by Rachel Aaron
Tesset nodded, but his eyes never left the man standing in the boat that cut across the bay on its own power.
Nico sat down on the narrow stair that led up the storm wall, keeping herself well out of the way as Den’s boat hit the surf and beached itself with a terrified squeal. Twenty-six years later, his face still looked exactly like his wanted poster. Den the Warlord, traitor to the Council, the most wanted man on the continent. He was bigger than Nico had expected, taller than Josef by several inches with shoulders to match. He was dressed in the Empress’s black, but he wore no armor, just a long-sleeved sailor’s shirt, heavy woven breeches, and tall boots. His dark hair was cut ragged around his face without a trace of gray. He had no weapons, not even a knife. Instead, his hands were open, hovering ready at his sides. Even so, the sight of him was enough to make Nico cower against the rocks.
Unarmed and alone, Den radiated a killing instinct like nothing she’d ever felt, and worse, nothing she’d ever seen. The glimpse she’d caught on the boat with Josef was nothing compared to seeing him up close. She’d always thought of Tesset as a man who’d made himself iron, but Den was a man who had made himself a fortress. Now that she saw them side by side, she couldn’t help shaking. She had seen many monsters, and been many more, but not even the demon’s predatory hunger matched this man’s pure, undefiled will to kill.
Den stepped onto the surf and stopped, surveying the beach. He dismissed Nico at once, focusing on Tesset with a grin that made her chest close up.
“Tesset, wasn’t it?” Den said, looking the Council man up and down. “I thought I’d find you alive someday. Finally conquered yourself, did you?”
“Yes. ” Nico was impressed by the calm determination in Tesset’s voice. “To meet you again, master. And to defeat you. ”
“A worthy goal,” Den said. “I can think of none better for a bloody day like this one. ” He threw out his arms, fists clenched as he grinned wide. “Come then. I let you live in the hope that one day you could give me a fight worthy of my full attention. Let’s hope you don’t disappoint me. ”
Tesset smiled back, a tight, controlled turn of the mouth, and then, without warning, he charged.
Tesset flew at Den faster than wind, faster than sound, focusing all his speed, all his strength into the fist that was already inside the Warlord’s guard. Before Nico’s mind could catch up with what was happening, Tesset’s fist landed on Den’s unguarded jaw. Sand exploded as the force of Tesset’s charge and the blow at the end of it reverberated through the beach.
Nico threw her arms up, her coat swirling over her face just before the sand hit it, but behind the barrier, she was grinning. She’d felt the force of Tesset’s blow in her stomach. Famous as he was, if Den hadn’t even been able to block such a straightforward strike, maybe they weren’t in as much trouble as she’d thought. She knew Tesset’s strength firsthand. He was far stronger than he looked. Strong enough to stop her demonseed barehanded. A clean punch with that kind of strength behind it might be enough to end this fight before it started.
The wave of sand passed, and she lowered her arms, looking down the beach to see where Den had landed. But he wasn’t there. She looked around, confused, and then she saw it. Den was still standing exactly where he had been, leering at Tesset with a horrible, wolfish grin.
Tesset himself was frozen in place. He was still inside Den’s guard, his fist still resting where it had landed on Den’s jaw, but his face had changed from quiet determination to open horror. The moment Nico saw it, she knew why. She could read the thoughts in his wide eyes as clearly as print on a page. Tesset had just hit Den with his best blow. He’d hit him with his full strength, unhampered by tiredness and unspoiled by the need to dodge a defense, and nothing had happened. Den was still standing exactly as he had been before the hit. He hadn’t fallen, hadn’t stumbled, hadn’t been pushed back. He hadn’t even turned his head. He’d simply taken the blow as though it were nothing, a child’s play punch, and that realization had hit Tesset harder than any retaliation.
The seconds dragged on as the men stood there like players in a pantomime fight. Even Nico was frozen. She couldn’t help it. The idea that Tesset’s strength, the strength that had overpowered her so easily, meant nothing to Den had stopped her mind cold. All she could do was watch dumbly until, at last, Tesset stumbled back.
