The Labyrinth of Flame (The Shattered Sigil Book 3)

by Courtney Schafer

  “Love is Ruslan choosing what’s best for his akhelysh even when you rage against him for it. Helping you overcome weakness, rather than yielding to your childish, self-destructive whims.”

  She was as blind as Ruslan. “This isn’t a whim. You were right, all those years ago when Ruslan found me at the temple. I can never be what he wants.”

  Her delicate brows arched. “You remember the temple, and yet it means nothing to you that Ruslan saved you from madness and death?”

  “Not nothing,” Kiran said, through a throat that hurt as if packed with thorns. “But saving me then doesn’t excuse what he’s done since. To me, or to all the nathahlen he’s tortured to fuel his spells, or to those he means to murder in this insanity of revenge.”

  He saw no understanding in her eyes, no hope of leniency. But trapped as he was, words were his only weapon. If he couldn’t change his own fate, a different argument might still save others. He knelt, arms extended and crossed at the wrist, pleading with every line of his body.

  “Khanum Liza. I beg you—if you won’t let me go, at least convince Ruslan to stop dealing with demons. I know you care nothing for Alathia, but whatever bargain Ruslan has made with the ssarez-kai isn’t worth the risk. Demons are too dangerous.”

  “This, I agree with,” she said. Kiran raised his head, surprised. Lizaveta let out a soft sigh. “These creatures are too powerful to be trusted. I do not think it wise for Ruslan to give them the aid he promised, but he will not hear me.”

  Kiran stood, not quite daring to hope. “What did he promise?”

  Lizaveta’s long-lashed eyes lowered. Instead of answering his question, she said, “You once came to me and asked my help in leaving Ruslan. I only pretended to give you freedom because I believed he could be right; he was so certain that in Simon’s hands you would see the error you were making. But now…I think you speak truth. You can never be what he wishes, and this conflict between you threatens to destroy us all. So this time, little one, I’ve chosen a different path.”

  She stepped within the chamber. The net of crystal lines flared bright, then resettled, the flow of power still unbroken. The violet fire of Lizaveta’s ikilhia was wrapped in so many protective barriers it was like the sun rippling through the depths of a mountain lake.

  Kiran retreated, his mouth dry. “What path?” She hadn’t Ruslan’s advantage of the mark-bond, but still, she was so strong. Yet he would not submit without the fight he’d promised Dev. Even the strongest of mages could be taken by surprise. He scrutinized her fortress of barriers, seeking the least flaw.

  “I will give you the freedom I refused you before, if you help me open Ruslan’s eyes to the danger of his alliance.”

  He didn’t believe her. He knew from Dev’s memories that Lizaveta had given him the amulet that even now blocked his mark-bond, but that had been in accordance with Ruslan’s schemes. Whatever Lizaveta said, he couldn’t trust that she’d ever act in opposition to her mage-brother. He’d seen her and Ruslan argue, but in the end they always stood united. Still, if he could buy Dev time without sacrificing his soul…

  “Open Ruslan’s eyes how?”

  “A complex matter, best discussed elsewhere.” She glanced at the glowing lines covering the cavern; Kiran wondered if she sensed the lurking demon. “Shall I prove my good faith? I’ll break these wards that hold you.”

  “Go ahead,” Kiran said, not hiding his skepticism.

  She beckoned him. “You’ll have to let me shield your amulet, or the spillover will damage it beyond repair.”

  He’d known this was a trick. He tensed, ready to cast. “You want to destroy the charm so I’ve no hope of running.”

  “Oh, Kiran.” Lizaveta gave a rueful chuckle. “You have no hope now unless I help you. Think, little one. I made that charm. If I wanted to destroy it, do you really think any defense you might attempt could stop me?”

  All his training told him she was right. The strength of her ikilhia outstripped his, and he’d found not the smallest chink in her barriers. Yet still, he hesitated.

  She held out her hand, a touch of exasperation marring her calm. “To shield the charm without impeding its ability to block your mark-bond, I must touch its pattern.”

  “How do you intend to break the wards?” Even powerful as she was, her ikilhia alone wouldn’t provide enough fuel for the casting. He sensed no other sources such as charms or zhivnoi crystals on her person.

