by Rachel Aaron
“We could have cut it,” he wheezed. “But she stopped us. Never landed the strike. The Heart—” His voice broke off as he launched into a coughing fit. “The Heart says it can’t. It’s her creation. It can’t attack—”
The words vanished into another coughing fit, and Eli saw with a start how stark Josef’s face was, how heavy the Heart rested against him. They’d been at their limit after the fight with the Lord of Storms, he realized. How hard had they swung just now? He put the thought out of his mind and helped settle Josef back onto the ground.
What now?
The Weaver’s voice made Eli clench his eyes shut in frustration. He left Josef’s side and turned to see them all standing there, staring at him.
I told you. Spirits can’t stand against her, the Weaver said. Though the Heart of War had a good chance. After it gave up its body, Benehime re-formed it with her own hands, just as she made humans. That’s why it has will as you do, but in the end even that wasn’t enough, apparently. So, now what?
“Give me a moment,” Eli muttered, sinking to the floor.
Burying his head in his arms, he tried to make himself think. He’d really thought that would work. The barrier was a product of the Shepherdess’s will just as the Lord of Storms was. If Josef could cut one, he should have been able to cut the other. The rest of his plan depended on them getting inside. If they couldn’t get through the veil, everything else was a wash. He had to find another way, and fast. There wasn’t much time left.
Pushing the looming deadline out of his mind, Eli set himself to finding another way in. But the others had started talking, and their voices were distracting him. Miranda was pestering Slorn, asking him about other spirits. She even suggested finding the Lord of Storms, though thankfully Slorn turned down that plan. The League Commander was the Shepherdess’s oldest ally; he’d never turn against her. The old thunderhead was probably already relaxing in paradise, Eli thought grimly. His nice, fat reward for a job well done. The fact that the storm would be bored stiff after an hour with nothing to attack was Eli’s only consolation, but before he could take any bitter pleasure from it, the Weaver joined Slorn and Miranda’s conversation, and they all started talking over each other.
Eli rolled his eyes and gave up, letting the voices bleed over him, mixing together until the words were just sounds. An idea. He needed an idea. A really good—
He stopped suddenly, ears straining. Below the drone of the arguing voices, he’d caught another sound. It was soft as a heartbeat, almost lost in the noise, but it was steady and strong, tapping out a rhythm Eli knew as well as his own breath.
And with that, his idea came to him clear as a trumpet.
Eli jumped up and scrambled over to Josef. The swordsman was still lying on the floor. His chest rose and fell with his deep breaths, as though he were asleep.
“Josef,” Eli whispered.
The swordsman’s eyes cracked open, and Eli grinned in response. “Hear that?”
For a moment Josef looked confused, and then recognition spread over his face. Eli’s grin widened. “Up for one more cut?”
Josef’s answer was to pry one of his hands off his sword so Eli could pull him up.
Everyone else was still arguing, so no one noticed as Eli hauled Josef to his feet and helped him walk over to the bone metal box lying forgotten at the center of the Shaper Mountain.
The thumping grew louder the closer they got—three long beats followed by two short raps, then a silence, then the pattern twice again before a slight variation, four raps instead of two.
Eli had thought of that part himself, a safeguard against imposters. By the time they reached the box, Eli’s grin was so wide his cheeks hurt. He looked down at the dull white lid, watching with deep pride as the heavy bone metal vibrated in the unmistakable rhythm of their long-standing all-clear code.
Without a word, Josef let go of Eli’s arm and stood on his own before the coffin. He hefted the Heart in his hands, lifting the black blade to his elbow before dropping it in a clean stroke. The blade fell perfectly, sliding between the coffin’s edge and the gleaming chains and then pulling out, snapping the chain with one swift motion.
The awakened steel broke with a ringing cry, and the room fell deathly still as the metal links clattered to the floor. Eli didn’t have to look to know everyone was staring at them, so he didn’t. He kept his eyes on the coffin as the knocking stopped. And then, with a long, groaning creak, the bone metal lid began to open.
