Pain blossoms in my chest, and I look down. Lord Szerain’s fist is wrapped around the hilt of his blade. No. No! I don’t understand. I don’t understand! He bears me to the floor. Cold face. Cold stone. Cold inside. Pain. More pain. Only pain. Giovanni’s face. Save me. Elinor Elinor Elinor…Elinor Elinor Elinor…forever. Pain.
I sank to my knees, this pain eclipsing the roiling power. Vsuhl whispered. Held within. Entrapped. Rakkuhr. Pain for all. Rakkuhr entangled. Elinor. And more that came through from the blade, beyond words. And then the pain receded to be replaced by the burning of the three potencies. Wind, cracking thunder, and shaking ground greeted my return from the time slide, and I breathed heavily.
I understood so much more, yet I had no time now to process it. I bared my teeth and climbed to my feet. Mzatal and Rhyzkahl stood before me, small, but not insignificant.
I spoke to Vsuhl. You stopped this before. How do I do it now?
Vsuhl whispered, its meaning flowing through me. Two blades. I will open the way. I will hold you. Not them. I am here. Waiting.
My gaze touched the two lords. “Both. You both must end this. Strike me with both blades. It’s the only way.” I understood. No normal blade could take me down now, no strike of a lord’s potency. Nor could a single essence blade. Too much was in motion. Too much boiled within me. I shuddered, or perhaps it was yet another quake. The tremors grew more severe. Chaotic dances of lightning lit the near black sky. “I won’t be the cause of another breaking of the world.”
Mzatal touched me deeply through our connection, sharing with me his stricken resignation.
My tears burned away before they could fall. “Do it. Do what you must.”
A syraza appeared two paces beyond the lords, and my heart leaped with a fierce relief and joy. Eilahn, aroused from stasis by the potency of my call and the sheer fucked-up-ness of my situation. She stretched her wings and placed her right hand on Rhyzkahl’s shoulder and her left on Mzatal’s. She wasn’t here to save me, I knew. No one could do that. But she would be with me here, now, at the end of it all.
Rhyzkahl’s free hand tightened into a fist. “There is no other way,” he said through clenched teeth. As I watched, I felt him detach, his face taking on that icy look I knew so well.
Mzatal’s eyes were deep wells of pain as he shifted his grip on his blade. I felt their blades, knew their blades. Like the first ignition of the columns, the Three should have resonated in harmony. But the rakkuhr spiked the melody, fractured it, punctuating it with bone shuddering disharmonies a hundred times worse than fingernails on a chalkboard.
Eilahn left the lords and moved behind me, took hold of my shoulders. I leaned back against her, deeply grateful for her support. I tipped my head back and looked up at the roiling sky. I never got the chance to say goodbye to so many people. “Please find a way to let my aunt and the others know,” I said to Eilahn. Let them have closure at least. The wind screamed around us, but her chiming came to me even through the noise and discordance, and I knew she’d heard and would do as I asked.
She slid her arms around my shoulders, holding me close to her.
<
A cold touch wound around me, a razor coil of ice.
The two lords exchanged looks that said everything from I fucking hate this to Do it now.
The cold touch deepened, and something tugged at me through the maelstrom of power.
<
Mzatal shifted his grip again. “Zharkat,” he murmured, then moved in for the strike. Rhyzkahl moved barely a fraction of an instant behind him, yet before either blade could touch me, a flash of something like comprehension came over Rhyzkahl’s face. With demonic lord speed he knocked Mzatal’s strike wide to cut deeply into my right forearm instead of driving into my chest.
“Summoning,” he hissed to Mzatal.
And then the breaking world dropped away.
Chapter 42
I knelt on smooth stone, Eilahn’s wings curled protectively around me as I gasped raggedly for breath. Tremors wracked my body, as much from the shock of the summoning as from the abrupt surcease of power rushing through me. Pain lanced up my right arm, lost in the flood of churning sensations. I heard Eilahn murmuring in demon above my head as she cradled me to her, supporting me in ways far beyond the physical. Searing pain of backlash raked through my body, and a harsh cry escaped me, but before it could burn deeper, the resonant potency of Vsuhl engulfed me, easing the backlash and quieting it.