  “Cleverness often succeeds where raw strength may fail,” she said, with an arch amusement so familiar it squeezed Kiran’s heart.

  Against all his better judgment, hope whispered, What if she’s not lying? Lizaveta was not Ruslan. She was more subtle, but also more reasonable, more temperate and cautious. She might truly see the danger that the demons presented. And she had always been kind to him; she had never hurt him as Ruslan had. All his childhood memories of her held only laughter and caresses.

  Besides, what other choice did he have? Sit here and wait for Ruslan to arrive?

  He took Lizaveta’s hand. She drew him close until the scent of jasmine surrounded him. He trembled, assaulted by memories of her body sliding under his, her lips hot on his neck while Ruslan gripped his hips—

  A sound escaped him, something ugly and anguished. He bit the inside of his cheek, the burst of pain wiping away remembered sensations. He would not let the past rule him.

  Lizaveta touched his cheek, feather-light. “You torment yourself so, Kiranushka. Are you certain you wish to reject us?” She sounded so tender, so sad. Kiran reminded himself that she murdered nathahlen as readily as Ruslan and thought nothing of it.

  “The amulet,” he said harshly. “If you’re going to help me, then hurry up.”

  She lifted his shirt, ignoring his reflexive flinch, and laid her palm on his amulet. Violet threads spun out of her ikilhia to encase the charm, weaving an intricate shield around the pattern of its spellwork.

  “There,” she said, still sad. In one swift, powerful motion, she drew her knife and stabbed upward under his ribs.

  Shock speared through Kiran, far greater than the pain. His body convulsed in a silent shriek of need. His barriers fell, his ikilhia exploding outward, grasping for power—

  And found none. The wards stood firm against his seeking. Lizaveta’s fortress of barriers deflected him without flaw, as did the shield she’d woven around his amulet.

  His ikilhia drained away like water from a broken cistern, devoured by his body’s involuntary efforts to repair itself—and by Lizaveta. She was stealing his unguarded life energy, storing it—

  This was how she intended to break the wards. With his death. Some dark corner of his soul had guessed it from the moment she stepped within the cave. Had wanted death’s release.

  The rest of him rebelled, furious at his own cowardice. He’d promised Dev he would fight. Kiran clawed at Lizaveta, at the wards, desperate, agonized.

  She cradled him, lowered him gently to the stone. “Ah, Kiranushka…” Tears glistened on her cheeks. “I have loved you so much. But I love Ruslan more. Your death will set him free from this obsession. I will make it seem that the ssarez-kai killed you, and he will abandon his alliance…”

  She was still speaking, something about Ruslan and demons and plans, but Kiran lost the thread of it. He hadn’t the strength to stop the blood pouring from his body. His limbs grew cold, his ikilhia struggling, guttering…

  Sibilant and satisfied, a scorpion voice spoke in his darkening mind. Now you are ready to bargain. Do you wish to live?

  The demon had waited for just this moment. He could not trust it. But he’d promised Dev. He had to live.

  Yes!

  The demon said, There is a price. In the mountains, you claimed kinship with the ssarez-kai. Renounce it.

  In a burst of clarity, the phrase he’d shouted in the Cirque of the Knives echoed loud in his head. All his walls were dissolving with his ikilhia. Conversations he’d overheard between the bone mage, the sour man, the
other stern adults who’d made him repeat the strange words until they were seared into his memory—a hundred different snippets of the past cohered into meaning, a flash of lightning across the growing night.

  The kinship he’d claimed gave him blood-right over weaker members of his lineage—and to demon eyes, all humans were weak, all shared a common lineage. No demon could touch those humans Kiran had marked as his prey. When the red-horned hunters had sought Kiran, the voice in his head had claimed his protection void, but he understood with simple, absolute clarity that the ssarez-kai had lied. Blood-right could not be so easily ignored by demonkind.

  Renounce his kinship, give up his blood-right, and Dev, Cara, Marten, Lena, even Mikail, would all be fair prey. No; desirable prey, after the previous denial.

  But if he died, that protection was gone anyway.

  How do I renounce it? Kiran could barely form the thought. He was so cold, Lizaveta a hazy blur of brown and black above him.

  Speak this. A different phrase swam into Kiran’s head. That combined with your lifeblood will be enough.

