by Rachel Aaron
“Is it not natural for a father to show concern for his child’s well-being?” he said, that deep, smooth voice as sweet as honey, just like always.
Nico ignored him, kicking off the now-writhing arm to finish the one the demon had been working on before he’d decided to come and chat. The cold at her back told her he was following, but she kept her eyes ahead, forcing her body down until she was as calm and cold as one of Josef’s blades, even when she felt the demon’s teeth brush her wings.
Horrible as he looked, Nico actually preferred the Demon of the Dead Mountain in this form. Anything was better than the face he’d worn when he walked off the broken seal. It was similar to the one he’d worn before when he’d met her in the dark of her mind, during the fight at Izo’s. Just like then, his features were a handsome melding of Josef and Eli; only now Tesset’s firmness was in there, too.
Looking at that combination, she couldn’t help wanting to trust him, even though she knew better. That face was dangerous. It messed with her control. Every time she thought she knew it, the demon’s face would shift, now looking like Josef that first morning she met him, now looking closer to Eli when she’d woken up on the beach at Osera.
The changes came so fast, so effortlessly that Nico was beginning to suspect the demon didn’t have a true face at all. His human form was nothing but a reflection of the desires of those who saw him. A shifting trap that used remembered trust as its bait. Nico bared her teeth, grabbing hold of the enormous grasping arm and pulling the black skin apart. Nivel was right. The demon could never, ever be trusted.
“You’re thinking awful things about me, aren’t you?”
Nico didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, she fixed her yellow eyes on Josef as she pulled the demon arm straight, giving him a clean shot.
“Of course you are,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain purred, closing in. “I can see it on your face.”
“You can’t see my face,” Nico said, stretching the arm farther.
“I don’t need to,” he answered. “I’m part of you, Nico. I always will be. You’re far more demon than human now, and that’s why I’m going to ask you one last time—”
“No,” Nico snapped, bracing as the Heart of War’s blow sliced the arm she held in half.
“You didn’t even hear my offer.” The demon sounded hurt.
“I don’t have to,” Nico said, tossing the disintegrating arm to the ground. “Unless you’re offering me your life, I want nothing of yours. We are done, demon.”
She turned and glared at him then, baring her black teeth instinctively to drive the point home, but the Demon of the Dead Mountain didn’t return the threat. Still grinning, he jumped backward, putting a hundred feet of empty air between them, and began to plummet toward the storm-shrouded ground.
Nico was about to abandon him to the Lord of Storms when a flash of white blinded her. She froze, yellow eyes rolling as she fought to get her vision back. Slowly, the white faded and the world came back into focus, and as it did, she realized that the lightning-dense clouds that had protected the ground were gone. There was nothing to stand in the demon’s way as the Master of the Dead Mountain landed on a foothill of the now-unprotected Sleeping Mountains and, slamming his enormous claws into the stone slope, began to devour the stone whole.
“No!” she screamed, shooting toward him. But before she’d gone more than fifty feet, a writhing black arm struck her across the back. The blow knocked her off course, slamming her into a valley several mountains away. Hissing in pain, Nico pushed herself out of the crater she’d made and launched back into the air, grabbing the demon hand’s grasping claws as they came down on top of her, desperate for the ground below.
“Josef!” she bellowed, using all her strength to keep the enormous hand from slamming into the ground and crushing her in the process.
All at once, the hand went slack, the dull black carapace crumbling to nothing under her claws, severed in one blow from the Heart of War. Tossing the ruined limb aside, Nico shot into the air and looked frantically for the demon she’d once called Master.
She found him immediately. He was still on the ground where he’d landed, shoveling small mountains into his enormous gaping mouth. Behind him, a long trail of black, dead stone showed where he’d gorged himself already.
Nico’s heart fell in her chest. Already, he was noticeably larger, his great, black body towering over the mountain’s foothills. Another few minutes at this pace and he would be larger than the limbs that shot down through the holes.
With a snarl that grew into a howl, Nico charged.
