Oh, has dear Reunion found a new companion, then? Good for her.
Well. In the days before my confinement, I was fascinated by my successes with Warbringer, most especially its semi-sapience. I wanted to move forward from there, to make a blade that would truly act as a partner to its wielder. With the help of my two apprentices, I set to work, but I never showed them the more experimental parts of the process.
For the best, really.
Fool that I was, I had though my students faithful and focused. As it turned out, one of them was studying arcane arts on the side. He waited until Reunion was completed. Then, fool that he was, he assumed that he had learned all there was to learn from me. He used the blood of my other student to feed this prison, to force it to grow up around me faster than I could burn it away.
I expect the first cursed blade he forged devoured him.
I do not share my secrets lightly.
The foreign magic buzzed in Tempest’s veins and rattled around in his bones. He ground his teeth against it, fighting against the instinct to fight it, to claim it, to dominate it. This was old magic, dragon magic, and here he surely had much to learn.
The urge to linger nearly overwhelmed him. If he could stay a while, if he could seat himself at the feet of true masters, what secrets would unfold before him? He would not even need to delay their mission. He had spent untold years outside of time. Not by his own hand, sure, but he could do it again.
No. No, he could not jeopardize their mission for personal gain, even if that gain was priceless knowledge. Shaking himself free of the temptation, Tempest took another step forward, then one more. The buzz of the magic faded to a distant hum. No fire erupted from the earth. Not so much as a single stone fell. Turning, he saw his two companions gaping at him.
“That,” said Akieryon, “is the most reckless thing I have ever seen you do.”
The memory of fangs sinking into his arm said otherwise. “You and I both know that’s not true.”
“You were glowing!” squeaked Tharaiyelagh. Tempest shrugged.
“I guess the spell still works.”
Akieryon stepped beneath the arch, and Tempest choked back a shout of protest. They had no choice but to proceed, and none of his skills could protect any of them from that ancient magic. Akieryon shuddered and doubled over, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. A faint light shimmered around him. For a heart-stopping moment, Tempest feared his friend would collapse, would break beneath whatever urges the magic brought out in him. Then, with a strangled little gasp, Akieryon pushed one hand out to touch the wall. He slid his feet over the ash-covered ground, more shuffling than walking forward to join Tempest.
“I want…”
Tempest caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Daylight. I know.” He pulled Akieryon close against his side, and he felt some of the tension ease out of him. “We will find a way to the surface, if I have to tear this whole mountainside open.”
Akieryon managed a weak smile. “That’s too dangerous. We could collapse the whole thing, or…” Fire of the earth. He need not say it. Tempest scowled at the stone walls around them.
Tharaiyelagh stepped beneath the arch, took a slow breath, and stepped forward again.
“What was that?” Akieryon demanded, his anxiety fueling annoyance. “Did we break it?”
Tharaiyelagh limped to Tempest’s other side. By the dim light of Akieryon’s spell, he saw the little chancellor blushing. What, indeed, had the gateway found in him? And so swiftly?
Baleirithys had decided to breakfast with the young Hawk prince as a sign of friendship between their nations, but he regretted it almost immediately. Iyahi-Ila entered the solar on crutches, his halting steps closely supervised by Enci, who had not been invited. The healer walked on the side of the boy’s splinted wrist. Baleirithys’ stomach churned at the sight of them.
At the sight of the boy’s injuries.
Iyahi-Ila eased his small frame into the chair almost before Baleirithys invited him to sit. Fair enough. He extended no such invitation to Enci, who stood behind his young patient with a grave expression and just a flash of irreverent amusement in his eyes. Iyahi-Ila looked at the platter piled high with pastries.
“My injuries aren’t nearly so bad as they appear,” he announced, his bald bluntness as rude as his lack of a proper greeting.
Baleirithys reached for his goblet of blood and took a long, bracing draught. He savored the thick liquid as it rolled over his tongue, awakening his senses and his magic together. “Your brother the king seems to think otherwise.”
Iyahi-Ila waved his uninjured hand. “Kiile worries, but I’m not so easily broken.”
None of the three of them mentioned that Iyahi-Ila might have died of his injuries without Enci’s intervention. The internal bleeding, apparently, had been most concerning. Baleirithys helped himself to a pastry—chocolate filled, with a berry blood glaze—and politely changed the subject. Iyahi-Ila made it a chore. It seemed no one had ever taught him the art of light conversation. A gravitas beyond his years hung over him, and his commentary proved sparse and unpleasantly pointed.