Not stone, I slowly realized as my ability to focus and think returned. I wasn’t kneeling on stone, but concrete.
A hissing sound like drops of water on a hot griddle drew my attention. I stared at the deep gash in my right forearm for several heartbeats before I remembered that Mzatal’s blade had bitten there rather than my heart. Blood ran in sluggish rivulets down my hand and vaporized on the long blade I gripped tightly against my thigh. Vsuhl. I felt its whisper still. Voices and movement around me retreated to fuzzy distance. With each hiss of blood the pain in my arm lessened. Vsuhl, I breathed. I felt its answering touch, knew something of its sentience after what we shared while the world broke apart. But the world no longer crumbled, and a familiar, ubiquitous and wonderful stench identified my location. Earth.
Eilahn withdrew her wings as I lifted my head, though she kept her arms around me. A chalked diagram surrounded me, looking strangely dull and crude after all I’d witnessed in the demon realm. Its sigils and protections wavered with a feeble glow, and even as I noted it, the luminescence faded to mere chalk on concrete. A few paces away was another, smaller diagram. A storage diagram much like—no, exactly like the one I used. This is my summoning chamber.
My gaze went to the summoner. Tessa. I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Exhaustion and strain marred her features, and it looked as if she’d lost weight. Not that she had any to lose in the first place. But as my eyes met hers, the exhaustion dropped away to be replaced with a fierce joy and triumph that was one hundred percent Tessa.
“Welcome home, sweets,” she said, voice trembling slightly in emotion and fatigue as she finished anchoring and grounding the remaining portal strands.
“I’m home,” I croaked, stunned. I shook my head to clear it, then struggled to stand, only able to do so with Eilahn’s help. “I’m home,” I repeated, then gave a uneven laugh. “You saved me. Wow. Best aunt ever.”
“Kara!”
I turned at the familiar voice. A grin spread across Ryan’s face as he took a step toward the diagram. Zack was there too, giving me a fond smile.
“Ryan!” My smile began then faded. Warmth radiated into my palm from Vsuhl, and I tightened my grip in protective reflex on its hilt. Its whisper intensified. Szerain.
Ryan jerked to a sudden stop. He stiffened and took a long strangled intake of breath, eyes wide and intense on the blade in my hand. Zack laid a hand on Ryan’s arm.
Ryan. Szerain. I staggered, dimly aware of Eilahn steadying me. “Ryan,” I breathed, trembling in the wake of the power overload. “You killed her,” I whispered hoarsely. “Imprisoned her for centuries.” Elinor’s essence, trapped within the blade for all that time. In pain. So much pain. Vsuhl and Elinor had shown me the horrific truth, and the sense of it ran through me in uneasy shivers. “Centuries.” The word hissed through my teeth with a touch of my own personal potency.
Ryan’s face contorted in a tangled mess of shifting features, anguish and exultation. He inhaled, a long throaty sound as if drawing breath for the first time, and shuddered, eyes on the blade. Zack gripped him by the upper arm. His regard went to Ryan, then to me, then back to Ryan, as if balancing on the razor’s edge of decision.
Ryan…no, he was far more Szerain now. Different face. Broader of cheek. Fuller lips. Higher brow. The same as in Elinor’s memories. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tessa backed to the wall, eyes wide. I knew that the revelation of Ryan as a demonic lord had to be a
teensy bit of a shock, but I couldn’t spare any attention for her right then.
Zack tightened his grip and put a hand on Szerain’s head. I knew Zack intended to submerge him again in that moment, and my stomach lurched.
“Dahn, dahn!” Szerain said, struggling to pull free as Zack spoke in demon. With the residuals of the power still flickering through me I understood the meaning. Only for a moment.
Szerain stilled, gave a single nod. Zack’s brow creased with worry, as if hoping he wouldn’t regret this decision. Slowly he released Szerain’s head, but kept a firm grip on his upper arm.
I trembled and clenched my hand on Vsuhl’s hilt. Szerain lifted his head and met my eyes, his own glistening bright as if with tears. A heartbeat later, he stared again at the blade as though inexorably drawn. Shudders ran through him every few seconds, and his head jerked to the side as though with a heavy tic.