He kept eating until the moment her claws touched his neck, and then he vanished into the shadows. She felt him move behind her and turned just in time to see him surface again. The size of him was intimidating. He towered over her, a great menace of teeth and powerful muscle even as he sank into a crouch. Fear began to curdle in her stomach, but Nico pushed it aside in favor of raw fury.
“Eating wasn’t part of the deal!” she roared. “What are you doing?”
“Betraying you,” the Demon of the Dead Mountain said, shoving another handful of stone down his throat. “I should think that was obvious.”
His honesty stopped Nico like a wall, and the demon began to laugh, a terrible, dry sound, like wind in dead grass. “Now, now, my dear,” he said. “You knew this was coming.”
This was true, but Nico still couldn’t quite believe he’d do it before the shell was sealed.
The demon sighed. “Don’t be an idiot, darling. Did you honestly think I’d wait politely until you all were free to gang up on me?” The topmost of his three yellow eyes rolled back toward the Dead Mountain. “When I saw the thief return, I waited to see if you’d notice. You didn’t, of course, but then you never were any good at keeping your eyes on more than one target at a time. Still, I thought I’d better take one last shot at bringing you over to the winning side. Waste of time, really, but I’ve always been the sentimental sort.”
Nico started to growl, but the demon shook his head. “Moot point now, dear. Didn’t you see the flash? The Hunter’s been reborn. He’ll undoubtedly be along shortly to take care of this.” The demon swept a clawed hand across the sundered sky and the clawing black arms. “But I didn’t let you free me just so I could go back to my prison. I intend to eat everything I can, and after your Powers reseal the shell, I mean to make myself king of this little feed bowl.”
He paused, his golden eyes roving over her. “This is your last chance, you know. There’s more than enough food here to share. We could rule together. I’d even let you keep your swordsman.” His triple-jointed arm reached out, claw turned up. “Last chance, daughter. I suggest you take it, or I’ll have to end you just like all the rest.”
Nico didn’t answer. Instead, fast as a flash, she slashed the Demon of the Dead Mountain straight across his claw, severing it at the wrist. She paused, waiting for the scream, but the demon didn’t even blink. He just grinned at her, his enormous mouth opening in a wall of sharp, black teeth.
“Remember,” he said, “you brought this on yourself.”
And then he was gone.
Nico blinked, focusing on the slimy, cold feel of him as he slipped through the shadows. He moved faster than she’d ever thought possible, popping up north of her. With a roar, she took off after him, slipping in and out of the shadows as she picked up speed.
In the sky, things were quickly getting out of control. Josef was holding all three cracks alone now, and without the Lord of Storms to block them, the hands were starting to reach the ground again, the clawed fingers eating the land wherever they touched. Nico cursed and moved faster. She had to put the demon down and get back to Josef before they were overwhelmed.
But as she closed in on the spot where the demon should have been, his presence vanished. Nico jerked to a stop, confused. She was at the foot of the Dead Mountain’s north slope. She’d felt the Demon of the Dead Mountain sliding up from the shadows here a sec
ond earlier, but now he was gone completely. She turned her head in a full circle, roaring a challenge. As her cry echoed through the sky, she suddenly felt him again, coming out of the shadows a few hundred feet away.
Even as she felt him surface, she knew she was too late. She’d been fooled. The black stone beneath her was the Dead Mountain, the demon’s prison for thousands of years. Of course he would know his way around it, know how to slide deep into its roots to avoid her before popping up in another location.
Nico shot into the air anyway, but it was far, far too late. A second after she left the ground, Josef’s scream ripped through her. She cleared the mountain’s ledge just in time to see Josef, her Josef, drop to his knees, the Heart of War falling from his limp hands. Below him, the demon’s claws poked up through the swordsman’s shadow, the enormous, curved tips stabbing through his blood-soaked chest.
The demon emerged fully as she watched, lifting Josef with him. He grinned at the swordsman before he flicked his claw. Josef hit the stone with an echoing crash. He didn’t cry out as he landed, just collapsed like a doll, motionless and limp even as the demon reached down to grasp his head delicately between his talons. He was seconds from twisting the swordsman’s head clean off when Nico barreled into him. The shock of her impact knocked Josef from his claws, and the demon went flying off the mountain.