CHAPTER
20
Miranda watched in horror as the chains fell from the box that lay like an offering at the heart of the Shaper Mountain. She didn’t know what was inside, but anything wrapped in that much awakened metal couldn’t be good. This observation was reinforced by the stricken expressions on the faces of the men around her.
Even Slorn looked terrified, his bear eyes wide and his ears back. Beside her, Gin was growling so loudly she could feel the vibrations in her bones. His muzzle was pulled up, revealing all his teeth, and his nose was twitching, sniffing the air in a way that told her he’d caught a scent. She wanted to ask what he smelled, but her body was so frozen with fear she couldn’t speak. She could only watch as the white lid opened.
From here, all she could see was darkness. The box was filled with shadows so deep not even the white light of the mountain could penetrate them. As the lid slid off and fell to the ground, the shadows seemed to slosh, almost like water, and then something extraordinary happened. A thin, white hand emerged from the darkness, followed by a bony arm. The hand reached up blindly, the fingers grasping at the empty air.
Josef moved faster than her eyes could track. His arm shot out, grabbing the hand with his own. The white fingers gripped his tanned, scarred skin, and then Josef pulled up, ripping Nico from the dark.
Her body was thinner than Miranda remembered, though that could have been because she’d never seen the girl without her coat. There was nothing to hide her frailness now. Nico was naked as she burst from the shadows, her body little more than pale skin and thin bone dangling from Josef’s hand. She was so thin, Miranda almost thought she was dead, but then she caught sight of the girl’s eyes.
Nico’s dark eyes were now golden yellow, and they looked only at Josef. The second she was free of the dark, the swordsman crushed her against his chest and turned, carrying her to the base of the box he’d pulled her from. He reached down, grabbing a small, sad black pile from the floor and wrapping it around her body. The second the black cloth touched her, it began to writhe and change, growing and reforming into a shape Miranda recognized.
When Josef turned again, Nico was dressed in her coat. It should have been a familiar sight, but the eyes changed everything. Nico’s yellow gaze lit up the deep shadows of her cowl, and at once Miranda remembered the yellow eyes of the creature at Izo’s. The endless glowing eyes with the dancing shadows behind them. But there were no shadows behind Nico’s eyes now and, Miranda realized with a start, no fear. Just the intense, golden stare as it moved across their group.
What have you done?
Miranda shrank away from the terrible fury in the Weaver’s voice. Suddenly, the old man was looming over them, large and threatening and cold as new-fallen snow, his white face alien in its rage.
You have freed the demon! he shouted. As though things weren’t bad enough. Is this your plot, favorite? Do you mean to hurry us to our deaths?
“I am not your death.” Nico’s voice rang pure and clear, but there was something in it that put Miranda’s teeth on edge. The words echoed with a strange double harmonic. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it also wasn’t a noise that should ever come from a human throat.
Nico whispered something to Josef, who nodded and set her down. She swayed a little, but then she planted her bare feet and fixed the Weaver with a glare.
“I am not your death,” she said again. “Nor am I your enemy, lest you make me one.”
Impossible, the Weaver boomed. You are a demon. Y
our very nature makes you an enemy of everything we know. We saw you change; we bound you in that box. There is no coming back.
“I am Nico,” Nico said simply. “And I my own master.”
She lies! the Weaver cried. Demons always lie. Don’t listen. Don’t fall for her tricks!
Nico’s yellow eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “No one knows that demons lie better than I do,” she said. “But I am not one of those.” She raised her arm, laying her thin white hand across her chest. “I fought and won. I was not eaten, and I never will be. I am the master of myself, I and no other. I am king of my own country. My power is my own to give, and I choose to use it to aid those who have stood by me.” She tilted her head, and her yellow eyes grew soft as she looked up at Josef. “I will fight the others for you,” she whispered. “As you fought for me.”
