Page 67 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T obi wakes with startled shock. There are guards crowded around them in the grey light. Drums beating. Heavy low bells are ringing.

Dawn.

Time for the final trial. Tobi is still curled around Harok’s legs, but hands are on him and he is dragged up. He is cold. His body aches and the bitter taste of the abieum still fills his mouth.

The sun is rising, it’s light soft and pale as buttermilk. The grove looks strangely ordinary. Just trees and earth and the dusting of snow. Not the strange otherworld Tobi saw when his blood was full of Abieum.

Tobi is held, waiting, as Harok’s chains are unfastened from the stone. His wrists are pulled back and chained behind him as he is led by a dozen guards of his own, towards Tobi and past him back into the courtyard behind Urynwud.

Solwen crowd around. A large group, who are heavily armed, stalk forward, with Lymok at its head.

Lymok looks very pleased with himself and walks as if he is a little drunk. Perhaps he has been making merry all night. He still has Demonica in his belt. Tobi stares at it. What would happen now if he took that blade and thrust it into Harok’s chest?

He was brought here by Yaelin to do that. But Diazuul knew he would fail. Knew he would not be able to do it. Diazuul manipulates men by using and corrupting their own desires. Is Diazuul using Tobi’s desire for Harok to ensure that he will not kill him?

The only way for Tobi to defeat Diazuul is for him to do something he does not want to do. And there is nothing he wants more than to stay with Harok. To save him.

Diazuul wants Tobi here. Lured him here. This whole thing was not a trap for Harok. It was a trap for Tobi.

“Ah, kushir,” Lymok drawls as he reaches Tobi. “I trust you had an interesting night in the forest.”

“It was fine,” Tobi says back sullenly.

They are marched into the Sacred Hall, over to Susal-ur-Bellan. Tobi is put on his knees beside Harok, facing the great tree.

“Open the pit!” Lymok cries.

More men in red robes, more blood priests, step forward and begin lifting some of the stones around the roots of Susal-ur-Bellan. They are pulled away to reveal the mouth of a great dark hole. The home of Diazuul. The Solwen cheer to see it.

“Great Master,” Lymok cries. “We are returned. And in your honour, to mark this new era, we replace these sacred statues.”

Two more Blood Priests process forward. They hold two great statues of black stone — no, not black stone — the wood of Susal-ur-Bellan. The branches that fell in that storm. And they are identical to the ones in Emperor Selim’s private shrine .

So they were not destroyed, Tobi thinks. But what are they for?

How are the statues part of this? How is Tobi part of this?

What had Diazuul said? Tobi would connect him to Attar.

Tobi swallows. He should have run in the night. But he could not. And now he is here to be an essential part of Diazuul’s plan.

This is it, Tobi thinks. Whatever Diazuul is planning, it is going to happen now. It involves these statues. And, somehow, the pair that match them in Emperor Selim’s shrine in the Rose Palace.

And him.

Tobi glances over at Harok. They need to do something. But Harok looks broken. Eyes cast down, breath coming in ragged gasps. He knows this is Diazuul’s doing. Diazuul has always been strong enough to control Harok. And now, he is making Harok weak.

There is nothing Harok can do to help Tobi. Tobi must face this alone.

Lymok is still pronouncing. “And now, Harok, Heretic Irgo,” he says, “you will be given to Diazuul. You will be cast into the pit to become one with him.” Harok doesn’t even look up.

“He’s not in there,” Tobi yells. “He’s not in that pit. He’s in Harok. Diazuul is inside Irgo Harok. And has been these last twenty years.”

Lymok looks at Tobi. He looks amused. “What are you saying, kushessa? Surely I taught you Ambolk better than that? You’re not making sense.”

But Tobi keeps trying, “When Harok went into that pit twenty years ago, he killed the demon, but its spirit entered him. He has been battling to contain it ever since. ”

“Shut him up,” Lymok says. One of the guards hits Tobi, a sharp hard slap that knocks him off balance.

But he manages to right himself quickly and he can tell that quite a number of the Solwen in the room heard what he said.

Many people are looking at Harok with expressions of fear and awe. They believe it, Tobi thinks.