Nico didn’t follow him. Instead, she crouched over Josef. Gathering his broken body delicately, she lifted him and gently moved him so that he was lying beside his sword. Using the tips of her claws, she wrapped his bloody fingers around the Heart of War’s hilt. She did not allow herself to notice how still he was, did not think about how his chest wasn’t moving. She allowed no thought into her head save two, that Josef would live, and that she was going to make the demon pay.
When her swordsman was with his sword, Nico turned on the demon. He was crouched at the edge of the snowy valley where she had thrown him, his claws spanning the entire swath of mountain that formed one half of the pass where she and Josef had once sheltered. It was only then that Nico realized just how enormous he’d become. He was easily twice her size now, his mouth big enough to swallow her head whole.
Sensing her fear, the Demon of the Dead Mountain grinned, baring his thousands of ragged teeth as his three yellow eyes shone with amusement. “If you want to beg, it’s not too late,” he said, his deep voice almost crooning.
Nico’s answer was to sink into the shadows. She moved like water through the dark, exploding out of the shadow cast by his enormous bulk on the cliff face behind him. Her momentum knocked them both off the mountain, and they fell in a black tangle, crashing into the snowy valley with enough force to rock the foundations of the world.
The demon pushed her off, using his superior strength to peel her claws back. Nico just snarled as she sank her teeth into the black flesh below his jaw. They both roared then, the demon in pain, Nico in furious vengeance as they tumbled in the snow.
Overhead, forgotten and uninhibited, the enormous hands shot down from the sky to dig into the defenseless mountains, lifting them up one by one as the holes in the sky grew larger. As the first mountain left the shell, a chorus of screeches echoed down through the cracks, a great call of victory that drowned out even the panicked screaming of the spirits below.
CHAPTER
24
Miranda rubbed her eyes as they ran, not quite believing that a place could be so white. She’d thought the Shaper Mountain’s heart was blinding, but it was dingy compared to the landscape they were now running through. The Lord of Storms led the way, though he was now so white himself that she kept losing him. So, instead, she followed Eli.
The thief’s posture was grim as he jogged just ahead of her, his dirty, torn shirt sitting tight across his tense shoulders. Miranda understood. Her own body felt like a spring pulled to breaking. Her spirits cowered in their rings, utterly silent. Even the Tower was still, hovering at the very edge of their connection. The only thing that felt truly alive was the Lord of Storms.
From the moment Eli had thrust the Hunter’s seed into his chest, the Lord of Storms’ presence in her body had grown from enormous to overwhelming. Even though he was no longer pulling strength from her, Miranda felt utterly drained just from being attached to so much power. She kept waiting for him to sever the connection. After all, what did the Hunter need with a wizard? But he didn’t. He just surged forward, a white fury in a white world, while she bobbed in his wake, drawn inexorably toward the Power at the center of everything.
As they ran, the world grew less white. Cracks were starting to appear, bits and pieces of the Between falling away to reveal glimpses of the world below. Miranda saw forests, mountains, even a snatch of Zarin’s skyline. The longer they ran, the more holes they passed and the more alarmed Miranda became. She had no idea what counted as normal in this place, but she was fairly certain this wasn’t it. Worse still, every time they ran by a gap, she could feel her spirits cringe.
“Are these more cracks in the shell?” she asked, wincing at the loudness of her own voice.
The shell is the wall between creation and the nothing outside, the Lord of Storms said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. So unless you’re seeing black, the answer is no.
Miranda was going to drop it there, but her next step changed things completely. She put her foot down as always, but instead of hitting the strange white floor, her foot hit nothing. She fell with a cry, her boot going straight through the white world as the floor crumbled.