Baleirithys stole a glance at Enci, then wished he had not. The healer watched over his patient with a solicitous eye, sparing not so much as a fleeting acknowledgment for his own prince. Before Baleirithys could consider frowning about it, a sizzle of magic caught at the edges of his awareness. It crackled through a particular anchor stone and buzzed along its connection to him, seizing him where he sat. It smelled of dust and stone, like an ancient tomb, and in an instant it had drawn his mind far from the solar, far from breakfast and regrettable company.
Somehow still seated at the table, and yet in another world entirely, Baleirithys locked gazes with his chancellor. Before he could whisper a name, a question, Tharaiyelagh stepped forward, buried both hands in his plumage, and kissed him.
Baleirithys should have broken free, should have fled from the moment, but it overwhelmed him—or perhaps he could tell himself that that was the ancient and foreign magic—and he yielded. He felt the heat between their bodies and the hunger rising in Tharaiyelagh. Or perhaps it had always been there? Then, as suddenly as it had begun, Tharaiyelagh broke free of the kiss. He stepped back, and they whispered to one another, “Don’t forget me.”
The vision released Baleirithys with sickening abruptness, like lurching to a stop after a high speed dive. He pressed both hands to the tabletop to hide their trembling. Taking slow, careful breaths, he pressed his tongue against the backs of his fangs as though he could somehow find the taste of Tharaiyelagh’s blood there. He would not touch his trembling fingers to his burning lips. What had just happened?
“You forged a stronger connection than you meant to.” Iyahi-Ila dragged some berry compote across some slices of cheese, never once looking at his host. “Probably because his magic pushed back against yours. It will fade.”
The connection might fade, but the memory? Baleirithys had tasted plenty of Tharaiyelagh’s blood, but never his lips. He would not dare. Against his better judgment, his gaze returned to the last person he had kissed. More than two centuries had passed since that final indiscretion, but the shame of it still simmered within him. Enci lifted his head, acknowledging the weight of his prince’s stare with a bland sort of acceptance.
Iyahi-Ila tilted his head as though listening intently. “Is it unseemly for a ruler to take his chancellor as a primary mate?”
“You!” Baleirithys accused, half rising from his chair. Enci blinked, but denied nothing. “You’ve done this. What did you give him?”
“My patient,” Enci said, his voice steady, “still receives a pain tonic twice daily.”
“The unintended effects are distasteful.” His mask of ice descending once more, Baleirithys sank back into his chair and gestured for another glass of blood. “This is not your fault, of course,” he said to Iyahi-Ila, “but you will be a tragically short-lived seer if you do not learn to guard your tongue.”
“Sorry.” The boy shrank a little in the wake of his host’s outburst. “I didn’t mean to…”
The apology stabbed at Baleirithys’ conscience more than his flash of outrage had. He should have held his own tongue. He should not have upbraided Enci in the boy’s presence. He should have composed himself before saying a word. Most of all, he should not have frightened this haunted child. He looked again to Enci, and he saw that the healer saw his guilt.
It burned in him, leaving shame in its place.
Creatures stirred in the fenland, drawing Atchi’s attention away. His tail quivered and his ears twitched this way and that, capturing every sound. Luccan maintained his composure better, but the set of his ears betrayed constant vigilance, intent listening. Szearbhyn heard less, but his eyes tracked the movements of small animals through the grasses. After the suspicious emptiness of the swamp, and subsequent attack, he trusted nothing.
Not that he was inclined to trust easily under any circumstances.
You are the least welcoming Lenyr I have ever met. Luccan’s words rattled around in his head, weighing down every step, dragging at him as surely as the swamp mud had. It bothered him, but why? Why should he care? His family didn’t.
A grasping vine snagged at his ankle, and he stumbled, swearing, before he managed to break free. So the swamp lingered, even as the ground eased higher and the branches of the trees twisted skyward. Well. He supposed he deserved it.
“You’re not what I expected.”
Szearbhyn shot a suspicious glance at Atchi. “Based on what, exactly?”
“Your reputation. Soul-stealer.” A slow grin bared Atchi’s sharp teeth. “You’re terribly introspective for a war criminal of your notoriety.”
“If you mean to press me for personal information, prepare for disappointment.”
“Hmm,” replied Atchi, still smiling. Szearbhyn preferred it when the scrabbling fauna of the grasses held his attention.
“He stopped killing innocents for the same reason I did.”
His head snapping around, Szearbhyn shot his darkest glare at Luccan. “You know nothing of me,” he snarled.
Luccan continued as though he had not interrupted. “He found something to fill the void inside of him.”