  Kiran summoned every last spark of his dying ikilhia. He forced numb lips and tongue to work, slurring out sibilant words.

  “What?” Lizaveta’s voice rang sharp in his ear, the blur bending closer.

  On the final word, a silent shock resonated through Kiran’s blood and nerve and bone.

  A dissonant shimmer of power—Kiran’s body snatched greedily after it—and a pallid shape appeared behind Lizaveta.

  Red burst across the black blur of her body. Lizaveta cried out, and hot liquid drenched Kiran. She ripped the knife from Kiran’s flesh; fresh pain shrieked along his nerves. Magefire coruscated bright over his vision as a roaring avalanche of power swept the chamber.

  Dimly, Kiran understood. Lizaveta was casting at the demon: a raw, wild strike. His body drank down the spillover like parched earth absorbing rain. Darkness retreated, his vision clearing.

  Lizaveta was crouched a scant foot away, blood soaking her torn clothes, violet fire blazing from her hands to hammer at the scarred demon.

  The demon stood untouched beneath the onslaught, wearing a red slash of a grin.

  “Do you think fire can harm its children? Try again, akheli.”

  The magefire died. Lizaveta straightened, heedless of gashes that exposed the reddened spars of her ribs. A sharp, sucking undertow filled the chamber.

  She wasn’t trying to heal. She was drawing power to cast, but like Kiran, she couldn’t reach through the wards. The pull sharpened, ripping at the guttering flicker of Kiran’s ikilhia. He fought to counter her, but she was far stronger. Blackness encroached on him again.

  Icy hands gripped him. Another alien twist of power slashed across his consciousness. Like a plunge into meltwater, he was surrounded by a shifting sea of strangely cold fire that still burned, oh, it burned—

  Kiran screamed in agony. The cold fire vanished, replaced by rock walls. He was in the archway to the chamber, outside the wards. Inside, Lizaveta whirled, eyes wide.

  The demon dropped him to the ground. Kiran fought to stay conscious, clutching at the half-healed wound in his chest. His body howled for more power, his barriers in ruins, but he couldn’t reach the earth-current. A chill scrim of magic surrounded him, as if he were encased in ice. Either the demon-cast ice or the amulet still blocked his mark-bond—he felt no hint of Ruslan in his mind.

  Only the demon, who said: If you warn your master before I finish drinking her pain, I will rip you limb from limb.

  The demon vanished and reappeared within the chamber beside Lizaveta. It swiped a hand over her with languid malice. More wounds ripped open on her body, blood spattering over the rock. Lizaveta snarled and spun aside; the demon laughed and looked at Kiran.

  “Her blood holds such sweetness as I have not tasted in years. I have rarely been so glad to fulfill a bargain.”

  Horror was thick in Kiran’s throat. The demon meant to play with Lizaveta. It would draw her death out as long as possible, savoring her pain in a way not even Ruslan could match. Childhood memories suffocated him: Lizaveta cuddling him, singing to him, laughing and listening and offering him sweets and solace…

  She’d tried to kill him. He shouldn’t feel pity or even regret. The death the demon would give her was no more than she’d given countless nathahlen throughout her centuries of life.

  Backed against the wall, Lizaveta locked gazes with him. Even now, if she felt fear, she refused to show it; Kiran saw only a bitter, indomitable courage.

  Spitting blood, she said, “You claim I know nothing of love. Yet I offered you a quick, clean release from your suffering, the only freedom you can ever have. In return, you offer me this.” She swept a hand down her mutilated flesh.

  The demon gave a lazy flick of its fingers. Her eyes sizzled and burned away. She howled a cry that was equal parts challenge and agony.

  “Stop.” Kiran’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  The demon heard. It smiled at him, beautiful and predatory and without a shred of mercy.

  “Is this not what you wanted? Revenge for how they hurt you?”

  “Not revenge.” He didn’t. He wanted—

  He wanted Lizaveta and Ruslan to be other than what they were. But with that impossible, what he wanted was for them to stop. For no more people to be hurt, no more lives to be destroyed.

  “Give her a clean death.” The way she had done for him.

  The demon’s fanged smile shifted into something dark and mocking. “No. She is my prey, not yours. You have no blood-right to compel me, child. You gave that up, remember?”

