Page 36 of The Simurgh

‘I call him your brother. I call you as vile as he.’

Pitch sighed. ‘Do as you wish.’

Onoskolis shook her head, her braid shifting like a heavy snake at her shoulder. ‘So flippant. You share that with him, with all those in White Mountain. Discarding people’s lives like they are week-old slops. Utter disregard for those not so powerful as you.’

Pitch shifted, irritated. In four hundred years, he had spoken to Orobas so rarely that he couldn’t recall his voice. They’d been face to face perhaps a handful of times. They were affected by one another in the same way pottery coming out of the same kiln would be. The Dominion were not created as a band of brothers, but a conglomerate of warriors.

Still, Onoskolis’s sad little tale was not without some substance. White Mountain stood so high that it was very difficult to make out those on the ground far beneath.

He gave up trying to move his fingers. Pitch spoke through chattering teeth. ‘For all your protest, you have merely exchanged one master of Arcadia for another. Do you think Gabriel truly gives a fuck about a dream-walking daemon? He’ll dispose of you the moment you’re of no use to him.’

‘Of course he will. Everyone here, the sorcerers included, are tools, a means to his end. He is a traitorous prick.’ The daemon glanced over her shoulder, towards the entrance Pitch could not see. ‘But this is not about the Archangel. This is not about the Exarch, nor is it about winning the Severance War for Elyssiam. It is about ensuring Arcadia is brought to its knees.’ Onoskolis touched the needle to the crux of his elbow. ‘If the Archangel believes you are a way to make that happen, then I’ll do anything he asks of me to aid in breaking you. I want to see your Lord Enoch punished for doing nothing to stop my kin from being maimed and killed upon the Hellfield. I took you against your will, and I knew it. I heard you say no, over and over, and I ignored you, as so many beneath White Mountain are ignored. I fucked you over so you would feel as my sisters and brothers did before the Exarch’s legions tore them apart. Powerless.’

Pitch stared up at her, feeling himself shrink smaller and smaller with every word she spoke. Especially those that held an ounce of truth.

Onoskolis pricked his skin, sinking the needle deep. He bit at the inside of his lip, keeping his pain to himself. She lifted her thumb to the plunger, her eyes never leaving him. ‘Whatever the Archangel plans to do to you, remember it is all the lords of Arcadia who are to blame for your agony.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE NEEDLE’Spoint went deep, grinding against bone. Onoskolis whispered nonsense, something about someone being proud of her. Pitch thought for a strange moment he heard Macha’s name.

He stifled a cry behind his clenched teeth, wriggling his arse– the only part of him that could really move at all– trying to dislodge her.

‘Fuck.’ A deeper, icier sensation spread at his elbow. The poison beginning its invasion. Pitch felt a sharp tug at his hair, as though the daemon had decided to grab hold for good measure. But that was impossible. She had one hand on the syringe, the other pressed to his arm.

Onoskolis let out a sharp cry. ‘No, no.’

She jerked back, and the needle ripped from Pitch’s flesh.

Onoskolis lifted her arm, brandishing the syringe like it was a conductor’s baton, and the conductor was in the middle of a fit.

The Alp screamed, ‘Get off me!’

Who the blazes was she bloody shouting at?

Her eyes were huge, her fear enormous. ‘Help me,’ she sputtered.

And drove the needle into her chest. Right over her heart.

Onoskolis grabbed at the stone plinth Pitch lay on as her knees gave way, the syringe wobbling where it was still impaled in her chest. Her body jerked and the needle slipped from her. Pitch had a heartbeat to register that the vial was empty before the syringe fell away. The Alp made horrid sucking sounds as she clung to the stone. Froth bubbled from her mouth, a grey sludge that gathered like a monstrous beard over her chin. Her face was like a cracked mirror, full of fine dark lines. The whites of her eyes were bloody. And a thick black ooze ran from her nose.

He knew the ailment well.

He’d spewed Gu for days, with Silas refusing to do the decent thing and look away.

But there was no one here for Onoskolis. Another violent shudder loosened her fragile grip and she collapsed to the floor, out of sight.

What the fuck had just happened here? It hardly seemed likely the Alp decided now the time to end her own life.

The room came alive in a flurry of activity.

‘Onis! Onis!’ The feminine voice was familiar.

A handful of fae guards arrived, clad in their exquisite gold armour, the type that clung to their bodies like melted wax.

The new arrivals were mightily confused by what they encountered. Even as they rushed at him, tridents at the ready, they seemed to fumble at the last minute. One or two turned their heads, searching, for the enemy was not obvious. Pitch was bound up tight, any fool could see that.

Onoskolis was making rather dreadful noises, chesty, bubbling groans and moans like two great weights rubbing one another. And the older, crueller part of him relished the sound. He wanted to hurt her, he’d not deny it.