And Tobi knows he only has one chance to do something. Lymok is walking towards Tobi, saying, “Perhaps the kushessa needs to be gagged.” As he draws near, Tobi darts up. In one swift, decisive movement, he grabs Demonica from Lymok’s belt. Lymok yells out, “Don’t you dare.” He catches Tobi’s wrist.

Tobi senses that guards are coming for him. He takes a wild chance. He mimics Lymok’s voice. He uses Ambolk words in that mild, slightly refined tone and shouts, “Stay back. Let the kushir be.”

The confusion of it stops everything for a moment. Lymok says, “What?”

But the surprise was enough. Tobi snatches his wrist back and the sword with it. It seems to sparkle in his hands. He feels good when he holds it.

He is no fighter, but he seems to know how to move this blade.

And he plunges it right into Lymok’s throat.

It bleeds hot. It’s horrifying. The feel of the blade piercing living flesh.

The blood pouring out, covering his hands, his arms. Lymok makes a nasty gurgling noise as his own hands fly to his neck to try and stop the bleeding.

Tobi spins around. He has to move fast. If the guards get hold of him they will kill him now. He has to get to Harok.

He has to do the thing he wants to do least. And he has to do it now. It’s the only way to defeat Diazuul. He has to put this blade in Harok’s heart .

But as he throws himself towards Harok, he realises it’s already too late.

Harok has fallen onto the flagstones beside the pit, right before where the two statues have been set. A great vapour rises from him. Black and blue. A storm coming. Not a storm. Diazuul.

But Diazuul is not taking Harok’s body. He is leaving it.

Diazuul is rising, out of Harok, like a great and terrible cloud. Tobi feels Demonica start to vibrate in his hand, growing warm with some mysterious force.

Diazuul is everywhere. A force of pure evil in the room.

The Solwen scream and scatter, running for the doors of the hall.

But they slam shut as if blown by a great sudden wind.

The candles all flicker out at once, the fires in the hearths and braziers stutter and die.

Even the firepit goes instantly dark with an eerie, sucking sound.

The Sacred Hall is dark except for the blue and purple lights in the dark clouds swirling around the eaves, twining through the branches of Susal-ur-Bellan..

“This is your God,” Tobi yells at the Solwen. “Harok tried to kill this demon and when he couldn’t he held it inside his own body.”

Tobi drops to his knees and bends over Harok. Is he alive? He presses his face to Harok’s chest.

He can’t hear anything. He can’t tell. “Harok, please,” he says in an urgent whisper.

“Harok. Irgorye. Diazuul has freed himself from you. We need to get out. We need to go. Now.” Harok does not react.

Is he dead? Did Diazuul slay him? Perhaps without Diazuul inside him he does not have the strength to stay alive. No longer the Unkillable Irgo.

A great cracking noise comes from above his head. Tobi looks up and sees something like lightning, breaking the clouds apart.

As Tobi watches, the lightning crackles down and hits the two statues before him, connecting them with a ribbon of bright white light.

Lightning crackles between the statues, then splits, an arm of light reaches for Tobi. He screams as it hits his chest, but feels nothing.

The ribbon of lightning between the statues seems to open then, using whatever it is drawing out of Tobi to form a great crack in the world, stretching to form a hole.

And, as the strange hole grows wider, through it Tobi can see something.

Something familiar and impossible. He can see Emperor Selim’s private shrine. And in it, the other two statues.

They sit on a wooden altar and before it Selim kneels. Tobi recognises the shaven head of his uncle, a man Tobi has not seen since he was seven years old.

He’s going to take Selim, Tobi thinks. Diazuul is going to use this magical route to possess Selim and through it take all of Azuria.

Tobi tries to cry out a warning to his uncle but no sound comes.

He looks again. There’s someone else in the shrine.

Another person is there, staring at Tobi like he sees him and knows him.

The blue-black storm cloud in the hall rushes through the hole made by the white light with a huge roaring sound.

The hole closes behind. A great wind rushes through the Sacred Hall, the branches of Susal-ur-Bellan creak and then the hall is empty and silent.

Diazuul is gone. The lights are gone. The candles flicker back to life. The fires all re-ignite.

The statues look back blankly at Tobi.