Huh. Perhaps the cat was worth talking to after all.
Luccan gave Szearbhyn a benign smile. “Was it the Lenyr?”
Irritation flashed down Szearbhyn’s spine and boiled in his veins. “I told you not to speak of them,” he snapped. He stomped on ahead, kicking at the grasses as he went.
“Touchy,” said Atchi.
Damn them both.
Really, though, why should he care? So long as they remained here in Interspace, his irritating companions posed no threat to his human family. Upon their return? Well, why in the world would demons so old trouble themselves with a scrappy little band of humans?
Perhaps he simply feared for their safety in his absence.
Involuntarily, he pressed a hand to his stomach, to the place where a swordthrust had freed him from his mortal imprisonment. He had devoured his murderer before his awareness of his true self had fully returned. And his human family? They loved him just the same as they always had. How could he have run off on this miserable quest and left them vulnerable?
Guilt.
Guilt was the source of his irritation.
Snatching a branch from a scraggly shrub, Szearbhyn prodded at the ground until he found a patch sufficiently dry. There, he sat and he opened his pack. “Lunch,” he announced, not looking up to see if the other two would join him.
Luccan crouched at his side and swiped some bread out of Szearbhyn’s hand. Atchi took the pack from him and dug out some dried fruit. “Tell me,” the fox pried, “did you really eat an entire army as they were surrendering?”
“That was two hundred years ago,” Szearbhyn grumped.
“Before the Lenyr?” Luccan pressed. Szearbhyn bared his teeth at him.
“I like it,” Atchi declared with entirely too much cheer. “Dramatic. Nefarious.” He stuffed his cheeks full of food. “You’ve lost your edge.”
“As it turns out,” Szearbhyn said, regarding him through narrowed eyes, “having someone to disappoint functions reasonably well as an external conscience.”
“Your brother or the Lenyr?”
With a cry of exasperation, Szearbhyn snatched up his pack and hit Luccan with it. Atchi gave a bark of laughter, nearly choked on his mouthful of fruit, and doubled over, wheezing. Luccan laughed at his friend, and an odd warmth tugged at Szearbhyn. Was he smiling? Why was he smiling? These two spent too much time nosing into his business, and it irritated him right up to the edge of his patience.
…Didn’t it?
Or did it feel just like the way his human family teased him? Szearbhyn huddled his arms around himself while fox and cat tussled in rough play. Missing them was a physical ache. He wanted to go home.
The darkness clung like wet wool, only just held at bay by the fire Akieryon conjured. With every step forward Tharaiyelagh edged a little nearer to Tempest, and no wonder. The passage descended ever lower, and ash lay thick on the floor. Akieryon gripped Tempest’s hand and pretended bravery.
“This reminds me of childhood,” Tharaiyelagh said, too abruptly, too loudly. His voice rang off the walls, which had taken on a more precisely tooled appearance. Once, this had been a fine corridor. Heavy curtains of basalt bulged where one might expect windows. Fire of the earth. Akieryon squeezed Tempest’s hand a little tighter.
Tempest tilted his head toward Tharaiyelagh. “You lived underground?”
Tharaiyelagh gave an uncomfortable little laugh. “I grew up in a cave,” he said. He glanced across Tempest, looking for judgment from an angel who had spent centuries in a windowless cell. Akieryon found he had suddenly misplaced his voice, so he simply stared back.
“Was that far from the castle?” Not sparing him a glance, Tempest pulled Akieryon closer against his side. He knew. He understood.
“I… A bit?” Tharaiyelagh broke eye contact. He limped along in obvious discomfort. “I’d heard that it was dangerous near the castle, so when I left the caves, I headed west.” He gestured over his shoulder, toward his absent wings. “That turned out to be unwise.” Somehow, his words lacked rancor. Remembering the agony of feathers being torn from his own wings, Akieryon concentrated on the thick ashfall beneath his feet.
“At least we’re all getting to know each other,” Tempest said with a note of wry humor. Akieryon gave him a soft shove.
“I watched you die. You and I are somewhat acquainted.”
Tempest’s hot breath tickled Akieryon’s ear. “Are you saying you don’t want—”
Akieryon slapped a hand over Tempest’s mouth. Fangs grazed his palm, and as his pulse raced, Akieryon wondered if Tharaiyelagh blushed as fiercely as he himself did. Certainly he would smell the blood.
“Irrelevant.” By will alone, Akieryon kept his voice steady, despite the way Tempest’s tongue played across the scratches on his palm. He took his hand back, took a risk that Tempest would behave himself. “After all, we’re trapped in this…” He squinted through the darkness. “Colonnade?”