Josef nodded, and Nico turned back to the Weaver. Silently, she raised her arm, finger pointing straight up. “They’re coming,” she said. “I can feel them eating the edges as we speak. Soon there will be nothing left. The sky will split, and they will devour everything. So choose now. Accept my help and maybe live, or fight me and seal all our deaths.”
She crossed her arms and stood, waiting. Behind her, Josef was beaming with pride. Eli was also smiling, standing beside his partners in crime with a smug satisfaction that made Miranda want to scream.
But she didn’t. Miranda had seen this before, the three of them lined up in a united front. Every time she’d tried to stand against them, she’d lost. When the decision came, Miranda didn’t know if it was good sense or simply the weariness of always being the odd one out. Whatever the reason, she didn’t have time to worry about it.
Bending her stiff legs, Miranda started across the room. Gin followed her a second later, whining in confusion. Her boots slapped against the smooth white stone, the sound offensively loud in her ears. She ignored it, focusing only on keeping her breaths even and her head high as she closed the distance to Eli’s group. And then, feeling a little sheepish, she turned and stepped into line beside the thief.
“Finally decided to join the winning team?” Eli’s voice was almost purring in her ear. When Miranda glanced at him, his smile was so smug she wanted to punch it off his face.
“There’s only one team now, thief.”
This observation only widened his smile, and Miranda decided to ignore him, turning instead to face the Shapers and the Weaver. “I’ve seen Monpress and his lackeys perform miracles too many times to doubt them now,” she said, raising her voice until her words echoed through the white cavern. “The Spirit Court stands with Eliton Banage.”
She caught Eli’s wince out of the corner of her eye, and then it was her turn to smirk.
Across the room, Slorn shook his head. “So be it,” he muttered, turning to the Weaver. “We must try. The Creator gave everything to protect the world he’d made. If we do not give everything trying to save it, we are unworthy of the life he gave us.”
The Weaver closed his white eyes, his chin slumping into the snowfall of his beard. He looked ancient then, Miranda thought. Older than the Shaper Mountain, older than anything she’d ever seen.
Very well, he whispered, opening his eyes again to glare at Nico. Do as you wish. I will support you however I can.
“Fantastic,” Eli said, slapping his hands together. The sound was loud enough to make Miranda jump, but Eli was already moving. He grabbed Nico’s hand and led her to the glowing white wall that was still hanging in the air, the barrier Benehime had raised between herself and the world she’d abandoned.
“There you go,” Eli said. “If a demonseed with the right leverage could kill a Power, then a fully fledged demon should surely be enough to break through one little wall.”
Nico stared at the glowing surface, her face scrunched in thought. She reached out to touch the glowing surface and then snatched her fingers back with a hiss. Black smoke rose from her skin where she had touched the barrier.
“I can’t break this,” she said, yellow eyes going to Eli.
“Oh come on!” he cried. “Your kind are chewing through the shell of the world, and you’re telling me you can’t make one little hole—”
“There are a lot of demons breaking down the shell,” Nico said, jerking her head toward the wall. “I’m just one, and that thing is held up by two Powers. Well…” She paused, leaning toward the barrier and wrinkling her nose, almost like she was sniffing it. “One and a half.”
Eli groaned. “So what do we do now?” he said. “Get another demon to make things…”
His voice trailed off as his eyes lit up, a smile breaking over his face. The moment they saw it, Slorn, Miranda, the Shaper Mountain, and the Weaver all spoke at once.
“No!”
“I can’t believe you talked us into this,” Miranda muttered, holding the white hole in the air open as Eli, Josef, Gin, and Nico stepped through. “I mean, I really, really, really cannot believe it. This is a horrible, horrible idea.”
“Yes, thank you,” Eli said drily. “You’ve made your opinion very clear.”
“Horrible,” Miranda said again, stepping through before letting the hole in the world fall closed. “Just horrible.”
It was a pretty horrible idea, Eli had to admit. But as old Monpress used to say, a bad out is still an out. Still, as the icy, high mountain wind hit his face, he wasn’t so sure this was an out and not just another way to end the world.
