Page 25

Twenty-Five

A zreth swung in and out of consciousness as the demon dragged him through the castle.

After a while, he realized he was no longer moving. Unpleasant sensations told him he was still alive: blunt pain in his abdomen, cold stone on his back, and light pressing against his closed eyes. He forced his eyes open, squinting against the obscene amount of magic in the room. It flowed in glittering rivers through the air, along the walls, through luminescent runes and onward. It originated from a point somewhere beyond his line of sight.

He tilted his head to look around the room. He was in a familiar place. It was the very room where he’d first been summoned. The place of his imprisonment.

The crimson-skinned demon, seated in a chair near him, was looking down at him with a bored expression, as if to convey that Azreth had been too weak an opponent to excite him. He’d healed himself, and probably only the iron-poisoned wound in his back remained.

Azreth saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and he looked up. Nirlan was standing nearby with his back to them, fiddling with something on a table. There was nothing standing between them except the fact that Azreth didn’t have the strength to move.

Beyond Nirlan was the point from which all the magic in the room was flowing: a huge, shining tear in space between this plane and another.

It was a gate to the hells. That was how Nirlan had brought so many creatures here. Azreth wondered whether he’d intentionally brought them here, or if that had just been a side effect of his carelessness in summoning the second demon.

“ Azreth,” came a small voice.

He forced his head back to look behind him, though it made the wound in his chest stretch excruciatingly. Behind him on the floor, shakily holding herself up on her elbows, was Raiya.

She was still here.

She hadn’t run.

She was here, in danger, and he couldn’t protect her.

Azreth looked up at the other demon, who was already looking back at him as if he’d read his thoughts. Azreth’s jaw stiffened as he tried to stifle his emotions, but there was no point. The demon already knew his secret: Azreth was enthralled by Raiya. If Nirlan allowed it, he would hurt Raiya just to hurt Azreth. His pain would probably taste exquisite.

Nirlan turned to Raiya, clasping his ugly, rodent-like hands together. His voice was just as insufferably arrogant as Azreth remembered. “I can’t lie—it stings that the first thing out of your mouth when you awaken is another man’s name.”

Raiya bared her teeth. Under the strange light of the gate, they were the same ghostly greenish shade as her skin. She didn’t look injured yet, only weakened, as if by a spell or drug. Nirlan had done something to her. “You said he wasn’t bound to you,” she said, jerking her head toward the crimson-skinned demon.

“And you believed me,” Nirlan said flatly.

Heavy, ugly emotion flowed from Raiya, savory and yet utterly unpalatable.

“You’re not so mouthy without your weapon,” Nirlan said to her.

“You opened a gate to the hells. Why?”

“That part was incidental. The priestess looked at Eunaios’s work from the last summoning, but she didn’t fully understand it. She said this was the best way for her to adapt his spellwork to connect to the hells and find another demon to bind.”

“This is madness. Anything could come through it.”

“I can find a way to close it later. The important thing was finding the demon.”

“But why? Why is it so important to you?”

Sudden anger billowed from Nirlan. “Because you disrespected me, you unfaithful—!” He cut himself off. For a moment, Azreth thought he was going to strike her. But Nirlan lowered his voice, starting over. “Because you deserve this. You were a fool if you thought you could cheat me out of my wife and my demon.”

Something nearby shifted. Azreth and Raiya both looked up to see Jai on the floor nearby, moving a little, but not quite awake. Beside her was Madira, unconscious, and Adamus. Not one of them had escaped.

“Let them go,” Raiya said to Nirlan. “Please.”

“Why?”

“They’re just children.”

“If they’re old enough to fight, they’re old enough to die.”

Anger and despair pulled at her lips. “Bastard.”

“Ah, there’s that mouth.” Nirlan crossed the floor unhurriedly, then bent to take Raiya’s chin in his hand. She grimaced, stiff in his grasp, but she didn’t have the strength to fight him. Dread and anger and humiliation flowed from her, and as much Azreth disliked it, it made his body cramp with hunger.

He glanced up at the demon, who lounged comfortably in his chair despite the fact that it was several sizes too small for him. Bright red eyes slanted down to meet his, alert but disinterested. He had certainly guessed what Azreth was thinking: if Azreth could feed from her, he might be able to regain a scrap of strength. He might be able to help her.The demon just tilted his mouth into a smirk.

“Don’t condescend to me,” Raiya said to Nirlan, and the demon’s attention shifted back to them.

“You think you don’t deserve it?” Nirlan replied.

Nearby, Madira shifted slowly, raising a hand to his head. Wincing, he opened his eyes, and his gaze eventually landed on Azreth. Jai and Adamus were still motionless.

Azreth’s eyes went to Adamus’s hip. His bow was gone, but his iron sword was still tucked in its scabbard at his side.