  Kiran didn’t answer, his attention caught by Lizaveta. She’d picked up her discarded knife. A strange, oily darkness slicked her blade. Shadows wisped off of it like steam, as Lizaveta crept toward the demon with the silent stealth of a predator. Even blinded, she would sense the cold aura of its presence.

  Kiran didn’t want her tortured. But if she prevailed against the demon, she’d use the power of its death as she’d intended to use his. She’d break the wards and walk free.

  Kiran croaked a warning to the demon, but Lizaveta lunged, winding one hand into the demon’s myriad braids and yanking its head back. She plunged her spelled knife deep into its throat.

  Light blinded Kiran. When he could see again, his heart stuttered. Lizaveta stood alone in the chamber, her chin high, blood and fluid weeping from the raw holes of her eyes.

  The demon blinked back into existence. The knife was gone from its flesh, though its grin had died.

  “A far better effort,” it said. “You’ve studied us, I see. But no spell you cast can follow me into our fire, akheli, and the trap you so carefully set holds you under my eye. Still, you have convinced me to heed the child’s plea. I’ll take your life swiftly rather than savor it.”

  The demon blurred toward Lizaveta. She leaped aside.

  “No enemy will ever choose my ending.” She slapped a hand onto shining crystal lines.

  Magefire exploded over Lizaveta’s body. Her back arched, the flesh of her arm bubbling and blackening. The net of crystal flared wild in answer. Arcs of energy leaped through the chamber, fire showering down.

  She was channeling her ikilhia—all of it—into the wards. She would use the shockwave of her own death to shatter them. Kiran cringed back, expecting some final, lethal spell to come arrowing at him out of the conflagration.

  Instead, Lizaveta’s voice rang in his mind, so loud that Kiran clapped his hands over his ears in pained reaction.

  RUSLAN! WE ARE BETRAYED! The mental shout was overlaid by an image of the demon, grinning and malicious, with Kiran sprawled at its feet. More impressions lay beneath, too tangled and fleeting for Kiran to separate. A thousand sparking images that carried a weight of regret/love/apology/insistence…

  The warded net died, plunging the chamber into darkness. Kiran strained for any hint of Lizaveta’s ikilhia. There was none. All he felt was the earth-current—irregular and
unsettled, surrounded by a fading mist of disrupted energies, the remnant of the trap-spell’s failure—and the demon, cold and alien as ever.

  His face was wet, and he didn’t know if it was from Lizaveta’s blood or his own tears. His mind was a white roar of shock. Lizaveta, dead? The enormity of it was too much to grasp.

  Somewhere, Ruslan would be frozen in similarly stunned disbelief. No matter how distant he was, he could not have missed Lizaveta’s death-fueled message. He would know she was dead, and when he shook off the shock of it…

  Kiran crawled for the tunnel in blind, animal instinct. He had to get out of here. Get away from Ruslan and demon both.

  As if the demon heard his thought, a shimmering blue-white glow lit the darkness. A hand gripped Kiran’s shoulder and threw him onto his back.

  The light was leaching off the demon’s skin. It did not look the least bit upset by Lizaveta’s escape into death or her warning to Ruslan. If anything, it looked pleased.

  “A clean death, just as you asked,” it said. “And so useful. ‘We are betrayed’…yes. But I think we should make clear to your master exactly whose betrayal this was.”

  The icy scrim of power encasing Kiran vanished, and the demon ripped the amulet from his neck.

  A shock of connection convulsed him as the mark-bond opened wide. Ruslan. Surprise flared bright, followed by grief and denial and a burning need to know. Ruslan’s mind cascaded into his, a tide Kiran couldn’t stop. Through Kiran’s eyes, Ruslan saw Lizaveta’s charred corpse.

  Ruslan’s scream tore out of Kiran’s throat. Waves of loss and anguish battered Kiran, along with a mounting, terrible fury.

  What have you done? Ruslan tore through Kiran’s memories with no attempt to spare him. Kiran thrashed, awash in agony, his attempts to resist crushed with ruthless ease.

  The demon caught Kiran’s shoulders. He is your creature no longer, the demon said in Kiran’s mind.

  Oh yes he is, Ruslan snarled in response. Mine, and he will pay. I have been weak; I see that now. But I will be weak no more.