around Carnades’s throat barely moved at all-but they were still moving. One of the pointed nails punctured the mage’s skin and a thin stream of blood flowed leisurely down his pale neck, vanishing into the collar of his robes.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. Then I clenched my jaw, gritted my teeth, and with every ounce of strength and sheer stubbornness I possessed, forced down the Saghred’s starvation, its demands, its desires. Forced them down bit by struggling bit. When I had as much control as I knew I was going to get, I aimed the stone’s power directly at the demon holding Carnades hostage.
The demon’s eyes widened in terror and disbelief. You’d have thought I’d shoved him headfirst into the business end of a cannon. He knew the power I was packing, and he knew the barest touch of that power wouldn’t leave enough of him to fill a dustpan. He froze. So did the other two. Everything and everyone in the room went dead silent. Waiting.
For me. For what I was going to do.
I slowly raised my arm and extended my hand, leveling it at the demon. I think it was glowing; I think I was glowing. Carnades’s eyes opened and he saw the demon.
And then he saw me.
Rescue now; explain later, I told myself.
“Put. Him. Down.” My teeth were clenched and my voice shook against the power I was barely holding in check.
But I was holding it. I had it under control.
And Carnades knew it. Now I saw a flicker of fear turn into raw, unreasoning hatred. He saw-completely and clearly for the first time-the level of power I had, and he knew its source. It didn’t matter if I saved him. He didn’t care. What I could do-what I was-was all that mattered to him now. I’d just sealed my fate. Carnades would not only see me arrested, he would see me executed. Today if he could get away with it. In his misguided and twisted reasoning, I had just become too dangerous to live.
Part of me was tempted to let the demon finish its job. The instant Carnades died, most of my problems would die with him.
I’d never liked that part of me. I knew it’d be the worst mistake I’d ever made, but I kept my hand-and the harnessed Saghred’s power-on that demon where it belonged.
The demon may have been evil incarnate from the lower hells, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Gently,” I added, showing him more than a few of my teeth.
The demon complied. His movements were slow, jerky. I was making him do something he didn’t like and he wasn’t happy about it. His yellow eyes were glowing orange.
No, he definitely wasn’t amused.
I didn’t care and I probably should have.
Carnades took a step back, staggered, then steadied himself. His blue eyes blazed with hatred and every dark and twisted thing that lay beyond. He wanted that demon dead and cold, and me the same way beside it.
I felt them move before I saw them. In a blink, the other two demons were on me, then the third one joined them.
And Carnades did nothing to stop them.
Son of a bitch.
I released the hint of power that I’d held in check, and the three demons vanished in a hiss of steam and sulfur. Not just vanished.
Vaporized.
Sickened and gasping for air I couldn’t find, I staggered to my feet. Releasing that power released the hold I had on the rest of it. I’d just pulled a rock out of a dam with a wall of water on the other side, pushing through the hole I’d made, punching against the dam that held it back. Cracks were spreading; nothing could hold that torrent back; nothing could stop that power.
I couldn’t stop that power.
“Raine!” It was Mychael’s voice sounding like it was coming down a well. I was at the bottom of that well, trapped, with no way out.
“You’ve got to discharge!”
I was going to implode or explode or something fatal and final if I didn’t get rid of the power charge that had built up inside of me. I couldn’t force it back where it came from. There was too much of it, a wall of power bearing down on me. It was coming, and I couldn’t stop it. The Saghred and I were one. Mychael said the containments were failing.
Clearly, no containments held the Saghred now.
Or would ever hold it again.
“His magic grew him; your magic can destroy him,” Sora was calling down that same well.
I had no idea what she meant, but I knew what I could do, what I had to do before the power that surged through my veins killed me-and everyone else.
Then on some level, I understood what Sora meant. It was so simple.
I extended my hand, fingers spread. The yellow demon was massive, but it was across the room, and my hand covered it completely, at least that’s what it looked like. It was a distance illusion, but illusion was magic, too.
I began slowly curling my fingers closed. The demon began compacting like I was crushing a wet sponge in my hand. It roared, then those roars turned to screams, and finally a thin shriek as I closed my hand until it was the tightest fist I could make. I tasted blood in my mouth, and black blooms danced on the edge of my vision. I opened my hand and released what was left and heard a wet, sickening plop from across the room. Then came
the retching noises from a few of the watchers.
That and awed-and horrified-silence.
The last thing I heard before silence and blessed unconsciousness took me was Carnades’s calm, cold voice.