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He fell to the sand, panting, staring up at Den with wide, unbelieving eyes. For his part, Den raised a hand to his cheek, rubbing the uninjured skin with a disappointed sneer.
“Is that it?”
It was, and they all knew it. But no one who could master his own spirit was one to give up when faced with the impossible, and Tesset was no exception. Hands clenching in the cold sand, Tesset stood up. He set his stance, his feet solid on the wet beach. His breathing steadied, calm returned, and he raised his fists to face Den again.
Den’s eyes lit with a mad gleam as he looked down on his former student. With a joyous shout, Den attacked.
Nico had never seen anything like Den’s charge. The enormous man moved like water, each step flowing into the next with the kind of speed she’d seen only in Josef when he was moving with the Heart. His feet hit the beach with such force, such precision, that the sand did not shift beneath his boots. But even as his fists came up to strike, Tesset was already moving. As Den’s foot landed to brace the blow, Tesset’s landed right beside it. He moved with Den, matching his body to the Warlord’s as he stepped inside Den’s guard. His arm moved with a speed Nico couldn’t follow to catch Den’s punch at its farthest, weakest point while his other hand landed in Den’s side, right over his liver.
Or it would have.
In the split second before Tesset’s hit connected, Den stepped back. Tesset, still holding Den’s fist, was pulled forward. He teetered a moment trying to find his balance, and in that moment, Den’s knee shot up to knock him in the jaw.
Tesset flew backward and landed sprawling on the sand. Nico held her breath, waiting for him to roll over, to cough out the blood and stand up. His jaw was almost certainly broken, but that shouldn’t have been a fight-ender, not for a man like Tesset. And yet he didn’t move. He just laid there, glassy eyes staring at the sky, his chest rising in tight little gasps, and she realized he was stunned.
Den walked across the sand, his smile fading. He bent over, grabbing the fallen man by the shoulder and lifting him with one hand until Tesset dangled in front of him. The motion must have snapped him out of his stunned state, for Tesset’s head rolled from side to side and then lifted, meeting Den’s eyes.
“It wasn’t enough,” he mumbled, blood dripping from his mouth. “Thirty years of training, becoming my own king, and still, after all that, with everything I had”—a faint smile drifted over his lips—“I lost. ”
Den sneered and raised his arm, lifting Tesset’s body high over his head.
“You lost the moment you called me master. ”
And with that, he slammed Tesset into the ground. Nico felt the impact through her boots. She didn’t even realize she’d run onto the beach until she was falling to her knees at Tesset’s side. He was lying on his stomach, his body half buried in the sand, perfectly still. Her hands flew to his face, turning his head, but the second she touched his skin, she knew.
Nico snatched her fingers away, letting his head fall back. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be gone. Not like that. Not so quickly. Not Tesset. Not the man who’d stopped the demonseed with one hand.
But it was true. When she looked at him, she no longer saw a man of iron. She saw nothing but dullness, a spirit turned to dumb, dead meat. Choking back a sob, Nico moved away. This thing was not Tesset. She had seen much death in the small parts of her life she could remember, but she had never seen death, not like this, and her mind was scrambling to make sense of something a human soul was never meant to see.
“It’s a waste, really. ”
Nico hadn’t even heard Den move, but he was standing over her. She tensed, but the Warlord wasn’t looking at her. He was frowning at Tesset’s body like a child examining a broken toy.
“I’d thought for sure he’d be stronger after so long,” he said bitterly. “Such a waste. Sorry, little girl. ” He patted Nico on the shoulder. “I guess I’ll go and see if that swordsman can’t give me a better run. ”
Nico’s arm shot up and grabbed his hand, her fingers digging into the back of his palm. She felt him tense, and then she heard his voice, very low, right beside her ear.
“You don’t want to do this,” Den whispered. “I try to fight only strong people, but I will kill you if you get in my way. ”
Nico held her grip. “If you think I am weak,” she whispered back, “you are the one who will die. ”
Den paused, and his eyes sparked with a new light. “I’d thought you were his daughter, maybe,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “But I was wrong. You were Tesset’s student, weren’t you?”
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“He showed me the way to be my own master,” Nico answered, ripping his hand off her shoulder.