“Slew Elinor. Created you.” He took a step forward, shoulder pulled back where Zack still held his arm. He shook, shifting between an aura that radiated jubilant freedom and chaos.
I took in the differences between him and Ryan. His facial features had changed, but his build was the same and his eyes the same gold flecked with green. But even with the disturbing aura of chaotic flow—and I had to wonder if it was a touch of madness from his long confinement—he was so alive, so potent.
“Why did you hold her?” I asked, voice breaking, knowing—knowing—how much Elinor had suffered. I understood she had to die, just as I almost had to die. But entrapment?
He drew a deeper breath, straightening, though his eyes never left the blade in my hand. “I had the choice of unraveling the world or—” He hesitated. “—slaying Elinor.” A shudder passed through him. “And yes, holding her,” he said, with a haunted quaver in his voice. “I will not speak of why.” He knew what it was like to be held, even though it was of a different nature.
A shiver of realization went through me as Detective Marco Knight’s tranced words echoed, spoken to me only a few months ago during the investigation into Lida Moran’s stalker.
Evil is often a matter of perception. Even the most powerful get screwed. The world was at stake, and he had to make a terrible choice. Sometimes the punishment fits the crime far too well.
Horrific entrapment for horrific entrapment? Was that what that meant? Knight had given no indication that it referred to Szerain, but that’s what I’d guessed the moment I heard it. And it sure seemed to fit here. Far too well.
Gooseflesh crawled across my skin. “Is killing and trapping Elinor why you’re in exile?”
He shook his head once. “Only—” He stopped as Zack tugged on his arm, as if to prevent him from saying something he shouldn’t. Szerain shot Zack a look that clearly said, I can’t take this anymore. He drew a deep breath, gathered what potency he could, gaze returning to Vsuhl. “It was most assuredly a contributing factor to everything.”
Szerain lifted eyes filled with a perilous hunger to mine. “My blade,” he said, voice low and fractured. He held out his hand. Twitched heavily. “Kara, give me Vsuhl.”
I took a step back, chilled. Vsuhl rested cool and quiescent in my hand, telling me all I needed to know. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I felt Eilahn at my back, silent and supporting, wings half-spread.
Zack’s grip tightened on Szerain’s arm.
“It is time it came back to me,” Szerain said, baring his teeth slightly, hand still extended. “Time to end this madness.” Clear in his eyes was the certainty that once the blade was in his hand everything would be different. And I knew that to be true.
Zack reached for Szerain’s head to put him back under, but with a feral snarl, the demonic lord ducked the hand and twisted in Zack’s grip, nearly freeing himself.
“Kara!” Zack shouted. “Send Vsuhl away!”
Sucking in a breath, I looked to the blade in confused shock. Send it away? How? I didn’t have more than a second or two to figure it out. Mzatal and Rhyzkahl seemed to simply will their blades to them and away. Is that it?
I did so, simply willed it to go elsewhere, felt its acquiescence, and jerked in shock when it actually did. “Holy shit.”
Szerain gave a strangled cry between dismay, frustration, and fury. “Dahn!” He closed his extended hand into a fist, shaking more as the quiet potency of the blade departed. Zack wrapped an arm around him from behind. Szerain struggled vainly as the Elder syraza clamped his other hand over Szerain’s forehead and pulled his head back.
Dismayed, I stepped forward. Stricken horror replaced the determined, haunted intensity in Szerain’s eyes, as if he knew he could do nothing to stop what was about to happen. “Dahn. No. I will subside. Jhivral, Zakaar…please,” Szerain gasped, voice near breaking. “I will subside.”
“Please, Zack,” I said, agonized, reaching a hand out toward him. I knew the torment that awaited Szerain. “Please don’t.”
Zack looked from him to me and back again, clearly assessing us both carefully, weighing options and determining if the risk was worth it. He slowly eased his grip. “You have a moment,” he said, and only the tension in his voice betrayed how much he despised all of this.
Szerain closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. I knew without doubt that he was calling a pygah, and in a few heartbeats he visibly calmed in both features and energy. How long has it been since he’s been able to do that? I wondered with a deep ache.
Szerain opened liquid, ancient eyes and met mine. “Dak lahn. Thank you.”
I gave a slight nod in response, watching him.
