Fury of the Demon

Silence like the void engulfed us.

Szerain stroked my back, trailed his fingers over the sigil and wove the rakkuhr with disturbingly familiar ease. Into the silence he spoke a word that made all else pale.

“Rowan.”

“No!” I screamed. “Szerain! What have you done?” My foundation tilted, and I again found myself on a glassy plain with nothing between me and oblivion. “I can’t hold on!” I cried out in horror as I began an inexorable slide into the void. “I’m Kara!” I’m . . . Kara?

Eilahn let out an inhuman shriek and dove at the barrier, crashed against it. Bryce fought the arcane bonds, shouted my name.

Szerain moved off of me, gripped me by the arm, and dragged me to my feet. He shifted his grasp to the hair at the back of my head, leaned close, his face a hard mask.

“No,” he snarled. “You are Rowan.”

The name ripped through me like a mass of spi

As if through a fog, I saw Bryce jerk against the bindings. “You fix this!” he shouted at Szerain. “I swear to god, if you don’t, I’ll fucking kill you!”

Doubtful, little man, I thought as the fog cleared. The identity of whom the prisoner spoke slipped away like sand through my fingers, unimportant.

Szerain released my head and stepped back, his always-keen eyes on me. A slice in his dark t-shirt revealed a hint of skin and faintly luminous blood.

I rolled my head on my shoulders, looked down at my body, at the glorious scars given to me by my lord Rhyzkahl. I ran my hands over my face, my throat, my breasts, my body, then raised my eyes to Szerain in triumph. I watched his features shift into fuller lips and higher cheekbones as he embraced the reco

He drew a deeper breath, lowered his head slightly to regard me. Behind me, the bound captive cursed. That one would be a choice prize for Lord Kadir or Lord Amkir.

“Szerain,” I said, smiling calmly as I inclined my head. A greeting of sorts, I supposed.

“Rowan,” he replied.

My smile widened. “You know me.”

“I called you,” he said mildly as he took a half-step closer, blade down at his side. “And yes, I do know you. Very well. You should not be here.”

“But you called me here.” Amused, I swept my gaze around before returning it to him. “And this place will serve as well as any other.” I let out a low laugh. “Better than any other. I have this.” I gestured to the mini-nexus below us. Ah, yes, my lord Rhyzkahl would be most pleased to have control of a converged confluence on Earth.

Szerain’s grip shifted on the blade. Nervous? Satisfaction coiled through me. He should be. I’d have Vsuhl back from his diminished grasp soon enough, ready to hand over to Lord Jesral in triumph. Another few minutes of integration and my metamorphosis would be complete, my power beyond the imagination of any mere summoner.

“You do not have anything, Rowan,” Szerain stated. “You are owned.” A sneer touched his mouth, though his eyes remained hard upon me, assessing. “Nothing but a tool.”

I lifted my hands, looked at them, then looked beyond them to Szerain. I frowned. Why did that bother me? I was the tool of gods. In the void, a pinprick of light flickered distractingly.

“Aren’t we all?” I asked him, lips curving into a smile.

“Some more than others,” the lord replied, low and resonant.

I fixed my gaze on the repulsive ring, on the cracked stone. Unworthy of one such as I. My lord Rhyzkahl would offer me true treasures, not the dross given by a lesser qaztahl. I slipped the ring from my finger, held it up before me. Delicious potency answered my call, flowed easily to me from the nexus. I focused it on the gem, delighted in the discordant vibration that rose within it. A heartbeat later it shattered in a magnificent shower of crimson sparks. “And I revel in the knowledge that I am owned by my lord Rhyzkahl.”

“No,” Szerain said through clenched teeth, stepped closer. “You, Rowan, are owned by me.”

I let the ring with its empty, twisted prongs drop to the grass, swung my gaze to him. “In that, Lord Szerain, you are mistaken—”

—The syraza shrieked and dashed herself against the barrier. The prisoner shouted a word, a name, her name—

—as Szerain buried the blade in my chest.

I managed one brief gurgled gasp before white hot agony seared through me. I vaguely heard the captive yelling, cursing as he fought against the bonds of potency that restrained him. The syraza too screamed in rage, clawing at the arcane shield as I clutched at Szerain’s hand and arm.

Blood filled my mouth, and I pulled my eyes up to Szerain’s. His mouth twisted in a merciless snarl, one hand locked in the hair at the back of my head as he twisted the blade, shoved it sideways. My knees buckled, but Szerain’s hold on the blade and my hair kept me upright. I coughed, and blood spilled over my chest and his hand.

His eyes remained hot and intense upon mine, and once again he twisted the blade. Agony ripped through my entire body, as if Vsuhl excised life from every cell.

Impossible. I am Rowan. I am . . . invincible.

I tried to scream but had no breath, could only stare at Szerain in horror as my vision dimmed and the blood pounded in my ears. Kara . . . Kara . . . Kara . . .

The captive. Still shouting her name. Face contorted in distress. So much like another who’d called to me. To me? Who was I?

Vsuhl whispered. You are mine. I will keep you. I will hold you. Mine.

Szerain cried out, screamed a word in demon, savagely twisted the blade once more and then banished it even as it remained buried in my chest. It dragged barbed hooks through me as it left, arcane pain more terrible than when Rhyzkahl sliced the mark from her arm. Kara’s arm?

Kara . . . Kara . . . Kara . . . Elinor!

Bryce. Mzatal. Calling. Giova

Elinor! Kara!

I collapsed to my side. No breath. No pulse. No pain. Grey mist filled my vision.

Szerain shoved me to my back, pressed his hands to my chest.

Kara . . . Kara . . . Kara . . .

Bryce. Calling. Calling my name. Mzatal. Calling . . . my name.

My name.

Kara.

My name is Kara.

Kara. I knew. Then a black wind swept in, and I knew nothing more.

Chapter 43

I woke on the sofa in my living room beneath a faded quilt. Sunlight beamed through a window, throwing a pattern of squares onto the rug. Not squares, I thought. No right angles. I struggled for a few seconds to come up with the right word. Quadrilaterals. Yeah, that was it. Still had my third grade math skills. That was cool.

Someone stepped in the quadrilaterals, turned and stepped through them again. I lifted my focus a few feet. Bryce, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, stark worry twisting his features. Bryce. He’d called to me, shouted my name.

Kara.

I sucked in a gasp and jerked upright as memory crashed over me. Both hands flew to my chest, clawed at a blade that wasn’t there.

Bryce whirled to face me. “Kara?”

My pulse thundered as I fumbled at my chest. “Bryce?” I croaked. “I—” Pulse. Heart beating. I stilled my shaking hands and pressed them hard over my sternum. Felt the reassuring thud beneath it.

A shift of movement near the door pulled my attention. Eilahn, eyes on me and a smile whispering across her face as she sat with one knee up and the other leg tucked beneath her. Bryce crouched before me and took hold of my shoulders, his features battered by uncertainty and fatigue as he searched my face. “Kara?” he asked. Asked. He wasn’t sure, couldn’t be sure who I was.