Den’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that so?” he said. “Well, then, as one free soul to another, let me give you some advice. ” He leaned in low, bringing his face level with hers. “Run away. You may think you want to try fighting me to reclaim your master’s honor, but you should forget that. You can’t beat me. ”
Nico gritted her teeth, her eyes boring into his. “No. ”
Den leaned back as Nico stood up. “I made a promise,” she said, bracing her feet on the sand. “You will not pass this beach. ”
Den shrugged. “It’s your death,” he said, planting his own feet. “I just hope you can give me a better challenge than your master. ”
“He wasn’t my master,” Nico said firmly. “I have no master but myself. ”
Den smiled wide. “Good to see you learned better than he did. ” He beckoned. “Come, then. Let’s see whose kingdom is greater. Yours or mine. ”
Nico didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed a handful of her coat at her chest. The moment her fingers touched the fabric, she opened her spirit.
“Cover us. ”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before the coat obeyed. It sprang off her back, the black fabric expanding, pulling out every inch of the enormous lengths of cloth Slorn had woven into it. It grew and grew, spilling onto the sand behind her and rising overhead like a wave of night. Den held his stance, watching through narrowed eyes as the coat arched over his head. Moments after it started, the coat stopped, trapping Nico and Den inside a large, pitch-black tent of living cloth.
“Clever,” Den’s voice sounded from Nico’s left. “But blinding me won’t be enough. ”
“I didn’t do it to blind you,” Nico said, fading into the dark. “I did it because I don’t want the world to see what I’m going to do. ”
“And what is that?” Den’s voice was curious, not afraid.
Nico didn’t answer. She slipped through the shadows until she was facing Den’s back. She could see him clearly, but not with her eyes. Her coat was too well made for that. It blocked the light so completely that even her night vision was useless. She could still see with her other sight, though, and now that her normal vision was gone, the world of the spirits was clearer than ever.
Den hadn’t moved since the dark had fallen. She could see him holding his breath, waiting for her to give herself away, but more than that, she could see him clearly for the first time, not his body, but the actual spirit that was Den. Generally, when she looked at people, wizards or the spirit deaf, the souls beneath their bodies looked jumbled and chaotic. Tesset was the exception. His soul had looked like metal, almost like the Heart’s blade.
Den was completely different. Back in the light, she’d seen him as a fortress. Now, in the dark, she saw how much of an understatement that was. Den’s body was a vault of power. Every part of him was perfectly aligned, every angle perfectly set. Strength flowed uninterrupted from his head to his arms to his feet, and when he shifted, everything in his body moved together in perfect unison. For a moment, Nico forgot the fight and simply stared in wonder. Looking at Den, she saw the pure essence of human potential, and with it, the truth of what it meant to be absolutely, completely in control.
“Well?”
Den’s voice snapped her out of her gawking, and Nico shrank back reflexively before remembering he couldn’t see her. But even as she thought it, Den looked over his shoulder and stared straight at her.
“Come,” he said. “I’m getting bored. ”
Nico fled away through the dark, coming up on his side. Den was still facing the place where she had been, and Nico breathed in relief. Maybe his turn had been just a lucky guess, or maybe he could sense her, but it wasn’t instant. Either way, he wasn’t looking at her, at least for now. Nico clenched her fist. For now was good enough. All she needed was one good hit.
She exploded out of the shadows low to Den’s right, her fist clenched as she flew toward his unguarded side. She was taking a cue from Tesset, aiming for his liver. Fortress or not, Den’s body was still human, and no human could take repeated blows to the liver without feeling it. For a thrilling second, she felt her fist connect, and then things started to go wrong.
She could see the shock wave from her blow running through the orderly fortress of his spirit. The force rippled out from her fist, but rather than shooting through the muscle and hitting his liver as she’d intended, the blow began spreading and dissipating the moment it touched him. It all happened so quickly that Nico had to play the strike over in her mind before she realized Den had shifted his spirit the moment she’d touched him, spreading the shock out across his body. Even now, she could see the echoes fading. Every piece of him had taken its part, breaking her blow down to nothing.