Now that they were outside the Shaper Mountain, he could hear the panic loud and clear. The winds screamed around them and the ice whimpered under their boots. Even the mountain pass beneath their feet was rocking back and forth, moaning in terror. Snow blew in panicked bursts, and the clouds had pulled themselves into tight balls as they bounced against the scrambling winds.
Eli winced. He’d been hoping Miranda was exaggerating before, but the Spiritualist had told the truth. The world really was going insane, the whole of reality twisting itself into knots in its terror, with one large exception.
The Dead Mountain loomed in front of them. The enormous black shape rose like a thorn from the snow-filled valley, its bare slopes the sole point of stillness in the whole, trembling world. Just looking at it filled Eli with dread. He remembered his last trip here very clearly. It was an experience he had no desire to repeat, but as he’d said over and over again just minutes before, it was the only choice they had left.
If the world was to survive, a new Hunter must be born, and that could only happen if they got his seed out of Benehime’s world. But neither Nico nor the Weaver could break through the Shepherdess’s barrier alone, and since they were opposites, the demon and the Power couldn’t work together without canceling each other out. That being so, their remaining options were to get another Power or get another demon. Since getting another Power was completely impossible, the choice was irrefutably clear, even to the Weaver, which was why they were here.
Miranda began using her League-granted calming power as soon as she dropped the portal, laying down what Eli could only call the bleeding-heart-Spiritualist’s version of the League’s Don’t Move command on their frantic surroundings. It worked wonders, though, and while the Spiritualist worked on quieting the area enough for them to pass through without being mauled, Eli strolled over to stand beside Josef.
The swordsman’s face was drawn and pale. Nico’s was no better as she took her place at Josef’s right. They all recognized the mountain pass. It was the place where they had faced the Lord of Storms the first time, where Nico had snapped and Josef would have died had Eli not thrown himself in front of the Lord of Storms’ blade, gambling that Benehime’s constant watch would save them both. The memory brought a grimace to Eli’s face. This wasn’t a happy place for any of them, but here they were, and he had questions to ask before they moved forward.
“Josef,” he said, his voice low. “Are you going to be able to go to the mountain with me this time?”
Josef’s eyes didn’t budge from the blac
k slope, but his fingers tightened on the Heart’s hilt. “I’ve always been able to go,” he said. “But you’re not asking about me. You’re asking about the Heart.”
“Same difference,” Eli said.
Josef chuckled. “You’re more right than you know.” He turned then and fixed Eli with a look that stabbed right through him. “This isn’t like before. The Heart and I are one now. It goes where I go, and we will see this thing to the end.”
Eli nodded and leaned over, glancing around him at Nico. “Will—”
“Of course I’m going,” Nico said, glaring at Eli with those intense yellow eyes. “The thing under that mountain has no power over me anymore.”
Eli smiled at her. “Good,” he said. “Because I don’t think I can do this without you.”
To his surprise, Nico smiled back. It was the largest smile he’d ever seen on her face, and it was astonishing how pretty she was when she did it. Eli smiled even wider before starting down the steep slope to the valley.
Even with Miranda there to calm things, it was hard going. The snow squirmed beneath their feet, and the wind seemed to be blowing every direction at once. Only Gin and Miranda, who was seated on his back, avoided falling on the way down.
The ghosthound trotted down the slope with the inborn self-assurance of a creature born to ice and snow, sliding through the blowing gusts like a graceful ghost. The dog knew it, too, and every time Eli slipped, Gin gave him the ghosthound equivalent of a superior smirk. He was loving this, Eli thought with a bitter scowl. Well, good thing someone could be happy in this mess.
The snow was so thick that they didn’t see the man until they were almost on top of him. It was Josef who stopped first, grabbing Eli’s arm and jerking the thief to a stop. Eli gasped in pain and surprise, but before he could ask what had gotten into the swordsman, Gin’s growl fired up full force. The sound drained Eli’s anger away to nothing, and he looked up to see a looming shadow standing directly in front of them.