Nirlan bent over Raiya, holding her as she tried to pull away. “You’ll come crawling back to me now,” he said quietly, confidently. “Kiss me. Be a good girl.”

Azreth realized that he’d never known what true hatred of a person felt like, the way mortals felt it, until that moment. Anything he’d felt before must have been mere dislike.

Raiya’s mouth was a straight, hard line as she met her husband’s eyes. “Fine,” she said.

Something in her voice had changed.

She was going to kill him. Azreth didn’t know how, but she was going to save them all, just like she’d saved them from the vythian.

Nirlan didn’t notice. He was too stupid and arrogant to see what was plain. Despite sleeping at Raiya’s side every night for months while they were husband and wife, he didn’t know her.

He looked at Azreth, gloating. “No man will take what’s mine. And no demon, for that matter. Not without suffering dearly.”

Raiya’s hand began to move. Azreth watched as she surreptitiously reached toward a pile of clutter beside her. Her bag had been dumped out, its contents scattered. Though she never broke eye contact with Nirlan, she was reaching for a glinting, silver object with a sharp, pointed end. Her enchanting stylus. Azreth stopped breathing.

“You’re worthless without me,” Nirlan whispered to her. “Never forget that. Never forget this moment.”

“I won’t,” Raiya said. Then, without a trace of mercy, she stabbed the stylus into his throat.

Blood gushed from Nirlan’s neck. It had pierced an artery. She’d struck perfectly, beautifully. Like she’d been born to kill him. Like it was fated. Blood and hunger roared in Azreth’s ears. Raiya’s triumph filled him, and he felt lighter, stronger. Mesmerized, he watched her raise her arm high and stab again and again, until Nirlan was on the floor beneath her and she was drenched with his blood. He wished the moment would last forever. He’d never loved her more.

He looked down at his palm. The runes on his skin had gone dark. The marks remained for now, but the enchantment had perished along with his binder.

As Raiya stopped, breathing hard over Nirlan’s body, the demon in the chair moved. Azreth braced himself, but the demon was moving past him, toward Raiya.

Azreth rolled over and sat up. He heard a wet sound—his own blood hitting the floor. His torn abdominal muscles screamed in protest as he struggled to his knees. Pain and blood loss made his head pound.

“Madira!” he shouted. “The Paladin’s sword?—”

The boy was still not fully awake. He must have been sedated by the same thing Raiya had been. He gave Azreth a confused look, his eyes distant.

Azreth crawled to Adamus’s sword, but the iron repelled him almost magnetically. His fingers were trembling before he’d even touched the hilt. The miasma of iron was too toxic.

“Here,” came a slurred voice.

Azreth turned to find Madira offering him a bundle of black cloth. His cloak.Azreth grabbed it, wrapped it around his hand, and grasped the hilt of the sword with it.

Ice and fire shot up his arm. The iron was a choking poison, an arc of lightning a hair’s breadth from his flesh. His grip weakened, and the sword almost fell from his hand. Steeling himself, he tightened his grip and yanked the sword from its scabbard. It nearly made him faint.

He took a step toward Raiya, and then another. His body was numb, and his feet and hand were somehow not his own, as if he were controlling his body from afar.

The demon stood between Raiya and himself. Looming over her, trapping her against the wall, he reached toward her with a clawed hand. Azreth staggered toward them, but he was slow. The demon began to cut into her.

He felt Raiya’s fear rising and then peaking into panic. Her pain burst forth like fiery, glaring sunlight.

Azreth didn’t resist. He followed the alluring, sickening scent of it. He let it feed him. It tasted wonderful and terrible as he drank it down. It gave him strength.

Raising the sword, he surged forward.

There was a damp crunch.

His hazy vision focused. Red and black swam in front of him—black liquid foaming and steaming as it flowed over crimson skin. The sword was deep in the demon’s back.

Azreth released the hilt, leaving it buried. He couldn’t feel his hand, but that seemed of little consequence now. Raiya staggered away from the demon, holding her hand over her stomach. She was alive.

As she ran for the table, Azreth’s knees gave out. He dropped to the floor, his ears ringing, as he watched Raiya pick up her bow from the table and point an arrow toward the demon.

“Get back!” she shouted, cornering him against the shimmering gate.

The demon was doubled over in pain. He gave her a dark look, and Azreth feared he would somehow keep fighting despite the iron weakening him.

Raiya drew the bowstring taut. “Go!” she snarled, her arms shaking.

There was a tense pause. And then the demon backed away. The surface of the portal rippled as he retreated into it, as if he’d sunk beneath the surface of a pond.

It was over.

Raiya lowered her bow, her shoulders slumping. Then she turned to him.

“Azreth,” she breathed, hurrying to his side. He reached out to her, and a hundred cuts and burns and bruises all over his body lit up with pain, but he could hardly feel them as she embraced him.