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She was still staring in amazement when Den grabbed her arm. He snatched her off her feet before she could react and brought her dangling up in front of him, his other hand grabbing her neck as surely as though he were the one who could see.
“I told you,” he said, fingers digging into her throat. “Blinding me does nothing. ”
Nico gasped and tried to kick him in the groin with her dangling legs. He spoiled the blow with his knee, spirit moving instantly to absorb the shock just like before.
“And it’s not just that I can hear you,” he continued as though nothing had happened. “I can feel your killing intent. ”
He opened his hand, and Nico plummeted, crashing into the sand. The moment she hit, Den’s boot was on her back.
“You should have run when I gave you the chance,” he said, grinding his heel into her back. “If you don’t even know that, then you have no hope of beating me. ”
Nico gasped in pain, bringing in more sand than air. Den’s heel was like an iron spike on her spine, pressing so hard she saw bursts of color behind her eyes. But the dark was still her highway, and the moment her mind cleared enough to slip into the shadows, she sank into dark ground. Relief flowed over her as the pressure of Den’s foot vanished from her back. She slipped sideways, coming up in the shadows behind Den as she looked down to survey the damage.
Nico froze in place, all pain forgotten. In the days since she’d first started to see as spirits saw, she’d never once looked at herself without her coat. Now, in the dark, with no coat and no normal sight to intervene between her and truth, she saw herself for the first time.
Above her, Den looked up from the sand where she had been, his face surprised. “Where did you go?” he whispered. “And why are you so afraid?”
Nico did not hear him. She’d forgotten all about Den, about the fight, about her injuries. All she could do was stare in horror as the demon’s voice filled her mind.
Now you understand why the spirits panic when they
see you?
She didn’t. There was no way to understand what she saw inside her own body, beneath the frail mask of human spirit. The only way to describe it was darkness. Living, devouring, hungry darkness. And below that…
Why are you surprised? The demon’s voice was like silk against her mind. You’ve always known you were a monster.
“Knowing’s not the same as…” She couldn’t say it.
Seeing? the demon finished, his smooth voice sharpening to a cutting edge. I suppose that’s true. Poor Nico, don’t you wish now you’d taken my offer when you had the chance?
Nico snarled, snapping herself out of her terrified trance with a burst of defiant rage. She flung open her soul, slamming the demon back into his prison. Across the shadows, Den stiffened and spun to face her. Nico didn’t care. She fell panting to the sand, staring up at the blank darkness of her coat, desperately looking anywhere but at her body, if she could even think of that thing as her body anymore. But even as the thought of it filled her with fear, another voice spoke in her mind, a voice that sounded very much like Tesset’s.
Horrible as it is, it’s still your body, isn’t it?
Nico blinked. Trembling, she raised her hand, holding it as close as she dared to her face. The blackness below her skin flowed like water. Below it, the shifting yellow eyes stared at her without blinking while the hungry mouths opened and closed in a way that made her stomach clench. Black claws scraped against the thin cage of her flesh, looking for a way out, and on her wrists where her manacles had once rested, she could see the faint outlines of black, jagged teeth waiting for any scrap of food.
Mixed with the liquid darkness, Nico could actually see her own heart pounding in terror in her chest, but she forced herself not to look away. This was her. Her body, her power, her life. She hadn’t fought for so long and hard only to be afraid of it now.
Nico flicked her eyes to Den. He’d found the edge of her coat and was pressing his hands against it, looking for the edge. She could see the orderly flow of his spirit tensing. He was losing his patience. Soon he would rip the cloth and return them to daylight, and then there would be no way to stop him going up the beach. That wasn’t acceptable. She’d told Josef she would stop him. But Nico was facing a very real dilemma. She couldn’t beat Den, not as she was, not even when she had the dark to move through and he had nothing. That left only one path. She had to become stronger, become something Den couldn’t stop. Nico looked down again at her own darkness, the clawed hands scraping against her flesh. “Become” was the wrong word, she thought with a grim smile. She already was a monster. All that was left was to embrace it. After all, the monster was hers. She’d ripped it from the demon of the Dead Mountain with her own hands. Now it would fight as she commanded, for it was a part of her, and she was the master of herself.