She caught a glimpse of ocean below before Eli grabbed her hand. For a moment, she dangled between the white world and the endless sea, and then the Lord of Storms’ hand joined the thief’s and she was yanked up. The Lord of Storms tossed her down on mercifully stable ground, and Miranda clung to it, staring in horror at the now-gaping hole. “What is going on?”
“The veil is crumbling,” Eli said, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, we need to move.”
“What do you mean?” Miranda said, letting him yank her up. “I thought the Weaver maintained the veil.”
“He does,” Eli said, pulling her after him. “But I left him fighting the Shepherdess. Now the veil is crumbling, so what do you think is happening?”
Miranda swallowed and dropped his hand, moving into a jog beside him. Fortunately, the floor didn’t give out again before the Lord of Storms stopped them a minute later, his hand raised in warning. When Miranda peeked around his enormous shoulders, what she saw made her want to shrink to nothing.
Directly ahead, two blindingly white figures stood in tableaux. One was a woman, pure white and impossibly beautiful. She was as tall as the Lord of Storms, her glorious naked body clad only in her shining hair. She held a sharp, black object in her hand like a dagger, and her white eyes looked down with scorn at the man on the floor.
The Weaver lay before her, his breathing loud in the white silence. His hair lay spread out around him like a robe, but his chest was bare and slick with a glowing substance that was so beautiful it took Miranda several moments to realize the Weaver was bleeding from a stab wound in his stomach. He’d covered the wound with both hands, and she could see the skin knitting together under his touch, healing before her eyes, but even the miraculous speed was far too slow.
Above him, the White Lady wasn’t even panting. She watched the Weaver like a hawk, her white eyes clear and sharp with rage. Behind her, a crumpled sphere lay smashed on the floor like a discarded toy. Above that, another sphere floated. This one was little bigger than the white pearl of the Hunter’s seed, but unlike the seed or the dull, shattered orb on the ground, this sphere was filled with glorious color. It hung in round perfection, the only color in the whole, white world, and the White Lady stood before it like a guardian.
The Powers were wholly focused on the other, and neither seemed to have noticed the three strangers intruding on their private fight. Miranda glanced at the Lord of Storms, waiting for him to say something arrogant, or at least t
ell the Shepherdess to back away, but he did neither. Instead, he drew his sword with a whisper of steel and lunged straight for the White Lady’s throat.
Miranda covered her mouth, stifling the surprised yelp with her hands. The Lord of Storms moved faster than anything she’d ever seen, and for a split second she was sure it was already over. But then a great crash filled the silence, and she saw the Lord of Storms’ white sword grinding against the Lady’s long, black dagger inches from her face.
The Shepherdess stared at her former servant, her eyes round with shock. You.
The word was spoken like a curse. And though Miranda couldn’t see the Lord of Storms’ face, she could feel his grin in her gut. Me, he growled.
As he spoke, his white sword flashed down, flying toward the Lady’s thigh. But the black dagger moved just as fast, blocking him again. No longer caught off guard, the Shepherdess stepped back, keeping her dagger up. The weapon was hideous to look at, two feet long and grossly uneven, tapering to jagged points at both ends. As the Lady caught the Lord of Storms’ next blow, Miranda wondered briefly why the Shepherdess, the queen of all spirits, would use anything so ugly.
The Shepherdess flicked the black dagger, carelessly throwing off the Lord of Storms’ blow. The Lord of Storms growled and raised his sword again, but the Lady only laughed, holding her arms wide.
What? she cried, her beautiful voice mocking. You think that now that you have my brother’s seed you can cut me? Go on. She waved at her bare stomach. Try.
The Lord of Storms struck before she’d finished speaking, his white sword stabbing into her unguarded belly. The Lady didn’t even wince as the blow landed, her lovely face turned up in that hateful smile.
Though she knew what she would see, Miranda forced herself to look anyway. The Lord of Storms’ sword lay against the Shepherdess’s stomach, its cutting edge pressed into the unmarked white flesh. The Lord of Storms stared at the stopped blow, and Miranda could feel his rage burning under her skin, but before either of them could master it, the Shepherdess backhanded the new Hunter across the face.
