Page 53 of The Simurgh

Pitch returned to shimmying about, working his hips back and forth to gain some traction. All his nerves were afire with the urge to free himself.

‘Stay still for me, little prince. Stay still now.’ Azazel sought to use his control to get what he wanted, but as before, there was no compunction. And Pitch had no desire to pretend it existed.

He didn’t have time. Not anymore.

‘Fuck off,’ he spat. ‘I’m not your puppet.’

There was only a moment of surprise, a whisper of being caught off guard, and then Iblis, with Azazel, returned to glaring at him steadily. ‘Well, it hardly matters now, does it.’

Pitch gritted his teeth, and his jaw muscles twinged. His pains were creeping in with greater fortitude. The bruises upon him aching dully, a tight unpleasantness at the scarring on his stomach.

But worse, far worse, there was a pull. A drag at his insides that frightened him. He made the mistake of looking down at his, belly, of allowing a grunt of unhappiness free.

‘The spellwork you brought us is taking hold, Gabriel,’ Iblis said, Azazel shining bright. ‘Continue. Keep them going.’

Pitch shouted his frustrations, and turned his head, nestling in behind his own upper arm, his chin lodged against his shoulder. The only semblance of a hiding place he could manage. Three figures were positioned slightly behind him. Three elven guards with their staffs held before them. Pitch’s gaze was pulled towards the one in the middle, who stood forward of the others. Their leader perhaps.

It didn’t fucking matter. At all. But Pitch stared. Maybe pixie dust still floated about, because he swore the man’s face glittered for a moment. Seemed to shift out of alignment.

‘Now, Nemain. Join them.’ Gabriel’s command interrupted Pitch’s contemplation. ‘Complete what has begun.’

The last of the sorcerers stepped into view, the closest of the three to where Pitch hung. So it didn’t take much to see Nemain’s hands shake as she took her place on Badh’s right, and laid her fingers upon the opened page, tracing them along the hint of thick gold lettering on the paper. She began to chant. Her voice was an octave higher than Badh’s, her cadence more sullen. Her recital did not seem so uniform as the others. That, or it was the longest phrase known to mankind, for Pitch heard no repetition yet.

A sharp pain seared his belly.

His mouth flew open, a scream intended to follow but he hiccoughed instead, a shudder of ribs that had him crying out.

Again his body jerked. Another violent heave. Another hiccough.

The flash of pain returned, like a fresh cut from a sharp blade. And heat emanated from him. Gods, he was a furnace within, but not in the way of his flame…or the wildness. This heat was not his own, nor borrowed.

‘Fuck.’ Pitch hissed into the back of his teeth.

Gabriel’s expression was unreadable, his hazel eyes betraying nothing. The angel was infamous in Arcadia for just such a vapidity, his practised emptiness designed to unsettle his adversaries. How well that talent had served him, for no one had noticed the bend in his loyalties.

Pitch bit down so hard upon his tongue all he could taste was blood. Another hiccough clenched his throat tight, made him gag with its power. Sweat stung at his eyes as the furnace built. He was being dug at, torn at. A terrible ache stirred beneath his ribs. The wildness was not giving in willingly. For every wrench of the magick there was one to match it from the beast. Pitch was caught in a horrendous tug-of-war.

Gabriel trained his gaze on an infuriatingly helpless prince.

‘Good, very good. Do not falter now.’ His face may betray nothing, but his eagerness rippled through his words. ‘Keep your places. It is working.’

Pitch’s back arched, his body twisted with spasms, and his skin was aflame with monstrous heat, though there was no actual flame to show for it. Another hiccough gripped him, this one stealing so much of his breath that his head spun. Sweat poured from him, soaking his trousers.

The next hiccough nearly brought up a lung, forcing a strange squeal from him.

Of all the humiliating ways to be done for…was this to be his?

But the mightiest battle was not of the body, but of the mind.

The dawning of a wretched truth as the sorcerers chanted at him.

This may well be the last time he was overpowered.

These obnoxious, irritating boils on humanity’s butt were, truly, children of maleficium. And as piteous as they may be, this trio of purebreds were taking him apart.

Macha had a surprisingly lyrical voice. It was hers that rose to the top of the pyramid of voices, with Nemain’s the lower, Badh’s at the centre. Three very different chants that wove into one another, a complexity that might have been pleasant enough to hear in a cathedral on a spring day, but not here.

One violent hiccough had Pitch’s head jerking back so hard the crack and pop of his joints roared in his ears. His head lolling, he glimpsed again the elven guards, flanking the stockier form of Harut. They had not moved an inch, standing frozen, their armour catching all the hues of the chamber’s amethyst stone.