Yes, the corridor had given way to a colonnade, and they had all missed noticing any sort of doorway. Not that it mattered. Rubble and sheets of basalt enclosed the space as surely as any walls ever could. Fascinated, Akieryon pressed his hand against the nearest column. Bits of it had fallen away, and at least a little of it may have melted. How had the pathway been preserved? What magics could hold back magma?
“Huh.” Tempest also moved to inspect a column. “This was part of a castle, or a palace, or…”
“A temple?” Akieryon suggested. Did dragons build temples? His memory failed him, and he found himself shrugging. “If we continue onward, we may discover which.”
“We may encounter traps,” Tempest suggested. From flirting to fatalism. Akieryon shot a glare at him, but it missed its mark. Turning, he lifted his hand, and the little flame burned brighter.
“Where did Tharaiyelagh go?”
“Dragons don’t do well on their own.” Raaqiel leaned against the edge of his desk. “If you encounter a solitary dragon, what questions need answering?”
Hands shot up across the classroom, and Raaqiel pointed to invite students to speak.
“Are they sick?”
“Are they injured?”
“Are they feral?”
“Do they need help finding their way back to their Harem or Clutch?”
Good answers. Leaning his weight backward, Raaqiel said, “If a dragon from below the Seventh Sphere is sick or injured, what is the first thing you should do?”
“Find them blood to consume,” chorused a room full of future Demonslayers.
“Precisely so. Now,” Raaqiel said, taking a giant book from the desk behind him and passing it to the nearest cadet, “your assignment is to list the ten most nutritious types of blood, and the major drawbacks to utilizing each.”
A hand near the back of the classroom stretched upward.
“Master Raaqiel, why do we need to know how to heal a blood-drinking demon?”
Seikhiel would have given a more tactful answer. Pushing himself away from the desk, Raaqiel paced down the aisle between his eager students. “Imagine, if you will, that you have been sent on a mission to the Fourth Sphere. Your objective is to hunt down a rogue mage who threatens the stability of the Spheres, but on the way you encounter a young Seyzharel demon. He is alone, and does not immediately respond to attempts at conversation. He appears slightly feverish, and is quick to bare his fangs. What do you do?”
The student, a youth called Lichel, looked up at him with cool bravado. “I ignore him and I complete my mission.”
“Wrong.” Turning, Raaqiel addressed the rest of the class. “Why do we help this suffering being?”
“Because Seyzharel demons are—”
“Critically endangered,” Seikhiel muttered under his breath. For all the incalculable value of Ragheiyont’s life, the young dragon tottered along ahead of his two companions, inspecting every scratch in the walls with as much carefree enthusiasm as an anemic creature could muster.
“He’s fine,” Van-Dal said. For now. The words hung unspoken between them.
“Until I run out of blood to give.” Though Seikhiel spoke in an undertone, Ragheiyont turned abruptly, and for a moment Seikhiel thought he had heard them.
“Oya!” called Ragheiyont, waving his good arm over his head. “Come and see this!”
“I don’t think we have much choice.”
Van-Dal slanted a wry look at Seikhiel. In moments they had caught up to Ragheiyont, who pointed proudly at some scratches on the stone wall. “Is that a map?”
Seikhiel squinted at the lines. Yes, there was an arrow pointing in the way they had come, indicating the exit. And the other markings… “I haven’t seen this language in over a thousand years.”
Ragheiyont lit up like someone had just told him it was about to rain gold. “You can read it?” His blue eyes sparkled, and he grinned with previously untapped enthusiasm. “Not just a pretty face, are ya, jo?”
With a little shake of his head, Seikhiel leaned closer, studying the map. He had to get them out of this place, get them to safety. To some place where Ragheiyont would have more feeding options.
He had no business feeling so fond of a worlds-renowned thief. Fond feelings would only hurt them both, and Ragheiyont’s life was far too precious to risk so carelessly.
Seikhiel scowled at the map.
The words, sheltered from the elements as they were, jumped crisply from the stone. Seikhiel traced each with his fingertip. “This turn here leads to a water reservoir. This one is a… a granary, I think. A foundry. And a mining complex.” He tapped one path marked on the map. “This way leads to a city.”
With a whoop, Ragheiyont threw his good arm around Seikhiel’s neck and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek. Awkwardly, Seikhiel tried to pull away, but Ragheiyont stuck to him like a limpet to a rock. Van-Dal did a poor job of hiding his amusement.
“To the city, then?”
They all nodded. It was the best plan they had.