“Lock her up.”
Chapter 7
I woke up in a dark, warm room. Not a cell. And I was tucked into a soft bed, not a prison cot with a threadbare blanket. Nice. And deeply wrong. When I passed out, I must have hit my head. Hard.
I was in my bedroom back home in Mermeia.
“Aside from bruises that most certainly will hurt when you wake up, you’re surprisingly unharmed, all things considered.”
My father sat in a chair half hidden in shadow near my window. That was one reason why I hadn’t seen him. The other reason was even more unnerving than waking up in a place where I couldn’t possibly be. Unnerving, but not unexpected. We’d spoken directly one other time.
I’d been able to see through him that time, too.
Eamaliel Anguis’s elegantly pointed ears marked him as an elf, a beautiful pure-blooded high elf. His hair was silver, and his eyes were the gray of gathering storm clouds. Eyes identical to my own. I could see why my elven sorceress mother hadn’t cared that he was nearly nine hundred years old.
Yes, nine hundred years old, and he didn’t look a day over thirty. Elves had the same life span as every other race, so having a father who looked four years younger than me took weird to a whole new level. He’d spent the last year or so inside the Saghred, the other eight hundred and something years the result of an extended life span from too much contact with the Saghred. A fate I really wanted to avoid.
I knew I wasn’t really at home in my bedroom. One, it was impossible. Two, this bedroom was way too neat to belong to me.
I felt my temple for the lump that had to be there. “No concussion?” I muttered to myself.
“Just unconscious from what you did.”
I remembered and groaned. I’d just done the worst thing possible at the worst possible time in front of the last person I wanted to see me do it.
I was screwed. Royally, completely, and utterly.
“Yes, you did put on quite a show,” my father agreed.
I sat up in bed, and surprisingly it didn’t hurt. “How are we-?”
“You’re dreaming. You picked the setting.”
“Why are you-?”
“Because we need to talk.”
“Stop finishing my sentences!” I didn’t mean to snap, but apparently I needed to.
“I know your thoughts as you think them, daughter. Isn’t communicating this way more-”
“Annoying,” I finished for him. Two could play at that game.
The corner of Eamaliel’s mouth quirked upward. “Since it’s your dream we’ll do it your way.”
I threw back the blanket and got out of bed. I went to the window and yanked back the curtain. Instead of Mintha Row with its shops and cobblestone street, there was a gray void.
My chest tightened. “You’re sure we’re not inside the Saghred?”
“Positive. For some reason, your dream only includes this room.”
“And you.”
“Apparently you wanted to see me.”
I could certainly understand why I’d want that. Get in trouble, go home to Dad.
I let the curtain fall back over the window. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
“No offense taken, Raine. I, of all people, understand your frustration.”
And fear. Let’s not forget gut-clenching fear. I looked down at my wrists. Just because there weren’t manacles on my asleep self didn’t mean my real self wasn’t sporting a pair right now courtesy of Carnades Silvanus.
“Thank you,” I said, sounding as exhausted as I remembered my real body felt. “I’ve had more than enough magic today.”
“I hate being the bearer of bad news, but magic is what we need to talk about. And we need to do it quickly because you’re going to be waking up soon.”
The tightness in my chest dropped into a knot in my stomach. “Waking up where?”
Eamaliel knew I didn’t mean in bed in my dreams. “That I don’t know. I only see what you see. And at the moment, you’re unconscious and not seeing anything.”
“Carnades could be taking you to prison,” purred a cultured and silky voice I knew only too well.
Sarad Nukpana was reclining on my bed in the exact spot where I had been.
“And it’s still warm,” he murmured, running a long-fingered hand over the sheets. His voice dropped, low and intimate. “Eamaliel isn’t the only one who knows exactly what you’re thinking.”
Sarad Nukpana had been the chief counselor to the goblin king Sathrik Mal’Salin, and grand shaman of the Khrynsani, an ancient goblin secret society and military order. At least Sarad Nukpana had held those titles before a little quick thinking by yours truly had gotten him sucked into the Saghred. Nukpana and his boss wanted to get their hands on the rock and bring back the good old days of conquering kingdoms and enslaving thousands. Sarad Nukpana didn’t want me dead, just tormented for eternity.
Here he was on my bed, in my dream. It wasn’t exactly torment, but it was close enough.
I just looked at him. “So, what am I thinking now?”
Nukpana smiled slowly, fangs peeking into view. “Such violence, little seeker. I don’t think what you propose is physically possible.”