His brows drew together as though he heard or smelled something he couldn’t identify. His eyes shifted around, then came to rest on the exposed sigil on my chest. A muscle in his jaw leaped as his eyes traced the contours, expression shifting as if the patterns spoke to him. “Fuck,” he murmured, then lifted his gaze back to my face. “Rhyzkahl?”
A chill went through me. My lip curled. “Kri.”
Szerain went demonic-lord still, a deep seething anger, long submerged, perceptible behind his eyes. Without warning he ripped fully from Zack’s grasp and moved toward me, eyes on what he could see of the sigils. I sucked in a breath and took a step back, but before he could reach me Zack grabbed him by the collar and seized his arm once again.
Szerain pulled against the restraint. “Release me. I must touch it. You know I must touch it.”
Zack maintained his hold, looked from him to me. “Kara?”
“Let him,” I said, feeling Eilahn’s solid presence behind me.
Szerain moved in closer with Zack still holding his upper arm, intensity in his face intermittently shot with anguish and instability. He lifted a hand, laid his full palm against my upper chest, sucked in a breath.
“Rakkuhr. One sigil for each qaztahl, and one more to…” He tipped his head back, took a shuddering breath and then released it in what could only be relief. “Not completed.”
“No,” I said, throat dry. “Mzatal saved me.”
Realization flashed across his face. “He was the one who summoned you. He is ever the wisest of the three.” He shook his head. “There were times he should have listened to me. But far more when I should have listened to him.” He let his hand drop from the scars. “Fuck Rhyzkahl. Fuck him.”
I snorted. “Been there, done that. Rather not.”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “And I told you it was a very poor idea.”
I smiled back, seeing a shimmer of Ryan in him for the first time.
“Szerain,” Zack said, a subtle strength in his voice. “It is time. You know it must be done, and it will only get harder if we delay.”
An eyes-wide panic came to Szerain’s face. “No. No,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot.”
“No,” I said to Zack. “Please. You can’t do that to him.” Numb horror rose at the memory of my own brief submersion. “It’s too cruel. You can’t!”
Zack didn’t look at me, kept his focus fully on Szerain. “I must
, Kara. He draws attention thus.” He gave a hiss as Szerain backed away.
“I cannot,” Szerain said, radiating a fear and horror that looked and felt utterly out of place on him. “And there is much I must do.”
“Then we’ll hide him!” I grabbed Szerain’s hand. “We’ll use the cuff or something. You can’t submerge him again!” I shook my head. “Mzatal showed me what it was like. I can’t let you do that to him.”
Szerain gripped my hand firmly as he backed to the wall. Zack kept his eyes fully on Szerain. “Kara, it must be. We cannot hide him.”
Szerain’s eyes flicked to the stairs, clearly ready to flee. Eilahn stepped between Szerain and the exit. I looked at her, agonized.
“You can’t let him do this!” I told her, keeping a tight hold on Szerain’s hand. “Please. It’s torture.”
“Szerain,” Zack said, speaking the lord’s name clearly and with his own potency. “You can flee and defend and retaliate, and seek to right that which you have made wrong and that which has been made wrong in your name.” He paused. “But what of Kara, and Tessa, and Jill, and,” his voice dropped lower, “the one unborn.” I knew he spoke of Jill’s pregnancy. “What of others who might be harmed by those who would not tolerate you free on Earth?”
A deep and horrible ache went through me as I felt the keen truth of Zack’s words. Time on Earth was precious to the demonic lords, and if and when the Mraztur made a play to confine an unsubmerged Szerain, they wouldn’t give a shit about collateral damage. I also knew that I would willingly submerge myself to protect Jill and the baby and the others. My eyes filled with tears, but I didn’t say anything to Szerain. It was a horrible and terrible thing to agree to, and I couldn’t encourage it. All I could do was be here for him. Openly crying, I took both his hands in mine.
Szerain breathed through bared teeth. He saw the truth of it as well. He gave a frustrated cry as he gripped my hands hard, shaking in earnest as he looked from Zack to me. I remembered the locks of hair, the paintings in the shrine, the hundreds of statues in his chambers. To Szerain, the fate of a few humans might actually matter. Would it to another lord?
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