I showed him a few of my own teeth. “I won’t know until I try.”
His black eyes glittered. “As always, I welcome your efforts.”
Being trapped inside the Saghred hadn’t diminished the goblin shaman’s dark, exotic beauty one bit. His long black hair was shot through with silver and fell loosely around his strongly sculpted face; the tips of his upswept ears were barely visible through the midnight mass of his hair. Nukpana’s pearl gray skin set off what was any goblin’s most distinguishing feature-a pair of fangs that weren’t for decorative use only.
“Since this is my dream, I say who stays and who goes,” I shot back smoothly. “Guess who doesn’t get to stay.”
Nukpana’s smile spread. “As I said, I welcome your efforts.”
I tried to not only ignore Sarad Nukpana on my bed, but to cease any thoughts of him, forget my memories of him, and blot out his very existence. I knew the last one wasn’t possible, but it never hurts to try.
The goblin was still there.
He laughed, a dark, rich sound. “Getting rid of me is easier said than done, little seeker. Perhaps dispatching those demons took more effort than you could spare.” He paused suggestively. “Or perhaps, you want me to stay. You just can’t say so in front of your father. I quite understand.”
“You’re a parasite, Nukpana,” Eamaliel noted coolly. “You’ll merely take more effort to detach. Though such extreme measures are usually fatal-to the parasite.”
The goblin’s dark eyes narrowed briefly, then he ignored Eamaliel, focusing all of his attention on me. Lucky me.
“You may find this difficult to believe, but I hope Carnades hasn’t taken you into custody,” Nukpana said. “His Majesty’s lawyers and my Khrynsani would be disappointed if you were snatched from their grasp.”
Sathrik Mal’Salin had sent lawyers to Mid to try to retrieve the Saghred and extradite me. When legal means didn’t work, he’d sent Khrynsani shamans and temple guards. So far the goblin king hadn’t gotten his hands on either me or the Saghred. The lawyers and Khrynsani were still on the island and still trying. I almost admired their tenacity.
“What can I say? I’m the most popular spellslinger in town.”
I felt rather than saw my father stand up. I didn’t blame him; I felt the same way. When a first-rate psychopath like Sarad Nukpana appeared in your bedroom, you didn’t want to be caught anywhere but on your feet. I was glad I hadn’t still been in bed when the goblin had slithered in. That would have gone way beyond creepy.
“You said you would stay away from her,” Eamaliel said with quiet menace.<
br />
Sarad Nukpana swung his long legs over the side of my bed. “I lied. Surely you didn’t expect me to actually keep my word.
You’re the man of honor, not me. Honor and morals are an inefficient, unproductive waste of my time. By the way, the board is still as you left it, should you want to resume our game.” He turned to me. “Your father stormed off in the middle of a match; it was his move, and I wasn’t even cheating. He may be a man of honor, but he can be rude.” His fangs flashed in a quick grin. “Perhaps there’s hope for him yet.”
I blinked at my father. “Game? You’re actually playing games with him?”
“What an appropriate choice of words,” Nukpana said.
“Your noble father plays games on many levels, little seeker. His powers of manipulation are admirable-and that says much coming from me.”
“Chess, Raine,” Eamaliel clarified. “And yes, it is a way to pass the time and to keep an eye on this one. At least I know that while he’s sitting across from me, he’s not plotting with his allies.”
Sarad Nukpana sighed dramatically. “He still doesn’t believe that my allies have all but evaporated. Literally.”
I could believe that. Almost. The last time I’d been in the Saghred, I’d seen filmy figures, some more solid than others, most wasted away to wraiths. I’d also seen some who appeared to be as solid as Sarad Nukpana.
“Unfortunately, their mental capacity evaporates with them,” the goblin was saying. “It’s difficult to scheme with yourself. I’m all alone.”
I was sure he wasn’t. “I’m sure you’re managing,” was what I said.
“Even the worst enemies when imprisoned together form a kind of camaraderie,” Nukpana said. “Your father and I have found some things in common. You, for one.”
“You’re wasting Raine’s time, Sarad,” Eamaliel warned.
“There’s all the time in the world inside the Saghred.”
“She’s not inside the Saghred.”
Nukpana smiled suggestively. “A goblin can dream, can’t he?”
“What happened at the watcher station wasn’t your fault,” my father assured me. “If you hadn’t acted as decisively as you did, innocent people would have died, and many more would have met the same fate if those demons had escaped.”